Mac McQuown

CURRENT APPOINTMENTS

• Co-Founder and Director of Dimensional Fund Advisors
• Co-Founder and Director of Diversified Credit Investments
• Co-Founder and Director Visa Advisors
• Co-Founder of Stone Edge Farm Estate Vineyards and Winery

PRO BONO

• Advisory Council, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD
• Advisory Council at University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• TRAC II Affiliate at Esalen Institute

FINANCIAL CAREER

• McQuown entered Wall Street in 1961 when he worked for Smith Barney & Co.
• In 1964, he was recruited by Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco to serve as the director of the company’s internal think tank.
• In the following decade, he worked with colleagues to pioneer the use of data to analyze the stock market and create the first equity index funds.
• In 1974, he left Wells Fargo and started consulting for numerous global corporations. He then founded and built several companies in the finance and banking industry. 
• In 1981, he co-founded and became director of Dimensional Fund Advisors and created second-generation equity Funds.
• In 1989, he co-founded and served as chairman of KMV, which provided corporate credit analytics to global financial companies before being sold to Moody’s in 2002.
• In 2004, he launched Diversified Credit Investments, an investment firm based in San Francisco, California.

ENVIRONMENTALISM

• McQuown is a dedicated environmentalist with a desire to combat climate change.
• He is a firm believer in action by individuals to harness renewable energy resources and protect the environment, a philosophy that he follows in his own innovative actions.
• He began collecting wine in 1965 and now owns and oversees Stone Edge Vineyard and Stone Edge Farm Winery in Sonoma, California. He is leading his farm toward energy self-sufficiency. 

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

• McQuown worked with David G. Booth to develop the first institutional index funds at Wells Fargo in the early 1970s.
• He was the first chairman of the Wells Fargo Investment Advisors (now Barclays Global Investors).
• At Dimensional Fund Advisors, he created second-generation passively-managed equity Funds, including the first small-cap and value equity investment strategies via registered mutual Funds
• At Diversified Credit Investments, he serves as the investment manager of “super-diversified high Sharpe ratio” portfolios of corporate Credit risk for major financial institutions around the globe, utilizing analytics evolved from options pricing and modern portfolio theories.
• At Visa Advisors, he devised a new form of corporate bond that incorporates the right (but not the obligation) of any investor in the bond to “exchange” the bond for a default-free bond of the same issuer and maturity when combined with a centrally-cleared Credit default Swap, with markets made in the exchanged bond as well.
• At Charles Schwab, in conjunction with Dimensional Fund Advisors, he created Schwab 1000 index and related index Funds.
• At Wells Fargo Bank, he had overall responsibility for creating the world’s first equity index funds.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS

• McQuown was honored with the 13th CME Group Melamed-Arditti Innovation Award for revolutionizing investment management by pioneering index funds in the 1970s. He received the Innovation Award along with John C. "Jack" Bogle, who founded Vanguard in 1975.

• McQuown has appeared as a guest on Real Vision.