Dr. Bernhard Scherer

Dr. Bernhard (Bernd) Scherer is Head of Quantitative Portfolio Management at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and serves as Chair of the CIMAS Academic Council at Respada Academy. He is a globally recognized authority in quantitative asset management, portfolio construction, and institutional investment strategy, with a distinguished career spanning sovereign wealth funds, global asset managers, investment banks, and academia.

At ADIA, Dr. Scherer leads quantitative portfolio management across multi-asset strategies, bringing deep expertise in factor investing, tactical asset allocation, risk budgeting, and advanced portfolio construction for large-scale institutional capital.

Prior to joining ADIA, Dr. Scherer was Chief Investment Officer and Executive Board Member at LBBW Asset Management, where he oversaw approximately €110 billion in assets under management. In this role, he was responsible for firm-wide investment strategy, quantitative research, and portfolio management across public markets.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Scherer held senior leadership roles at leading global investment banks. He served as Managing Director at Morgan Stanley in London, and previously as Managing Director at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and New York, where he led quantitative tactical asset allocation strategies, factor-based investing, and institutional portfolio solutions. He also served as Deutsche Bank Chair for Sovereign Wealth Funds at EDHEC, reinforcing the bridge between academic research and sovereign institutional practice.

Dr. Scherer is a former Professor of Finance at EDHEC Business School, where he taught and conducted research in asset pricing, machine learning, portfolio construction, and risk management. He remains deeply engaged in academic governance and research dissemination. He has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles in leading academic and practitioner journals and has been recognized twice with the EDHEC–Risk Institute (EQD) Best Paper Award.

Dr. Scherer’s research bridges institutional governance and advanced quantitative implementation. In “Optimal Design of Investment Committees”, he examines how committee structure, incentives, and decision rules affect portfolio outcomes, while “Trust Me, I Am a Robo-Advisor” explores the role of algorithms, transparency, and behavioral trust in the adoption of automated investment advice.

He is an Editorial Board Member of the Financial Analysts Journal and the Journal of Asset Management, and serves as an Advisory Board Member of the EDHEC PhD in Finance Program. His academic contributions have had significant influence on both scholarly research and institutional investment practice.

Dr. Scherer is the author or co-author of five books on quantitative asset management, widely regarded as foundational texts for institutional investors, researchers, and practitioners.

Through his roles at ADIA, CIMAS (Respada Academy), Dr. Scherer continues to shape the intellectual framework underpinning modern quantitative investing, sovereign wealth fund portfolio construction, and the next generation of institutional investment leadership.