Christopher Smith is the managing director of Artisan Partners and founding portfolio manager of the Antero Peak Group, which launched the Artisan Focus Fund in April 2017. Smith brings 22 years of investment experience, having joined Artisan Partners in October 2016 after building expertise at premier investment firms. He holds a bachelor's degree in finance (summa cum laude) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (1999-2003). Prior to Artisan Partners, Smith was a senior analyst at Kingdon Capital Management where he managed capital directly for Mark Kingdon. He previously served as managing director and senior analyst at Karsch Capital Management, covering consumer, media, and industrial sectors. Upon Karsch Capital's closure in August 2013, Smith was selected by Michael Karsch to create and exclusively manage Centerline Investment Partners, a long-only fund with more than $100 million in assets, which was later merged into Kingdon Capital. Smith has also worked at Soros Fund Management, as well as UBS and Credit Suisse in equity research. Under his leadership, the Artisan Focus Fund has delivered strong performance with an annualized return of 17.76% since inception, outperforming the S&P 500 Index by approximately 3.43% annually.

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The Antero Peak Group's investment approach is based on three core pillars: idea generation, a systematic framework for analyzing companies, and proactive risk management. Utilizing this approach, the team seeks to construct a focused portfolio designed to maximize alpha while limiting downside risk over the long term. The investment process centers on identifying long-term multi-year inflection points in industries caused by supply/demand changes, technological advances, and regulatory shifts. The team believes these inflections are often misunderstood by market participants and can lead to powerful re-ratings of industries and companies. A key element in alpha generation is finding areas where the team's views on industry fundamentals differ from consensus estimates. The systematic analysis involves proprietary models assessing multi-year earnings power, scenario analysis, return on invested capital, and discounted cash flow valuations using proprietary technology. The fund typically holds 20-40 names across 5-8 themes with maximum position size generally 15% and maximum 25% in any one industry. The team incorporates risk management into all stages of its investment process through metrics such as crowding, correlation, volatility, stress tests, liquidity, factor analysis, and macro drivers. They use instruments such as options to enhance returns and mitigate downside. The approach focuses on thematic investing across areas like Data Monetization, De-Globalization, Transformation of the Enterprise, and Aero Normalization.

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