Nir Bar Dea

After serving in the Israeli special forces, Bar Dea landed at Bridgewater just over five years ago, but has quickly ascended through the ranks. Since starting as a management associate in the research department of the hedge fund—which, with $138 billion in assets, is by far the largest in the world—he has risen to oversee a team of more than 500 people, connecting the firm’s exhaustive quant research and technology to plug into the algorithms that underpin Bridgewater’s trading. Though Bar Dea and his team had already restructured the firm’s traditionally siloed departments by integrating them, the pandemic forced the group to think even more outside the box—literally: They rebuilt the Bridgewater investment engine office outdoors, in Westport, Conn., “virtually overnight,” Bar Dea says, so that he and his staff could safely collaborate in person.