Title: Senior VP, Portfolio Manager
Firm: PIMCO
Age: 33
When Rachel Betton was a youngster growing up in Montego Bay, Jamaica, she aspired to be a lawyer — and admits she didn’t even know much, if anything, about Wall Street.
Now, the 33-year-old senior vice president and municipal portfolio manager at PIMCO in New York is no stranger to the leading financial center of the world.
“I have worked in every area of municipal bonds and I have a very good understanding of market dynamics having seen it from the banking and trading side and now applying it to the buy side,” the 12-year veteran of the investment and financial services industry said.
David Hammer, head of municipal bond portfolio management at PIMCO, said Ms. Betton’s diverse experience as a municipal professional includes structuring Master Settlement Agreement tobacco bonds as a banker, credit research, and trading as a high-yield-focused market maker. “She draws on this broad experience in analyzing investment opportunities for clients every day,” he said. “Rachel’s dedication to helping clients achieve long term investment goals in the municipal market places her in an excellent position for continued growth as a portfolio manager.
Currently, she trades primarily high yield securities in the new-issue and secondary markets, seeking relative value comparisons and attempting to generate alpha for the firm’s municipal portfolios.
In two months, she will begin a new role: managing the arrival of her first baby, a boy due in October.
