Were you to pass him on a sidewalk you'd never imagine this same man once established among the biggest hedge funds in America, topping out at in excess of a billion dollars. Casually dressed in shorts and t-shirt, Ron Pollack (http://www.ronpollack.net) discussed his time managing hedge funds and short selling, as well as his family, charitable organizations he's volunteered with, and finally the reason he determined to return to managing funds following a six-year break. "Short selling is what I do and I need to get back to doing it."



Ron Pollack graduated Magna Cum Laude from Yale and went on to get both an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. After graduate school, Pollack went to Wall Street where he became an investment banker and later honed his skills as a hedge fund manager. Ron was trained as a short seller by industry pioneers, the Feshbach Brothers.

Yale and Harvard are both successful in turning out successful investors. For example, Jim Chanos exposed Enron as a fraud and Ron met him in the 1980s when they both worked for First Executive Live. Zoe Cruz is a commodity trader and was the vice president of Morgan Stanley, and also a colleague of Ron's at HBS. Jamie Dinan was another successful investor. He is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase and used to play pick-up basketball with Ron when they worked together. Strauss Zelnick was the chairman of ZelnickMedia and Take-Two interactive, as well as Ron's roommate while they attended Harvard. Scott Schoen and Scott Sperling were co-presidents of THL and also friends of Ron's from Harvard. Steve Pagliuca and John Bekenstein, who worked for Bain Capital, were Ron's friends from HBS and Yale, respectively. Glenn Hutchins was also a Harvard classmate. Pollack, who is a graduate of both Yale and Harvard, is a usual example. When he left Feshbach in the early 1990's, he built successful hedge funds. The most famous of those funds was his short fund named Dancing Bear. Near the end of 2001, Pollack felt a burning need to spend more time with family and helping charities.

“After the terrorist attack on 9/11, I was moved by what happened and I really wanted to help," Pollack stated. The financial markets were in turmoil for months following the attack and, understandably, Ron started to wrestle with the division between his duty to his family and their needs, and the requirements of his business. That year, in November, Ron tried to enjoy some time away with his family. There in the hotel room he sat monitoring the markets, his laptop computer open on his lap. Abruptly he announced to his three children and their pregnant mother that he intended to return to the office. "The markets," he said,"are just too crazy."

On his way back, he began working on a course of action which would increase his ability to spend time with his family along with helping charity groups. Ron combined his hedge fund company with the Cambridge, MA based Monitor Group in 2002 so that he would be able to spend time on extracurricular activities, especially volunteering and raising his kids. Next he succeeded in establishing fund-raising efforts for ailing firefighters, cops and other New York city workers along with the Vail Valley Foundation, NY Rescue Workers Detoxification Foundation among other charitable groups.

After Pollock decided to become a full time parent, he also decided to dedicate his time to volunteering. While volunteering, he would sometimes end up back in the familiar offices from his stock trading days. Despite the tempting allure of the stock market, he stayed firm to his commitments and only traded once during his time as a full-time father.

At a charity auction in Vail, Pollack had bid for a day of trading and instruction with a local stockbroker, “just for fun." Little did this broker know who had won the bid. Needless to say, he was shocked to find out the depth of knowledge that his visitor had. Within the first 15 minutes, Pollack had completed a successful short sale and knew that he “still had it."

Pollack was not recognized by the broker when they came across each other for the first time but he was known to many others. Even the CEO of Ramsey Asset Management, Russ Ramsey asked for Pollack's services while setting up his short selling project. Pollack got a chance to study the markets for Ramsey. He believed that by that time other managers would have filled the short selling space and was surprised to find they actually didn't.

"I was astounded to learn that there had been no new short selling strategies developed in all the years of my absence. In fact, they were still using the same tired techniques we used in the 1980s", stated Pollack. “I had already progressed to the Dancing Bear short-selling model in the mid-1990s and thought for sure that others were rushing to over-crowd the Short Sales market." He discovered that the space was still wide open and only a handful of investors were actually doing well. Even though it didn't seem to be the right financial climate to get back into this field, he soon realized that this was his lifetime dream and that he would eventually come back to it.

In late 2007, Pollack decided that it was now time to get back to being a fund manager. He realized that although he enjoyed working with the charities, he could actually contribute more by making and donating money than through hands-on hours. His children were growing up and although he had enjoyed his break from the sometimes turbulent and often stressful world of hedge funds, it was also his passion. It was in his blood.

He left after 9/11 because he needed time to be with loved ones and work with these charities, but now realized it was his time to return. He loved the challenge of stocks, especially shorting them, and had missed it.