Charles Spero
Founder, Managing Partner
Charles Spero is the managing partner and founder of Crescent Sky Capital and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the firm’s activities. Mr. Spero is a well-respected financial professional with a strong track record of success over a 20+ year career in finance.
Mr. Spero most recently served as Head of Nomura’s Global Markets business in the Americas where he was responsible for all markets related activities in the hemisphere including the allocation and risk management of over $100 billion in assets. At Nomura, Mr. Spero managed a group of over 600 professionals across the mortgage and asset-backed, proprietary trading, credit, government, foreign exchange, and equity businesses. He was hired at Nomura in August 2009 to build their fixed-income business, which had been generally inactive in the Americas. Mr. Spero oversaw all facets of the business build out including setting up, growing, and developing the business into a top 10 fixed-income platform in the market sectors in which the firm competed. Under Mr. Spero’s leadership as head of Fixed Income (and later Head of Global Markets Americas), Nomura’s U.S. Securitized Products Business, which had not existed at the firm prior to Mr. Spero’s arrival, produced strong returns for the firm over a 5 year period.
Mr. Spero spent the majority of his career at Lehman Brothers where he traded all types of asset-backed and non-agency mortgage product before being promoted to oversee the entire U.S. Securitized products division in mid-2008. The best investment performance for Mr. Spero occurred during 2007 and 2008. Mr. Spero recognized the excesses in the subprime market and focused his group on strategies designed to find asymmetrical risk-reward opportunities in the sector. Trades implemented by Mr. Spero and his team earned significant profits. A significant portion of these gains were achieved in the derivatives markets and consumed little investment capital.
Mr. Spero holds a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University with distinction in his major of Economics, Politics, and Ethics
Dr. Wei Jin
Partner, Portfolio Manager & Head of Analytics
Wei Jin is a portfolio manager at Crescent Sky Capital and is on the firm’s investment committee. Dr. Jin is also responsible for developing and maintaining all of Crescent Sky’s analytical infrastructure.
Prior to joining Crescent Sky, Dr. Jin was a trader at Panning Capital Management, responsible for trading and managing Panning’s structured products portfolio. At Panning, Wei also focused on analyzing specialty finance companies across the capital structure. Prior to Panning, Dr. Jin was an Executive Director at JP Morgan Chase responsible for trading and managing a portion of the bank’s multi-billion dollar structured products portfolio.
Dr. Jin was one of the initial members at Tilden Park Management, where he built all of the models and analytical infrastructure for the fund launch. At Tilden Park, Wei also worked on investment strategy and portfolio management. Dr. Jin began his career at Lehman Brothers in research, covering commercial real estate and CMBS.
Dr. Jin received a Ph.D. in Statistics and a Master of Science in Financial Mathematics from Stanford University. Wei also holds a Bachelor of Science in Probability and Statistics from Beijing University in China.
Wei holds many honors and awards in Mathematics including, two time winner Zehan Jiang Scholarship, Silver Medalist in the 13th China Mathematical Contest, and the Gold Medal in the Chinese National Mathematical Contest 1997.
Dr. Jin is the married father of two children. In his spare time Wei enjoys traveling around the world and landscape photography.
Lewis Meyers
Partner, Head of Business Development
Lewis Meyers is responsible for expanding and managing Crescent Sky’s client relationships and communicating the firm’s investment strategies. Mr. Meyers has over 25 years of investment banking experience within credit, structured products, and wealth management.
Prior to joining the firm, Lewis served as Managing Director at Nomura where his responsibilities were to cultivate and maintain relationships with institutional investors in the mortgage and asset-backed markets. Prior to Nomura Mr. Meyers was a Managing Director at Credit Suisse in structured product sales.
Mr. Meyers began his career at Lehman Brothers in the middle office and eventually became a Managing Director in the Wealth and Asset Management Group focusing on structured product sales.
Mr. Meyers holds a Bachelor of Arts from Lafayette College and a Masters of Business Administration from Columbia University.
Ryan Fitzgerald, CFA
Associate, Head Real Estate Underwriting
Ryan Fitzgerald joined Crescent Sky in 2018 where he works on analytics, underwriting, and investments. He works closely with Mr. Spero and Dr. Jin to help evaluate various investment opportunities.
Mr. Fitzgerald received dual BS degrees in Computer Science and Finance from Lehigh University in 2017.
Andrew Cataldo
Director of Operations and Finance
Andrew Cataldo joined Crescent Sky in 2021 and oversees all aspects of finance and operations. He is responsible for managing day-to-day fund operations as they relate to fund administration, accounting, budgeting, cash operations, and controls, document review, and special projects.
Mr. Cataldo spent his early career at BMF Media Group, working as a Staff Accountant, where he was responsible for various general accounting duties including accounts payable/receivable, banking, and check requests. Mr. Cataldo joined Accordion Partners LLC, in 2015 as an Accounting Associate. Accordion Partners is a financial consulting firm focused on executing value-creation initiatives for private equity firms at their portfolio companies. His tasks included accounts payable/receivable, banking, managing payroll, financial reporting and analysis, project management, and process improvement. He created sustainable operations to accommodate the rapid revenue growth of the firm and was an integral part of the implementation and optimization of NetSuite ERP/CRM tools.
Andrew holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from York College of Pennsylvania, where he majored in Accounting.