OUR TEAM
Click on images to reveal bios.
Investment Team
Matthew W. Wright
President & CIO
Alena J. Kuprevich
Managing Director & Partner
Brant W. Smith
Managing Director & Partner
Brian D. Arsenault
Managing Director & Partner
Duke Williams II
Managing Director
Operations
Reema Keen
Chief Compliance Officer & Managing Director
Danita Dones
Director of Administration & Human Resources
Advisory Board
Marquette Chester Senior Managing Director, Head of Alternatives at Xponance, Inc.
Myra R. Drucker Lead Independent Director, Girls Who Invest
Stephen C. Freidheim Founder, Chief Investment Officer, Managing Partner, Cyrus Capital Partners, L.P.
OUR HISTORY
2001
During his time at Emory, a top 25 institutional endowment portfolio with assets of $5.0 billion, Matthew Wright, CFA, quickly recognized that not-for-profits with less than a billion dollars in investment assets have a number of similarities: 1) they worked with underserved and disproportionately diverse communities, 2) lacked investment capabilities and access to sufficiently grow their endowments, and 3) had difficulty in generating major gifts.
2006
This led Matthew to formulate a business plan, search for a firm name, identify initial hires, and close advisers. The genesis of our firm began in 2006.
2007
Before the firm’s actual launch, Matthew was approached to become the Chief Investment Officer at Vanderbilt University, another top 25 institutional endowment portfolio with assets of $4.0 billion, in 2007. Due to the historic and unique nature of the position, and the future opportunity to launch the firm from a more senior position, he deferred the firm’s launch, hired Brant Smith and Alena Kuprevich to help lead a diverse investment team at Vanderbilt University.
2012
During the team’s five-year tenure (2007–2012) at Vanderbilt, the endowment’s performance placed within the top third of university endowments. Under Matthew’s leadership, Vanderbilt’s endowment was the top performer amongst the top 25 university endowments during the Global Financial Crisis for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009. Overall, Matthew and the team’s tenure at Vanderbilt University generated top quartile or better performance for three of the five years while leading the endowment.
2013
In 2013, Disciplina Capital Management, LLC was founded. We are an independent, diverse, employee-owned Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) firm registered with the SEC.
2018
Brian Arsenault joined the team in 2018 to expand our investment and client service capabilities. Matthew Wright, Alena Kuprevich, Brant Smith, and Brian Arsenault are owners of the firm, which is a certified MWBE firm. The founding partners have worked together for over 20 years.
FOUNDING PRINCIPLES
Frugalis
Frugality
Each dollar counts. At Disciplina, we allocate capital to active investment strategies when we believe our clients will be compensated through value-added performance; otherwise, we invest passively to help reduce overall costs for our clients. We focus our research efforts on sectors with the largest top-to-bottom performance spreads. We offer a complete OCIO solution for one price, with no add-on fees.
Severis
Focus
Our deep due diligence supports high conviction manager allocations. Disciplina's partners directly service clients, in addition to their investment duties, granting you direct access to the team. We focus on managing assets for non-profit clients, our passion is to help institutions achieve their missions.
Fidelis
Faithfulness
At Disciplina, our clients' missions come first. We work with each client to develop a tailored strategy that addresses your goals. We pledge to advance our client missions and implement impact and responsible investment strategies without compromising performance. Additionally, we have an unbiased approach — our lack of conflicts of interest leads to the best solutions for our clients.
THE DISCIPLINA ADVANTAGE
1
HIGH TOUCH SERVICE MODEL
-
Partners are your lead contact and active as an extension of your staff
-
Mission focused and cost-conscious approach
-
Non-investment assistance: development, board education, operations, governance, etc.
2
TAILORED SOLUTIONS
-
Customized solutions to meet individual institutional objectives
-
Proven performance across multiple asset classes, including alternatives
-
Unique approach to each Disciplina strategy
3
WORLD CLASS ENDOWMENT EXPERTISE
-
Investment team with experience operating within and for major Not for Profits
-
Team has worked together since 2001 at leading endowments
-
Clients have real time access and transparency to the investment team and portfolio
4
UNBIASED MANAGER SELECTION
-
Independence allows Disciplina to source the best managers within each asset class
-
Ability to utilize passive strategies as a source of value to our clients
-
No compensation is received from any manager
5
EXTENSIVE GLOBAL ASSET MANAGER NETWORK
-
Established global network of high-quality asset managers utilized for Disciplina clients
-
Traditional and alternative asset managers
-
Manager's limited investment capacity not available to large institutions (banks, consultants, etc.)
By making the investment into emerging managers, you expand the opportunity to address a number of social ills that tend to be concentrated in certain diverse groups.
- Matthew Wright, Founder & CIO
DIVERSITY AT DISCIPLINA
OUR FIRM
Disciplina is a certified MWBE. Diversity and inclusion are natural extensions of who we are and is evident across our mission, team, investment managers, and service providers. It begins with our founder Matthew Wright, the first African American ever to manage a $1 billion-plus college endowment when he took the helm at Vanderbilt University in 2007. In 2013, he became the first African American to start and lead an OCIO firm. Disciplina Founding Partner, Alena Kuprevich, has worked with Matthew since 2001 when they were at Emory University. As we continue to grow, diversity and inclusion will continue to be a key element of our identity and expand as we draw upon our diverse networks for investment managers and new hires.
OUR TEAM
Our team is diverse across multiple dimensions including gender, race, and socioeconomic background with representation in all facets of our firm including ownership, investments, administration, and our advisory board. Almost half of our team are female, and people of color make up almost half of our firm.
INVESTMENTS
Since 2001, our team has made over $1.3 billion in allocations to over 50 different women, minority, and veteran-owned investment firms across various strategies for our existing clients and at our prior institutions. Today, these allocations represent approximately 25% of Disciplina's current assets under management and roughly 50% of our active manager exposure. Disciplina's proprietary database is currently monitoring over 200 diverse-owned firms who primarily manage alternative investment strategies.
MULTIPLIER EFFECT
This all leads us to what we call the Disciplina Multiplier Effect. Diverse communities can benefit not only from a foundation's programs and spending but also through how their assets are invested. This provides a much-needed compounding wealth effect over time.