Est. 2025

Disciplined. Fundamental. The Alpha of Ross.

New Wave Capital is an undergraduate fund at the University of Michigan specializing in rigorous equity research, fundamental analysis, and cross-asset strategy, run entirely by students, on live capital, under a written constitution.

Apply Now View Winning Pitches

Ross School of BusinessAnn Arbor, MI

$5,000 Live Capital

100+ Members

$1,000 Pitch Prize

Est. 2025 Ann Arbor

The Thesis

“We believe that when stakes are high, people perform and learn better.”

New Wave Capital · Articles of Operation

Inside New Wave

The firm, tab by tab.

Division

Trading

Six desks. One live book. Fundamentals-driven positions under formal risk constraints.

Explore

Division · In Development

Quant

Model-driven, systematic, code-first. Four desks on shared engineering infrastructure.

Explore

Program

Speaker Series

Private fireside conversations with senior practitioners, hosted every semester.

Explore

Competition

The Pitch

One name. One conviction. The winning desk splits the $1,000 prize.

Explore

Portfolio

The Fund

Live capital, tracked quarterly. Strategy mandates reviewed by the Fund Council.

Explore

People

Leadership

Three Presidents, a full executive board, desk directors, and associates.

Explore

Partners & Alumni

Relations

Corporate partnerships and alumni involvement, judges, mentors, speakers.

Explore

Locked · Opens Fall 2026

Apply

Applications for the next cohort open at the start of the Fall 2026 semester.

Details

The Network

The rooms our members walk into.

Firms represented across the NWC Speaker Series, alumni relationships, and each recruiting cycle.

Partner

Balyasny

Morgan Stanley

UBS

PJT Partners

RBC

Bank of America

BlackRock

Your desk is open

The Trading Division

Six desks. One live book.

Fundamentals-driven, discretionary positions researched from the bottom up, managed under formal risk constraints written into our Articles of Operation. Every member holds a seat, a mandate, and a chain of accountability.

01

Long / Short Equity

Fundamental stock picking. Two-sided book.

Bottom-up research on individual equities, long high-conviction names, short overvalued or structurally broken companies. Sector rotation driven by the macro backdrop.

02

Event-Driven & Special Situations

Asymmetric plays on specific catalysts.

M&A arbitrage, spin-offs, earnings-driven setups, activist shadows. When a catalyst creates a mispricing, this desk finds it and sizes it.

03

Global Macro

Top-down. Cross-asset. No single name required.

Interest rate views, FX pairs, commodities as macro proxies, central bank playbooks. The desk that trades the world, not just a ticker.

04

Credit & Distressed

Debt markets. Broken capital structures.

IG/HY corporates, distressed debt approaching restructuring, CDS monitoring, credit cycle positioning. The desk that reads an indenture and builds recovery waterfalls.

05

TMT: Tech, Media & Telecom

Deep sector expertise. Highest-velocity market.

Mega-cap tech, SaaS multiples, semiconductor cycles, AI infrastructure, streaming economics. Relative value and L/S within the sector that defines the market.

06Wild Card

Wild Card: Digital Assets & Emerging

The trades nobody else at NWC is running yet.

BTC/ETH macro thesis, tokenized real-world assets, pre-IPO secondaries, thematic plays on energy transition and longevity. One rotating wild card desk every year, different theme, same edge.

Division Leadership

Chief Investment Officer · Division Head

Arjun Saini

Leads the Trading Division. Sets desk mandates with the Presidents, chairs the investment process, and owns the live book end to end.

Head of Risk Management

Kyle Linnhan

Portfolio-level VaR and drawdown monitoring across all 6 desks. Position sizing and leverage limits. Flags when desks are doubling up on the same risk factor.

Head of Portfolio Construction

Andriana Duda-Mishko

Aggregates all desk views into a unified fund-level portfolio. Capital allocation decisions alongside the CIO. Attribution analysis: which desks are generating alpha vs. noise.

Desk Directors

Andy Zheng

Desk Director

Minjin Wu

Desk Director

Tyler Hemmeke

Desk Director

Sam Zoller

Desk Director

Adam Beydoun

Desk Director

Andrew Chen

Desk Director

Take a seat on a desk.

Applications open Fall 2026

Apply to Trading

The Quant Division · In Development

The model rules.

Model-driven, systematic, and code-first, four desks built on shared engineering infrastructure. Activated as technical membership and leadership are put in place.

Q01

Statistical Arbitrage

Mean-reversion. Pairs. Market-neutral alpha.

Statistical relationships between correlated securities, pairs trading, basket mean-reversion, cointegration-based signals. Market-neutral by construction.

Q02

ML / AI Alpha

Machine learning applied to price and fundamental data.

Feature engineering on alternative data, NLP on earnings transcripts and filings, gradient boosting and neural signals for return prediction. The desk where code is the edge.

Q03

Systematic Macro

Rules-based cross-asset trend and carry.

Trend following, carry strategies, and momentum across equities, rates, FX, and commodities. No discretionary overlay, the model rules.

Q04

Options & Volatility

Derivatives. Vol surface. Structured payoffs.

Options pricing, implied vs. realized vol arbitrage, tail hedging, and structured payoff construction. The desk that prices risk correctly when everyone else is guessing.

Division Leadership

Chief Quantitative Officer · Division Head

Leads the Quant Division upon launch. Appointed by the Presidents. Owns the systematic book, the research agenda, and the desk build-out.

Seat Open

Quant Engineering Lead · Cross-Desk

Owns the shared data infrastructure, backtesting framework, execution pipeline, and code standards. Every desk runs on their rails.

Seat Open

Risk & Analytics Lead · Cross-Desk

Portfolio-level risk analytics, factor exposure reporting, drawdown attribution, and regime detection. The quant division's conscience.

Seat Open

Build the division from day one.

Engineers, mathematicians, and quants · Applications open Fall 2026

Apply to Quant

The Speaker Series

Senior practitioners. Unfiltered.

Private fireside conversations with the most senior names in finance, consulting, and venture, one practitioner, one hour. Hosted every semester, documented as internal research briefs.

Next Fireside Hernan Saenz · Bain & Company ··· RSVP

Sept 15 · 5:30–7:00 PM ETFireside Chat · Virtual

Hernan Saenz

Senior Partner · Bain & Company

Global Head of Bain's Strategy & Transformation practice and co-author of The Founder's Mentality. Walks our analysts through how the world's best operators think about strategy when the macro picture is fogged in.

Add to Calendar ↗

Oct 5 · 4:30–6:00 PM ETFireside Chat · Virtual

Alex Taussig

Board Partner · Lightspeed Venture Partners

Partner at Lightspeed focused on consumer and marketplace investing. Backed Faire, Vinted, and Whatnot. Publishes the widely-read Drinking from the Firehose newsletter.

Oct 7 · 6:00–8:00 PM ETFireside Chat · Virtual

Shaun Maguire

General Partner · Sequoia Capital

General Partner at Sequoia focused on seed and early-stage deep tech and defense. Early backer of SpaceX, X, and Bridge. Will share how Sequoia underwrites bets where the market doesn't yet exist.

Add to Calendar ↗

Oct 14 · 5:30–7:00 PM ETFireside Chat · Virtual

Michael Mankins

Senior Partner · Bain & Company

Leader in Bain's Strategy & Transformation and Organization practices. Author of Time, Talent, Energy. 35+ years advising on execution and organizational design.

Add to Calendar ↗

Late October · Open Slot

Nominate a speaker.

Send a Nomination

Also confirmed: Jeff Verschleiser · Balyasny Asset Management / Jason Nuridjanian · BlackRock, Global Product Solutions (Private Markets)

Pitch Competition

One name. One conviction. $1,000.

The capstone of every semester. Each desk commits to a single ticker, builds the full model, and defends it live in front of a panel of alumni and practitioners. The winning desk splits the $1,000 prize equally.

The Winning Desk · Fall 2025$1,000 Prize

Phase 01 · TrainWk 01–06

Members learn the craft.

Analysts go through structured training, financial modeling, valuation frameworks, sector analysis, and how to build a defensible investment thesis from scratch.

Phase 02 · PickWk 07

Each desk picks a single name.

After training, every desk commits to one ticker. No backup ideas. No hedges presented separately. One name, one conviction.

Phase 03 · BuildWk 08–09

Two weeks to build the pitch.

Three-statement models, valuation, scenario analysis. Desk directors review progress. The pitch deck is written in the desk's own voice.

Phase 04 · PanelWk 10

Live pitch · judges decide.

Ten minutes per desk, twenty minutes of Q&A. Judges are alumni and practitioners. The winning desk splits the $1,000 prize equally.

“The Private Markets team showed up with a thesis that would've held up in a Monday morning meeting.”

Stephen Lin · PJT Partners · Pitch Panel Judge

“The Carlyle pitch stood out because they understood the capital structure, not just the headline multiple.”

Jason Nuridjanian · BlackRock · Pitch Panel Judge

The Fund

Live capital. Real consequences.

The portfolio is built from the pitch competition, the Fund Council ranks every pitch, and the rankings drive construction. Performance is tracked and reported to members quarterly.

$5,000

Live Capital

100+

Active Members

$1,000

Semester Pitch Prize

Fund Index · Inception = 100 +34.0% since inception

Quarter	Index	QoQ
Fall 2025 · Inception	100.0	·
Winter 2026	112.0	+12.0%
Spring 2026	121.0	+8.0%
Summer 2026	134.0	+10.7%

Fund index · Marked to market · Reported to members at quarterly holding updates

Strategy Ledger Reviewed by the Fund Council

Strategy	Division	Mandate
Long / Short Equity	Trading	Fundamental long-short equity across large-cap and mid-cap names. Thesis-driven with a 6–12 month horizon. Primary strategy for the Trading Division.
Global Macro	Trading	Top-down macro trades expressed through equities, rates, and FX proxies. FOMC, geopolitical, and commodity-driven.
Event-Driven	Trading	Earnings, M&A, regulatory catalysts. Short-duration, catalyst-specific position sizing.
Systematic / Quant	Quant	Alpha signals sourced from price action, cross-sectional momentum, and factor models. Backtested in Python. Live signals monitored weekly.
Event Contracts	Quant	Binary event markets on Kalshi and Polymarket. FOMC outcomes, elections, macro releases. Quantitative edge applied to regulated prediction markets.

Positions pending disclosure · The live book is presented to members at quarterly holding updates

The Firm

Leadership.

Three Presidents. A full executive board. Every seat earned, every appointment ratified under the Articles of Operation.

Founder

Xander Bartlett

President · Head of Operations

Founder

Nafea Aqrawi

President · Head of Strategy

Founder

Julia Zou

President · Head of Education

Arjun Saini

Chief Investment Officer

Violet Karp

VP Recruitment

Carlo Brancati

VP Internal

Alexis Ruiz

VP External

Taylor Rode

VP Marketing

Riya Kalapurakkal

VP Education

Matthew Glim

Development Chair

Desk Directors

Andy Zheng

Minjin Wu

Tyler Hemmeke

Sam Zoller

Adam Beydoun

Andrew Chen

Associates

Sam Karp

Marc Akella

Spencer Barber

Matthew Glim

Anjali Ananthula

Aidan Janosik

Chairs & Advisors

Brittney WatkinsSocial Chair

Blake FeinsteinFinance Chair

Raghav SivakumarDevelopment

Campbell McGarrigalClub Advisor

Andrew ChenClub Advisor

Relations

Build something together.

We partner with firms that want proximity to the next generation of finance talent, and with alumni who want to stay close to the desk they helped build.

Founding Partner

$4,000 / year

Named desk sponsorship
2 speaker invitations per semester
Logo on all materials + website
Direct access to analyst cohort for recruiting
Quarterly dinner with fund leadership

Partner

$2,000 / year

Logo on website + materials
1 speaker invitation per semester
Recruiting access to analyst cohort
Invitation to Fall panel night

Panel Judge

2–3 hrs / semester

Join the semester-end pitch panel. Grade analyst presentations alongside current desk directors. The highest-impact way to give back.

Guest Speaker

60–90 min once

Share your story at a Wednesday mass meeting. 80+ members. Any background, buy side, sell side, VC, consulting, or quant. Reach out and we'll handle everything.

Mentor Match

2–4 hrs / semester

One-on-one mentorship with an assigned analyst. Two formal check-ins per semester plus informal availability. Match based on desk and career track.

Advisory Board

Ongoing

Strategic advisors to fund leadership. Inform desk strategy, review processes, and help set the standard for the cohort. Limited to 6 seats.

Partner with New Wave.

NWC.eboard@umich.edu

Get in Touch

Placements

Leaders & Best.

The firms where New Wave members have signed: banks, funds, and firms across the Street.

Goldman Sachs

Morgan Stanley

JPMorgan

Bank of America

BlackRock

RBC

PJT Partners

Moelis

Guggenheim

William Blair

Ducera

SMBC Group

BGO

Walbridge

Tigbourne

Rockbridge

MODELIA

Your desk is open

2026 Cycle · 17 firms and counting

Fall 2026 Cohort

Reserve your seat.

Applications for the next cohort open at the start of the Fall 2026 semester. Reviewed by the Presidents and division leadership. Choose your division, tell us who you are, and make one honest pitch for yourself.

Locked

Applications open Fall 2026.

Join the Interest List

What we look for.

Curiosity that survives contact with a 10-K. Conviction you can defend under questioning. No finance experience required, the training program exists for a reason.

Applications · Open Fall 2026

Interviews · Presidents + division leads

Divisions · Trading and Quant

Questions · NWC.eboard@umich.edu

Full Name

Michigan Email

Graduation Year

Major

Preferred Desk

Why New Wave? One honest paragraph.

Anything else: resume link, portfolio, project (optional)

Something went wrong. Please try again or email NWC.eboard@umich.edu.

Application received.

The board reviews on a rolling basis. You'll hear from us at your Michigan email.