Investment Team

Ragen Stienke, CFA | Portfolio Manager
Ragen Stienke has over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, spanning from early stage investing in start-ups to public equities. Before starting Ballast Asset Management, Ragen was the Senior Portfolio Manager of the SMid and SMid Plus products at Westwood Management, an investment firm with over $20bn in assets under management. Ragen joined Westwood in 2004, and was responsible for managing and growing the SMid product from its infancy to over $3bn. Upon closing the SMid product, Ragen launched a sister portfolio in SMid Plus where he raised nearly $1bn in assets. During his management of SMid, the portfolio had a 10 year track record that ranked in the top 10% against its respective peer group.¹ Ragen was also a member of the Portfolio Risk Committee and the Business Management Committee at Westwood.

Ragen graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Economics. While pursuing his undergraduate degree, he worked at the IC2 Institute, a research unit of the University of Texas focused on fostering constructive forms of capitalism that accelerate economic development. Upon graduation, Ragen joined Arthur Andersen in the Business Valuation Group. In 2000, he accepted a position with UBS Investment Bank’s research group in New York. While at UBS, he spent three years as a research analyst focused on the software industry. In 2003, Ragen was promoted to Associate Director, where he served on the U.S. Equity Strategy team.

Ragen received his CFA charter in 2003 and is a member of the CFA Institute and the Dallas Society of Financial Analysts.

¹ Source: eVestment, period ending June 30, 2015.

Tom Fogarty, Jr., CFA | Investment Analyst
Prior to joining Ballast as an Investment Analyst, Tom brings more than 20 years of investment analysis and decision making, most recently at his own company, Thurles, LLC. Prior to that, he was Senior Investment Analyst and Associate Director of Research at Dreman Value Management, an equity investment firm with a behavioral economics strategy and peak assets of more than $18 billion. At Silverstone Capital, a market-neutral equity fund with top decile performance in his tenue 2006-2010 and peak AUM of about $450 million, he was Senior Investment Analyst executing a deeply fundamental, riskcontrolled strategy in the global automotive value-chain. He has also held a variety of equity analyst roles at Jefferies and UBS Investment Bank, where he rose to Associate Director of U.S. Equity Strategy. Tom began his investment career as a credit analyst on Moody’s Investor Service’s industrials team. He earned a B.A. from Vassar College and an MBA from University of Michigan Ross School of Business. He earned his CFA charter in 2002 and is a member of the CFA Institute and CFA Society of New York.

Operations/Financial/Compliance

Stefanie Kennedy| Chief Compliance Officer
Stefanie Kennedy, Chief Compliance Officer has over 20 years of experience in trading and trade operations, as well as client service. Prior to joining Ballast, Stefanie worked in Trade Operations at Westwood Holdings Group as VP, Senior Trade Operations Analyst. At Westwood, her roles also included positions as Equity Trader, Portfolio Coordinator, Performance Analyst and Client Service.  Her responsibilities included trading, trade settlements, onboarding new clients, client reporting and account reconciliations.  Stefanie served as Chairman of the Westwood Charitable Events Committee where she spearheaded ten charitable events annually.  Stefanie graduated from Southern Methodist University with a BS in Social Science.

Marketing and Client Service

Erik Schonberg | Managing Director, Consultant Relations & Institutional Sales
Erik joined Ballast in 2023 from BHMS where he served as Director, Client Development.  Prior to BHMS, Erik was with Manning & Napier as Vice President of the institutional group and was responsible for sales and service for both U.S. and non-U.S. equity strategies.  Prior to his 11 year tenure at Manning & Napier, Erik served at Hartford Investment Management Co. (HIMCO) as Vice President of Institutional Sales, and prior to that, as Managing Director of Institutional Sales for John Hancock Advisers.  He began his investment career as a financial consultant for Merrill Lynch.  Erik has 33 years of investment experience and graduated from Baylor University with a BBA.