Past Events Main Page

2005 Women Who Make a Difference
Awards Dinner
March 1, 2005

Click here for awards ceremony information.
Click here for the afternoon program.

Honoree Profile and Remarks
Click here for the list of all 2005 honorees.

Dana B. Hall, CFA
Managing Director, Lighthouse Partners, LLC
Co-Founder/President, 100 Women in Hedge Funds

Dana B. Hall is former Managing Director at Lighthouse Partners, LLC and member of the Executive Committee. Lighthouse Partners, LLC is an investment manager with $4 billion in four hedge fund of fund strategies. Ms. Hall has been in the financial services sector in several different capacities for more than twenty years. At Lighthouse Partners, she focuses on business strategy, but continues to participate in her previous roles in manager research, investor relations and product development. Prior to forming Lighthouse Partners in 1999, Ms. Hall was Chief of Staff to the President and CEO of Delaware Investments, spent three years in Bermuda as the Director of Fixed Income and Derivatives Product Development at Zurich Investments and started her career in investment banking with a focus on mergers and acquisitions.

Ms. Hall is one of the founders of 100 Women in Hedge Funds and currently serves as its President. 100 Women in Hedge Funds is a global membership association of more than 2000 professional women who are in financial services careers in and around the hedge fund industry. The group's mission includes advancing a positive image of the alternative investment industry; providing unique, high quality, educational opportunities for members; promoting personal and professional advancement; and providing opportunities for members to make a difference through philanthropy or volunteerism.

Ms. Hall is a member of the Board of Trustees of The Please Touch Museum and the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation. She is also a member of the Investment Committee of the Natural Lands Trust. She helps raise money for Math for America and is actively involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

Ms. Hall was educated at Smith College and Harvard University and was awarded the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1995.

Dana B. Hall's Remarks

I have experienced notoriety around the creation and the establishment of 100 Women in Hedge Funds; unintentionally we caused a big news stir by putting successful, motivated, focused, highly-compensated women in a room together - and brainstorming about how to make a difference.

But nothing could rival the excitement and the pride that I take in accepting this award this evening from the National Council for Research on Women. Primarily because the mission of NCRW is to make a difference - which is a big phrase around 100 Women in Hedge Funds and the Hall household.

Make a difference through collaborative research, communication and exchange. I think that really sets the stage and the benchmark for the vision that 100 Women in Hedge Funds had for bringing women together through education, mentoring and philanthropy - to leverage our collective resources.

Now, bringing women together is not an original idea. What I'm really proud of is that we've changed the dialogue that women are having in our sector. We borrowed a principle from a book called Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde and the principle in the book is - go forth and do a good deed for three people, and ask those three people to pay it forward and do a good deed for three more. And so on, and so on, and so on.

We led the old-fashioned way, by example. We established an organization that is entirely volunteer-based and the dues are steep, but not expensive. Every member is expected to identify a skill that they can contribute to the group and to the community. This sounds banal, but it reinforces three really important drivers of success.

And the first is to be able to clearly articulate what your edge is. The second is - to value that expertise. And the third is - to share it so that you can leverage the resources of other people.

100 Women in Hedge Funds provided a safer environment and infrastructure for women to reach out to one another and test the benefit of collaborating. And they liked it and it's been extraordinarily reward.

Pay It Forward - is sort of like evolution or creationism or intelligent design, whatever your doctrine. The germ had to start somewhere, and it is not self-sustaining. I'm deeply appreciative to my mother, my grandmother and my godmother - who are all right there - for teaching me, by example, their version of "Pay It Forward" at a young age.

To my great friend, Russell Diamond, who helped me articulate my vision, though in a very pretentious way. "I give, so you may give." And for introducing me to the two incredible women - Sara Dyer and Carol Kim, who started 100 Women in Hedge Funds.

Sara, Carol and I were the definition of fusion. We had perfectly complementary skills. And the most important ingredient for a winning proposition, which is, we really had fun together.

Finally, I would like to recognize an unlikely hero in my quest to change the fate of women in our little corner of the world, and that's my husband and colleague, Alan Hall.

Alan generously supported the establishment and growth of 100 Women in Hedge Funds, and by very generously contributing my time and energy; and then sustaining the really important things in my life that I no doubt would have dropped the ball on, as we were building the organization.

This award is a symbol of the extraordinary reward for paying it forward, and I thank you deeply for the recognition and hope that this will be an inspiration to 3 or 30 or 300 of you to go forward and do a good deed, and watch that multiply. Thank you, Jacki and NCRW.