Wachi Bandara, PhD

Leading DRW’s AI R&D and MASS groups. MASS = Multi-Asset Systematic Strategies - a group focused on ML and systematic trading.

As of June 3, 2022, Pluribus Labs was acquired by Exos Financial, to become Exos Asset Management. Exos is a digital institutional finance platform founded in 2018 by former Credit-Suisse CEO Brady Dougan and an experienced team of finance and technology experts. Exos has built a next-generation technology platform designed to revolutionize the client experience across investment banking, advisory, trading, lending, and asset management.

Leading the Pluribus Labs vision to become the global leader in the use of qualitative data in a systematic investment process. Pluribus Labs integrates data science, machine learning, quantitative research and portfolio management into a unique, systematic investment process that capitalizes on the power of algorithms to move automation ever closer to the way that humans process qualitative data to make investment decisions.

In 2017 Pluribus Labs was acquired by Golden Gate Capital to become the foundation of the Pluribus Labs Asset Management Platform • Created a data science platform that was expressly designed for extracting information from unstructured, particularly qualitative data • Created and headed the execution of the data science, machine learning and quantitative finance research agendas • Led the full research process from identification of data sets to designing purpose-built algorithms that turn them into actionable insights. Generated quantitative research that confirms that the trading signal has value outside of commonly known factors • Managed team that utilizes AI, machine learning, natural language processing and statistical inference to explore unstructured data sources • Built, prototyped and implemented machine learning algorithms to derive economic insights from the data • Worked closely with the CEO on business development and client acquisition; and with the CTO on research implementation and algorithm scaling

• Designed and implemented quantitative risk management models to protect tail-risk for MCM’s equity smart beta strategies. • Designed equity options strategies that focused on cost-efficient tail-risk hedging strategies for large equity exposures. • Designed and implement global fixed-income alpha strategies with a focus on yield curve arbitrage.

Teaching: • Instructor for Financial Management MBA course (Summer, 2012, 2013): Topics include cash flow estimation techniques, Monte Carlo methods in corporate finance, free cash flows, valuation of private companies, DCF methods, estimating cost of capital and real options • MBA workshop for Finance (2010, 2011, 2012) • Teaching Assistant for graduate course Financial Theory and Research (2010, 2011, 2012) • Teaching Assistant for MBA course in Financial Disaster Management (2011) • Teaching Assistant for undergraduate course Financial Management and Markets (2009, 2010) Grants and Awards: • Winner of the Chei-Min Paik Award for Outstanding Research (2012) • Winner of the Best Summer Research Paper- GWU School of Business (2011) Paper title: Total skewness in the cross-section of asset returns • GWU Doctoral Fellowship (2009-2013) • Research grant from the Institute for Integrating Statistics in Decision Sciences (2010) • GWU Master of Science in Finance merit based scholarship for graduate studies (2007, 2008) • Florida Institute of Technology Fellowship, Mathematical Sciences (2004, 2005)

• Analyzed a universe of about 20,000 firms to identify which ones were the most exposed to default risk. Identified the exposure of individual audit firms to litigation risk stemming from large lawsuits filed against the firms they audit. Built a novel model to identify these risks based on portfolio theory that strengthened the PCAOB’s oversight procedures • Wrote reports to educate PCAOB personnel about basis risk and the consequences associated with mark-to-market accounting for illiquid assets.

• Evaluated the profitability of FFELP Stafford and Consolidation loan programs relative to other consumer lending activities to generate alternative proposals which address cost of funding volatility, liquidity risk and spread risk. • Worked closely with the heads of student lending of leading US banks to propose innovations to existing loan programs that mitigated spread risk and increased profitability.

• Built and implemented a custom database of all flights from each airport in the world enabled with optimization algorithms to find the most efficient flight plans after accounting for costs and revenues. Used to advise buy side clients of M&A team on efficiencies that could be achieved in target airline firms controlling costs and identifying route profitability • Built a forecasting model to predict global transportation demand and its revenue drivers. Conducted scenario analysis and Monte Carlo analysis to assess the potential impact of different macro-economic scenarios on the target firm

• Member of four person team conducting research in computer science under a contract with the U.S. Navy. • Developed machine learning models to locate irregularities in regular, uniform textures. • Worked primarily with MATLAB and used C++ to optimize algorithms.

• Taught Calculus I, Calculus II , Calculus III (Multivariate Calculus) and Differential Equations classes in the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

PhD level classes in Stochastic Calculus, Continuous Time Finance, Asset Pricing and Investments, Market Microstructure, Corporate Finance, Econometrics I, II and III, Stochastic Optimization, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Bayesian Statistics Research interests: risk management, portfolio optimization, fixed income, asset pricing, mathematical finance

Concentration in quantitative methods, econometrics and financial engineering including modeling exotic options with VBA, financial model building using MATLAB and C++, study of Monte Carlo methods in vector auto regression models

Concentration in financial mathematics and statistics including stochastic processes in financial markets with special interest in computational methods