Morningstar Advisor - Winter 2008 - 8

Contributors Christine Benz If it weren’t for her father, Christine Benz, who clears up some misconceptions about the style box on page 35, wouldn’t be working at Morningstar. “I had just started my career when in 1993 my dad strongly urged me to apply for a job at Morningstar,” she says. “He was a huge fan of Morningstar back then, and he’s still an avid user.” Benz has since risen through the fund analyst ranks and now leads the group. One of her pet peeves is criticism that Morningstar tries to “box in” managers. “It’s simply not true. Some of our favorite managers drift around the box,” she says. “Strategy slippage is a major cause for concern—style-box changes usually are not.” Philip Guziec Philip Guziec, who discusses how options can help advisors manage their clients’ portfolios on page 22, got interested in derivatives when he was covering investment banks and exchanges as a stock analyst for Morningstar. “My analyst beat required an understanding of these securities, and studying them highlighted for me the potential for the use—and misuse—of them by investors.” Guziec saw a need to bring Morningstar’s rigorous fundamental research— and its expertise at simply presenting complex concepts—to this area. He launched Morningstar’s options coverage in September. “My focus is on using options to invest, not trade,” he says. Lawrence Jones Analyst Lawrence Jones primarily covers fixed-income funds, including those managed by Mary Ellen Stanek and Baird Advisors, the subject of an Undiscovered Manager profile (page 62) he cowrites with contributing editor Karen Dolan. He also introduces a new column this issue on fixed-income topics, called “Bond Fix” (page 81). Jones took an interest in bonds because he likes the way macroeconomic factors come into play in fixed-income markets. “These markets can be a challenge to get a handle on,” he says, “which is why I thought a column could be helpful to advisors.” John Rekenthaler Some researchers look at funds strictly from a quantitative standpoint. As a graduate of the University of Chicago MBA program, John Rekenthaler can certainly don his statistical goggles. But as the second analyst hired by Morningstar (in 1988!), Rekenthaler, who writes “Fashion Change” (page 40), spent years interviewing portfolio managers and writing about their investment strategies—and how they had fared. So when examining investment performance, he knows how to look beyond the raw numbers and place it in the context. He later edited both Morningstar Mutual Funds and Morningstar FundInvestor. After a brief “sabbatical” at Nuveen Investments, Rekenthaler returned to Morningstar and oversaw the development of Morningstar’s online investment advice business. Today, he serves as vice president of research and product development. on the fly (pardon the pun), trusting knowledge, and facing the unknown.” Stauffer uses a mix of found objects, painting, and photo collage in his illustrations. His work regularly appears in The New York Times, The Nation, and The Village Voice, among others. A 2000 cover for The Nation was named one of the “Top 40 Covers From the Past 40 Years” by the American Society of Magazine Editors. Brian Stauffer When we discussed this issue’s topics with Miami illustrator Brian Stauffer, an idea immediately came to him. “When I approached the task of creating the series of illustrations about thinking outside the box, the fragility of new ideas immediately struck me in the form of a bird,” he says. “I like the idea of freeing the mind to do the sometimes daunting task of thinking 8 Morningstar Advisor Winter 2008

Morningstar Advisor - Winter 2008

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