ASGARD Partners & Co., an investment firm based in New York, announced the hire of Tina Pham as its Director of Business Development for its Private Equity Group. With the addition of Pham to the investment team, the firm significantly expands its deal sourcing and capital raising capabilities in anticipation of increasing private equity opportunities in 2018.

Prior to joining ASGARD, Pham served as Vice President at The Blackstone Group LP within the Hedge Fund Solutions (BAAM) group where she was primarily responsible for managing the investment process of deploying institutional client capital to hedge fund managers, determining asset allocation, and portfolio construction on behalf of limited partners. During her time at Blackstone, Pham also played a key role in the development of the special situations co-investment platform, where institutional clients were able to invest alongside hedge fund managers in direct investments underwritten by the Blackstone team. Prior to joining Blackstone, Ms. Pham was an analyst on the securitization team at Deloitte, focused on mortgage-backed securities. Ms. Pham graduated from Boston College with a Bachelor of Science in Finance.

"We are excited to welcome Tina to the team," said Karan Rai, Founder and Managing Partner of ASGARD. "Tina brings sophisticated experience understanding both investments and institutional investors and will immediately add value to our deal sourcing capabilities and capital relationships."

"I am both honored and excited to join ASGARD in its early stages. The team has strong capabilities in the verticals in which they operate. I hope to leverage my experience to help build the firm's relationships, lead the business development effort, and contribute to the overall success of the firm," said Pham.

"With the number of companies and opportunities in the market today, it is critical to have a thoughtful sourcing competency that is not only resourceful about uncovering opportunities, but also well equipped to screen these opportunities for our specific investment criteria and most importantly for the quality of the deal. Tina is exceptionally skilled at all of the above and we're looking forward to having her as part of the team," said Christian Cantalupo, Partner at ASGARD.