The Most Valuable Investment

For Chatta Udomwongsa (MBA ’91), the skills and techniques he learned while working on his MBA in finance and operations management are as relevant today as they were nearly three decades ago. The success he’s achieved since his time at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business inspired him to create opportunities for other alumni.

Udomwongsa is founder and managing director of Riccio Investment Ltd., a hedge fund located in Bangkok, Thailand. The firm, formed in 2013, is registered in the British Virgin Islands, based financially in Hong Kong, and trades in U.S. dollars and euros.

“Our traders work around the clock to manage investments valued at $30 million USD,” Udomwongsa says. “We make investments, both long and short, in securities, stock options, commodities, and derivatives. My main challenge is to generate profits by exploiting both significantly under- and over-valued instruments we’ve identified in global investment markets.”

The key skill that makes such identification of value possible is the ability to look at a company’s stock objectively to calculate a price that determines whether to buy or sell it. Udomwongsa credits the late Katz professor Thomas L. Saaty, PhD, for teaching him to logically and systematically examine a company’s performance to inform decision-making. Saaty’s processes have been applied to such disparate decision-making arenas as arms control and disarmament, the NFL draft, and countless business applications worldwide.

Udomwongsa is passing that decision-making prowess on to his employees through his firm’s training camp. “We train our traders through a four-week intensive program using Saaty’s techniques that teach how to completely take emotion out of the equation when evaluating an investment vehicle,” Udomwongsa explains. “I often warn traders that you can never fall in love with a stock. You must only use your brain — not your heart. We need to make sure that our traders are 100 percent ready to hit the trading floor before we send them out to invest other people’s money.”

His combination of academic degrees and experience was instrumental to his success throughout his career. In addition to an MBA, Udomwongsa holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and a master’s in computer science.

His first job after graduating from Katz was in information technology with IBM Thailand, where he worked closely with computer systems at banks and securities firms. That job was followed by three years at Samart Corp., developing and managing rapidly emerging e-commerce businesses.

During Thailand’s financial crisis in the late 1990s, Udomwongsa spent two years as a consultant helping companies recruit senior executives and personally placed more than 10 executives to lead large international corporations in Thailand. Later, after a year as e-commerce director at GE Capital and over 12 years as the chief operations officer at FXA Group, he left to set up his current hedge fund firm.

After being contacted by Katz faculty, Udomwongsa had the opportunity to place two recent Katz MBA alumni interested in global markets in training with other Riccio employees in Chiang Mai. The experience forced the Katz graduates to put their book knowledge to the test, as they learned valuable, real-life trading conditions. One of the students, Ethan Guswiler (MBA ’18), now works as a senior financial analyst for Quest Diagnostics in Secaucus, N.J. Guswiler fondly looks back on his experiences in Chiang Mai, staying with and learning from analysts at the fund.

His biggest takeaway from his time with Udomwongsa was that “you can successfully invest with relatively little capital and business infrastructure, and still be successful, if you dedicate the time and energy.”

Udomwongsa was happy to provide the opportunity to his fellow Katz alumni, continues to confer with Katz faculty and alumni, and invites them to come to Thailand. “In my opinion, education is the most valuable investment,” says Udomwongsa.