RankiaPro Europe Awards 2026: vote for the best Fund Manager
18 MAY, 2026
By Joanna Piwko from RankiaPro Europe
Each vote counts! Don't forget you can vote in the sixth edition of the RankiaPro Europe Awards. In the coming weeks, we will continue to highlight the professionals making the strongest impact on today’s financial industry across four categories: Fund Selector of the Year, Fund Manager of the Year, Sales Manager of the Year, and Advisor of the Year.
Meet this year’s nominees in the Fund Manager category:
Svein Aage Aanes (DNB AM)
Svein Aage Aanes has been at DNB Asset Management since 1998, from 2002 as Head of Fixed Income and FX. He has a master in Economics from The Norwegian School of Economics. He worked as an assistant professor at the Norwegian School of economics and as a senior economist at DNB Markets prior to joining DNB Asset Management.
Sune Højholt Jensen (Impax AM)
Sune joined Impax Asset Management in July 2024 and is co-Portfolio Manager of the Emerging Market Corporate bond strategy and a member of the Global High Yield team and Credit Strategy Group.
Sune began his career at Bjørnskov & Co as an equity analyst. In 1998 he moved to Nykredit Markets joining as a Credit Analyst before moving to the proprietary trading team in 2000. In 2004 he moved to Nordea as a Trader in their proprietary Corporate Bond Trading team. In 2007 he moved to Sparinvest to work alongside Klaus Blaabjerg as part of the investment team with the focus on HY corporates. Sune was managing a constrained EM sovereign debt strategy from 2007-2009. In 2010 he was appointed as the lead manager on the Sparinvest Emerging Market Corporate Debt Strategy.
Sune attended the Copenhagen Business School where he earned an MSc in Finance.
Marc Blanc (Ofi Invest AM)
Marc Blanc is a High Yield Portfolio Manager at Ofi Invest AM, where he has been since 2014. Previously, he served as a High Yield Credit Analyst at Ofi from 2014 to 2019 and worked in Investor Relations at Groupe CASINO from 2012 to 2014. His career began as a Credit Sell-Side Analyst at Société Générale CIB in 2006.
Marc holds a master’s in finance from EDHEC Business School and is a CFA Charterholder, bringing a strong foundation in financial management to his role.
Julian Marks (Nomura AM)
Julian joined NAM in January 2023 to launch the Corporate Hybrid Bond Strategy. Prior to joining NAM, Julian was a Senior Portfolio Manager at Neuberger Berman for 15 years, where he initiated and led the Corporate Hybrid Strategy from inception in 2015 until his departure in September 2022. Previously, Julian held a range of portfolio management and analyst roles at Commerzbank, Barclays Global Investors and Mercury Asset Management. He joined the investment industry in 1999. Julian is a CFA Charter holder and holds a BSc in Economics and Accounting from the University of Bristol.
Christopher Rossbach (J. Stern & Co.)
Christopher Rossbach is a Co-Founder, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of J. Stern & Co., a private investment partnership based in London, New York, Malta and Zurich. Since 2012 he has been the portfolio manager of the World Stars Global Equity strategy, focused on delivering long-term capital growth by investing in a concentrated group of high-quality, large and mega-cap global stocks.
Previously he was Co-Founder and CIO of Merian Capital, CEO Europe at Magnetar Capital, Lansdowne Partners and Perry Capital. Before moving into institutional asset management, Chris worked in investment banking at Lazard Frères in New York. He holds a BA from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Adam Darling (Jupiter AM)
Adam Darling is an Investment Manager in Jupiter’s Fixed Income team. Before joining Jupiter, he worked at Barclays, focusing on natural resource investments. Prior to this, he held roles at Société Générale and Morgan Stanley. He began his investment career in 2000. Adam has a degree in modern history.
Thorsten Winkelmann (AllianceBernstein)
Thorsten Winkelmann is Chief Investment Officer of European and Global Growth Equities at AllianceBernstein (AB), based in Frankfurt. Holding a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Bonn, he brings more than 20 years of investment experience to the role. Prior to joining AB in 2024, Winkelmann spent over two decades at Allianz Global Investors, where he was CIO of the Global Growth team and portfolio manager for the Global Equity Growth and Europe Equity Growth strategies. Earlier in his career, he also managed portfolios within AllianzGI’s European Equity Core and Multi-Asset teams.
Mike Sell (Alquity Investment Management)
Mike Sell joined Alquity in 2014 and is responsible for all equity investments across Global Emerging Markets. He has over 30 years’ experience investing in Emerging Markets equities. He joined Baring Asset Management as a graduate trainee in 1994, where he became a member of the Emerging Market Asset Allocation Committee. Mike then joined Thames River / Nevsky Capital where he was subsequently appointed a partner and was part of the team that grew the Emerging market equity assets from approximately US$150m to US$3.5bn, before moving to F&C with the long only Emerging Market business in 2011.
Benoit de Laval (Itavera Asset Management)
Benoit is a Senior Portfolio Manager within the Euro Investment Grade Credit team. He is responsible for managing several Credit portfolios, including AXA WF Euro Credit Total Return. As a Portfolio Manager Analyst, he provides relative value coverage for the Banking, Basics and Transportation sectors.
He joined AXA IM (today BNP Paribas Asset Management) in December 2019 as a Portfolio Manager for AXA funds and mandates. He was specifically in charge of all P&L funds for AXA France. Before that, he used to be a Credit Portfolio Manager at Metropole Gestion.
Benoit in an engineer graduated from ENSTA Bretagne and holds a Master in Finance from Audencia Nantes. Benoit is also a CFA charterholder.
Kristofer Barret (Carmignac)
Kristofer Barrett joined Carmignac in April 2024 as manager of Carmignac Investissement and co-manager of Carmignac Patrimoine to oversee the fund’s equity portfolio. He is also a member of the firm’s strategic investment committee. Before joining Carmignac, Kristofer spent almost 18 years at Swedbank Robur, where he managed several developed and emerging market equity funds. A US and Swedish national, Kristofer has a degree in business and finance from Uppsala University.
Benjamin Billiard (Pergam)
Benjamin Billiard started his career in consulting before moving into equity research at Merrill Lynch, then spent fifteen years as a buy-side analyst and portfolio manager across both long-only and long/short European equity funds in London. He joined Pergam in 2021 to launch and manage PBH, a concentrated listed holdings fund. He is based in Paris.
Frederik Fischer (Allianz Global Investors)
Frederik Fischer is Director / Senior Portfolio Manager for Multi Asset and Commodity Funds at Allianz Global Investors. He leads the Vermögens Management Classics team, is a voting member of the Fundamental Multi Asset Committee and is co-head of the global commodities group. He joined the company in 2004 and has held various roles as a Portfolio Manager and Business Manager in the CIO Office. Frederik Fischer holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Frankfurt School of Finance and Management and an MBA from IE University of Madrid. In addition, he is a certified Investment Fund Professional (IHK) and CFA Charterholder.
