Diego Franzin

Co-Founder and Senior Portfolio Manager / Head of Portfolio Strategies

Diego Franzin is a co-founder of Plenisfer Investments Management, Senior Portfolio Manager, member of the Management Committee, a board director of the Luxembourg SICAV and Head of Portfolio Strategies at the firm. Prior to the establishment of Plenisfer Investments, Diego was Global Equity CIO at Amundi (previously Pioneer Investments) where he led a team of 100 investment professionals globally and oversaw 70 billion Euro in AUM. He was a member of the Global Investment Committee and a director of a number of the firms’ entities.

Beginning his career as a quantitative analyst in 1998, he became Head of Global Quantitative Research, Head of Equities and then CIO of the Equity Business Line. As Equity CIO, he was responsible for the development and growth of the Equity Business Line. His teams managed long only, market neutral, flexible equity, ESG and equity target income products. The largest element of AUM under his responsibility was the successful European Equity franchise which was considered top 3 in its category.

During his time as Head of Global Quantitative Research, he oversaw Portfolio Construction, which integrated risk budgeting and behavioural analysis into the investment processes across all asset classes. He was Lead PM of Pioneer US Select Value and US Select Growth “quantamental” funds until December 2008 and, more recently, Lead PM of Pioneer European Equity Research fund with over 1.5 billion Euro AUM.

Diego holds a degree in Economics from the University of Pavia with specialisation in Artificial Intelligence and is a graduate of the Program for Leadership Development (PLD5) at Harvard Business School. He loves reading and is an enthusiast of ‘slow’ running. After 20 years spent abroad (USA and Ireland), he now lives in Milan with his wife and two daughters.