Donna Beasant

Director of Finance

Donna graduated from Wilfrid Laurier University in 1990 with a B.B.A. (Hons) and from York University in 2002 with an MBA. She began her career in the operations area at Burns Fry Ltd. in 1992, later transferring to Bank of Montreal as a corporate auditor in 1996. Before joining Polar as Director of Finance in February 2008, Donna worked at BluMont Capital and its predecessor firm, Hirsch Asset Management as VP Operations from 1997 to 2008 where she was responsible for various legal, regulatory, compliance and operational matters.

Ali Shams

Risk

Ali received his Master's in Physics from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Illinois, USA in 2001. He then moved to the University of Delaware to pursue his Ph.D. in physics where he has recently completed his dissertation. He joined the Manhattan software firm ASPEED Software as a Software Engineer in 2006. In April 2008, he immigrated to Canada and joined Polar.

Ravi Bhat

Risk

Ravi holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Physics from Queens University (1996) and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Toronto (2005). Prior to joining Polar Securities, he worked at Columbia University as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist with the Department of Applied Physics and and Applied Mathematics. In 2009, he joined Polar Securities as a Risk Manager.

Karen Szeto

Operations & Administration

Karen graduated from Wilfred Laurier University in 1998 with a Bachelor in Business Administration. Prior to graduation, she spent two years at Nesbitt Burns Ltd. as a summer student in their Prime Brokerage Department; this eventually led to a full time position dealing with North American hedge funds. In 1998, Karen joined the Risk Management group at the Bank of Montreal where she focused on Fixed Income Market Risk. She joined Polar Securities in 1999 and handles settlement, reconciliation and administration duties for Polar.

Peter Ellis

Operations & Administration

Peter completed his Bachelor of Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce) at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He worked for many years in a family business as a Programmer developing front and back office applications for the retail and manufacturing sectors. He also spent three years at an Australian Superannuation company as a Programmer Analyst working on a financial administration platform. Peter migrated to Canada and joined Polar in 2009.

Lin Fan

Fund Accounting

Lin graduated from Wilfred Laurier University with a Bachelor of Business Administration in 2004. She started her career as a fund accountant at Franklin Templeton Investment. In 2005, Lin joined Citco Canada Inc. where she oversaw fund accounting for two multi-strategy hedge funds. Lin joined Polar in March 2008 and is responsible for NAV reconciliations and other administrative duties. Lin is currently a CFA Level III candidate.

Michelle Li

Fund Accounting

Michelle graduated from the University of Waterloo in 2005 with a Bachelor of Math (Hons) in Actuarial Science. Her experience with the hedge fund industry began when she worked at RBC Dexia Investor Services as Trade Support. She joined Citco Canada Inc. in 2006 as Fund Accountant and was later promoted to Manager in 2010. Michelle completed the Level III CFA examination in 2008 and is currently pursuing the FRM certification. In April 2010, she joined Polar with responsibilities including NAV reconciliations as well as other administrative duties.