Jon Rubinstein, a longtime technology executive, who was an adviser to Steve Jobs, is set to join Bridgewater Associates as co-CEO in May, according to a note sent to clients of the hedge fund firm seen by Reuters on Thursday.
Rubinstein will take a role currently held by Greg Jensen, who is also co-chief investment officer. Jensen will depart the co-CEO post but will remain co-CIO. Eileen Murray will continue to serve as co-CEO.
The hire followed a February report in The Wall Street Journal of tension between Jensen and the firm’s founder, Ray Dalio. Bridgewater called the account a “sensationalistic mischaracterization” shortly after it appeared.
Regardless, Bridgewater said in the memo that it decided to spilt its CEO and CIO responsibilities given the size of the firm and its growth.
“We have concluded that in order to have pervasive excellent management, we need CEOs who can give their full attention to the company’s management, and we want Greg to shift his full attentions to investment responsibilities,” the memo said.
Rubinstein was most recently senior vice president for product innovation in the personal systems group at HP (HPQ) according to the memo. It also said that he worked with Steve Jobs at Apple (AAPL) and was an executive at Palm. The note said Rubinstein was “instrumental” in creating Apple’s iPod, a pioneering personal music device.
The Bridgewater memo praised Rubinstein’s “track-record of building world class products” and said his technological prowess would serve to “continue building out the systemized decision-making that has been so successful in our investment area and to extend it to our management as well.”
Bridgewater was founded by Ray Dalio and is the largest hedge fund manager in the world. The Westport, Connecticut-based firm manages $154 billion and employs approximately 1,500 people, according to its website.
