The Team

Kieran Cavanna is the Chief Investment Officer and Co-Founder of Old Farm Partners. Prior thereto, Mr. Cavanna worked at Soros Fund Management (“SFM”) from 2013 to 2015 where he served as the Head of the External Manager Selection Team.

Mr. Cavanna and his team performed due diligence on and allocated to a select group of hedge funds that deployed a wide variety of strategies. Within this pool of externally managed capital, a meaningful amount was in co-investments generated by the underlying hedge funds.

At SFM the team sourced, vetted and executed co-investments in equities, global macro and credit instruments. Prior to SFM, Mr. Cavanna was a Partner and the Head of Research at Titan Advisors, a $5b fund-of-hedge funds. Mr. Cavanna has 18+ years of experience allocating to hedge funds. He started his financial career as a senior analyst at KPMG Consulting.

Mr. Cavanna graduated from the University of Richmond with a BA and an MBA from Vanderbilt University.

Nishi Shah is the Head of Research and Co-Founder of Old Farm Partners. Prior to launching Old Farm Partners, she worked at Soros Management (“SFM”) from 2007 to 2015.

Most recently, Nishi spent four years as a Senior Analyst on the External Manager Selection Team where she performed due diligence on hedge fund investments and liquid co-investments. Prior, she was a generalist Equity Research Analyst at SFM reporting to the CIO researching and monitoring equity positions across sectors for the firm’s “best ideas” portfolio and overseeing the firm’s equity capital markets activity.

She started her career as a Legal Analyst in the Office of the General Counsel at SFM where she facilitated document negotiation, regulatory filings, and ad hoc analysis across the firm’s business activities.

Nishi graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA with honors in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and minors in Architecture and Environmental Studies. Ms. Shah has been a CFA Charter holder since 2017.

She currently serves on the Northstar Fund community foundation.

Kurt Spero is the Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Compliance Officer of Old Farm Partners. Prior to joining Old Farm, Kurt was the COO, CFO and CCO at Citrine Capital Management, a commodity focused hedge fund. From 2015-2018 he managed all of the non-investment related acitivites of the firm.

Before joining Citrine, Kurt co-founded and was the COO of Real Economy Capital, a long/short equity hedge fund. From 2009-2014, Kurt served as the COO, CFO and CCO of Galtere, a global macro fund with peak assets of approximately $2.5B. Before joining Galtere, Kurt was the COO and CFO of TGRA Capital Management, a long/short equity hedge fund, from 2006-2009.

From 2000-2006, Kurt was an Associate Director at UBS in the Global Prime Brokerage Department and held trading positions at several brokerage firms prior to 2000. Kurt earned an MBA from Seton Hall University and a BA from Rollins College.

Kurt is on the advisory board of the Investment Management Due Diligence Association and holds the CDDA designation.

Heidi Evans is the Director of Operations at Old Farm Partners. Heidi supports all aspects of the back and middle office including interfacing with investors, external service providers and managing information flow internally.

Prior to Old Farm, Heidi worked at Maitland Administration from 2013-2016 where she worked with the North American Business Development team as well as managed the office. Prior to Maitland, Heidi was on the Fund Administration team at Admiral Administration.

Prior to joining Admiral, Heidi worked at James River Capital Corp., a fund of hedge funds business based in Virginia. At James River, she worked in a support role with domestic and offshore funds, as well as supporting the trader research team. Also at James River, she worked as a Marketing Administrator.

Jenny Priestas is the Operational Due Diligence analyst at Old Farm Partners.

Prior to Old Farm, Jenny was employed at James River Financial Corp. where from 2012 to 2018 she was the Operational Due Diligence Analyst/Operational Analyst in the Hedge Fund of Funds Group. In this role, she was responsible for operational due diligence on all underlying fund managers in James River’s Fund of Hedge Funds products ($850M in assets).

Jenny joined James River as an analyst in the futures trading group in April 2010 from Richmond Group Fund Co. where she was Senior Vice President of Trading, having worked in various analytical and trading capacities from January 2004.

Jenny graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. in Finance from Virginia Tech in 2005.

Melissa Bonilla is a Data Analyst with Old Farm Partners, supporting research, client relations and marketing parts of the business.

Prior thereto, she was a Data Analyst at Schusterman Family Investments from 2019 to 2021. Prior to joining Schusterman, Ms. Bonilla was a Data Analyst on the External Manager Selection Team at Soros Fund Management, beginning in 2011. Ms. Bonilla began her career at Credit Suisse, eventually joining Global Infrastructure Partners, their joint venture with General Electric.

Ms. Bonilla graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a BA in Sociology and Dramatic Arts. She received her MFA from The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy of Classical Acting in 2019.