“In the beginning, I really had to convince Jacob Gottlieb that I was hungry to join his hedge fund,” Valvani said in the Fuqua profile. “But I believed in myself, my education and my experience.”
Under Investigation
Valvani was responsible for as much as $2 billion of Visium’s $8 billion of assets under management at its peak. After Gottlieb announced in March that his firm was under investigation, investors started asking for their money back. Now Visium is selling or winding down its funds.
Valvani went on paid leave in April. Neither Gottlieb nor his firm have been accused of wrongdoing.
“We mourn the tragic loss of Sanjay, a devoted father, husband and friend,” Gottlieb said in a statement Tuesday.
In 2012, Valvani pledged $250,000 to endow two scholarship funds at Fuqua, where he earned his MBA in 2001. Valvani named one of the scholarship funds after Associate Dean for Admissions Liz Riley Hargrove, who said she knew Valvani from the time he was in graduate school.
‘Natural Charisma’
“His natural charisma and genuine passion for pursuing his education stood out to me,” Hargrove said in an e-mail. “My heart is simply broken.”
Valvani and his wife supported the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy and he served on the board of Urban Arts Partnership, a charity for arts education in New York City and Los Angeles classrooms.
“As someone who came from humble beginnings, Sanjay believed passionately in UAP’s mission to provide educational opportunity and the tools necessary for success to the less fortunate,” said Philip Courtney, the organization’s chief executive officer.