About

Private Equity Approach to Public Market Investing: We believe asset managers should act as owners, not traders.

Kirtland Hills Capital Management, LLC is an SEC-registered investment management firm headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio and founded in 2015 by Naval Officer James Paul Luthardt, who serves as CEO/CIO and oversees all investment activity. The firm’s investment strategy was created by the founder in 2008 within an 80-billion-dollar Wall Street Private Client Group. The firm’s investment strategy was spun out in 2015 and initially functioned as a family office to provide the founder’s family and select investors industry-leading investment management. Today, Kirtland Hills works with a select group of family offices, corporate executives, business owners, high-net-worth families, and professional athletes. In addition, Kirtland Hills Capital has emerged as a leading data science and quantitative asset management consultant for family offices looking to leverage cutting-edge technology, quantitative tools, and bespoke investment research.

We are long-term public equity investors who combine advanced quantitative tools with qualitative integration to achieve superior returns. Since our inception, we have employed a research-intensive, long-term-focused investment approach. Our goals are capital preservation, above-average returns over full market cycles, and low correlation to the markets.

We seek to achieve exceptional risk-adjusted returns through a combination of macroeconomic analysis, fundamental research, and quantitative tools. Kirtland Hills Capital employs top-down, macroeconomic analysis to identify durable, secular changes not reflected in asset prices. We conduct fundamental research in an attempt to identify individual public securities that are trading at a margin of safety to their intrinsic value. Finally, the firm employs quantitative tools to construct portfolios aimed at delivering returns within specific risk, return, and liquidity targets. The objective of our investment process is to identify the small number of companies that we believe have the ability to grow shareholder value at exceptionally high rates for long periods of time.

The firm’s mission is to invest on a multi-decade time horizon and provide sustainable alpha-generating returns that allow clients to comfortably meet their long-term obligations.

Leadership

JAMES PAUL LUTHARDT
Founder & Chief Investment Officer

James is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer who oversees all investment activity of Kirtland Hills Capital. James has been recognized as a disruptor in the Wall Street community for his use of big data, development of machine-learning algorithms, and use of quantitative tools for investment management for some of the wealthiest families in the country.

James was previously the Director of Research for one of the country’s wealthiest families dating back to the mid-1800s. In addition to that role, James led the portfolio management research for a boutique investment management firm whose fund (GIPS) was ranked in their peer group’s top percentile on Wall Street for over a decade until the firm was sold in 2019.

In 2016, James was one of 15 Direct Commission Naval Officers appointed and commissioned by President Barack Obama to utilize his civilian skillsets for the Department of Defense. James currently serves as a Lieutenant in the Navy Reserves as a Special Projects Officer.

James started his career for an 80-billion-dollar Wall Street Private Client Group, where he was a buy-side analyst responsible for third-party manager selection and monitoring activities such as screening, developing selection models, and interviewing investment management teams. In addition, James served as a portfolio manager, running separately-managed accounts for high-net-worth families.

James has a Bachelor of Science in Finance and holds a Master of Science in Quantitative Finance from Case Western Reserve University.

 

ZACHARY PAUL
Chief Data Officer; Data, Technology and Quantitative Research

Zachary leads the teams that oversee investment and portfolio management research, advanced analytics, and technology for Kirtland Hills Capital. In addition to that role, Zachary leads the data and analytics engineering teams at a top 50 producing software company and is an advisor for several modern technology and AI startups. Prior to his current roles, Zachary worked as a senior data scientist for a leading data analytics consulting firm, providing complex data solutions to large financial institutions.

Zachary holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and holds a Master of Science in Quantitative Finance and Big Data from Case Western Reserve University.

 

DONTE WHITNER
Donte is an 11-year NFL veteran, as well as a 3x pro-bowler, who was 8th overall pick in the 2006 NFL draft. Donte is a television broadcaster and analyst for the NFL, an investor, and former NFLPA President of the Orange County Chapter. He sits on the advisory board of several organizations helping athletes understand the importance of financial literacy.

Donte studied business at The Ohio State University, where he was an All-American on the football team.

Family Office and Consulting Services

Family Offices:
At Kirtland Hills Capital, we have aligned our principles and research capabilities to become a premier investment research, portfolio management, and data consulting firm for family offices and high-net-worth families. Our investment and data analytics team has not only worked alongside prominent family offices but has also collaborated on projects with well-known quantitative institutional investment firms, endowment funds, foundations, professional athlete agencies, professional sports teams, and tech startups.

Our family office portfolio management services are centered around building customized public equity portfolios by combining advanced quantitative tools with qualitative integration in order to achieve superior capital appreciation and compounding passive income growth. Our investment team has experience working with family offices on designing, engineering, and implementing advanced dividend-growth and public-growth strategies that complement other advisors and/or investment strategies to achieve optimal factor exposure targets and performance goals.

Investment and Data Consulting Services:
Our investment and data consulting services are split into two areas: 1) institutional quality investment research and 2) enterprise data strategy & cloud technology services.

Institutional Quality Investment Research and Benchmarking Analysis:
Our goal is to provide best-in-class quantitative due diligence for family offices and high-net-worth families. Through advanced institutional-quality research and benchmarking analysis, we keep our clients’ advisors accountable in terms of performance, fee structure, and active share. Our research is objective, unbiased, and transparent.

At Kirtland Hills Capital, we are utilizing proprietary, cutting-edge machine-learning/AI and technology to answer these important questions accurately and transparently. Here’s how:

  1. Portfolio Asset Allocation Breakdown
  2. Correlation Analysis
  3. Portfolio Cloning Process
  4. Asset-Reallocation Analysis

As an investor, you should have as your highest priority keeping your team of advisors accountable. The following three questions should always be considered:

  1. Is your portfolio properly diversified?
  2. Are you paying an appropriate level of active management and expense ratio fees for your portfolio?
  3. Do you fully understand the risk—and therefore expected returns—associated with your portfolio composition?

Data Analytics Strategy and Managed Cloud Technology Services:
We also provide enterprise data strategy, data management, visualization, and managed cloud services to investment management firms, endowments, pensions, foundations, and family offices of all sizes to allow them to make smarter, data-driven decisions. We use modern cloud technology to automate costly manual tasks, store and analyze data, and build secure, client-facing analytics platforms.

Professional Athletes

Kirtland Hills Capital works with a very select group of elite professional athletes. Our goal is to assist professional athletes in turning earned income into passive income and build an income stream to support them during their lifetime and build multi-generational wealth for future generations. Our team has created a very customized and financially-engineered process that utilizes our unique human capital to help distinguished professional athletes articulate their passions, manage complex financial responsibilities, and harness wealth to build a family tree to flourish for many generations.

Careers

Kirtland Hills Capital is currently hiring:
Quantitative Analyst / Big Data Scientist

We are looking for a Quantitative Research Analyst who can develop and test highly quantitative investment strategies and investment data using sophisticated quantitative/statistical techniques.

Key Responsibilities

  • Interpret valuations and develop advanced models and analytics
  • Evaluate financial data vendors
  • Evaluate new data sources and analytics packages in developing/testing investment strategies and investment data
  • Provide high-level technical and investment analytics support for investment decisions
  • Conceptualize valuation strategies
  • Develop and continuously improve upon mathematical models and help translate algorithms into code [CS1]

Skillset Requirements

  • PhD in Statistics or equivalent credentials in Computer Science, Mathematics, IEOR, Economics, or a related field
  • Prior experience in a quantitative role or position applying advanced quantitative techniques to highly complex data-intensive problems. Demonstrated ability to complete high-level, investment-related research
  • Strong analytical skills; experience working with and analyzing large datasets
  • Strong mathematical and statistical modeling skills (i.e. time-series and cross-sectional skills)
  • Proficiency in coding, with experience using statistical packages (e.g. R, Matlab)
  • Familiarity with scripting (e.g. Python, Perl)
Contact

For general investment inquiries and interested media, please contact:
[email protected]

Kirtland Hills Capital is an SEC-registered asset management firm that custodians all of its assets with Charles Schwab Institutional Wealth Services. More information regarding this firm and its investment professionals can be found on FORM ADV, FORM CRS, FINRA BROKERCHECK.

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