Executive Leadership

Michael Markov is co-founder and CEO of Markov Processes International (MPI). His work helps investment professionals understand what drives portfolio performance and risk—and apply that understanding to fund evaluation, asset allocation, and portfolio construction.

In 1992, Michael and his partner developed the first commercial application of William Sharpe’s returns-based style analysis and subsequently extended the framework to hedge funds and private investments.

A central question in Michael’s work is whether a portfolio’s estimated economic exposures and risks align with investors’ expectations. He views this as portfolio quality assurance: testing investment assumptions against portfolio behavior, particularly when strategies are complex or transparency is limited. He has also helped Madoff whistleblowers substantiate their concerns and worked with investigative journalists to identify hidden risks and inconsistencies in investment funds.

MPI’s Stylus solutions bring this research into investment teams’ daily work through adaptable tools for analysis, portfolio construction, and monitoring. Through published research and the MPI Transparency Lab, Michael and his colleagues examine performance drivers and risks that may not be apparent from reported allocations.

Michael’s research and perspectives have been covered by The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times, Institutional Investor, Pensions & Investments, and other publications. Two papers he co-authored received best academic paper awards.

Jeff joined MPI in early 2003. Prior to that, he served  as Vice President, Investments, and Vice President, Large Plan Sales, for mPower, a provider of on-line investment advice to defined contribution investors.

Jeff began his career in finance with Ibbotson Associates, where, in his six years with the firm, he served as a product development analyst, consultant and eventually as the Vice President and Director of Asset Allocation Consulting. At Ibbotson Associates, Jeff was the chief developer of Portfolio Strategist, a mean-variance optimization and historical analysis tool for financial planners, and Fund Strategist, a comprehensive book of returns-based analysis on public mutual funds.

In 1991, Mik and Michael Markov partnered to form MPI. Mik was responsible for steering the company in the direction of commercial software development. His main emphasis in programming is the overall system and user interface design. The following year, he and Michael developed the first commercially available returns-based style analysis software, which elicited a “Wow!” from Nobel Prize laureate Bill Sharpe, the academic whose work the solution was based on. Since then Mik’s break-through design ideas have become the trademark of all MPI products.

Prior to being a co-founder at MPI, Mik worked for Coopers & Lybrand (now part of PwC). Before that, Mik worked as a software engineer, designer, and entrepreneur for several Ukrainian companies. He was the author of a very popular toolbox of system utilities. But, unlike Peter Norton, Mik distributed his toolbox for free. In his spare time he writes compilers and windsurfs. Mik has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Kharkov Polytechnic University, Ukraine.

Anna joined the MPI development team in 1997. Prior to that she was a Leading Software Engineer at the Central R&D Institute for Robotics and Technical Cybernetics, St. Petersburg, Russia, which designed robots for Russian military and space programs. Anna holds an MS in Mathematics, University of St. Petersburg, Russia.

Dennis Baldi joined MPI in 2005 and serves as Chief Operating Officer, where he helps lead the firm’s business operations, strategic initiatives, and continued evolution of its investment analytics platform.

Throughout his tenure at MPI, Dennis has held several key leadership roles, most recently leading the Retail Sales division, where he was responsible for managing relationships with asset management clients distributing investment products through the advisory channel. Earlier in his career, he served as Director of Advisor Solutions, driving adoption of MPI Stylus products across key global advisor networks and helping expand MPI’s presence in the advisor market.

Dennis has played an integral role in the development and expansion of MPI’s product offerings, including Stylus Web, TDF Radar, DC Plan Level analytics, Portfolio Reviews, and the firm’s iPad application. His combination of experience, client relationships, and deep knowledge of MPI’s products and markets provides a valuable foundation for his broader leadership role.

Prior to joining MPI, Dennis worked as a financial advisor. He holds a BS in Economics from the University of Wisconsin and remains an avid Badgers fan.

Olga joined MPI in 2017, bringing extensive experience in machine learning, quantitative research, and software development. She leads initiatives that integrate advanced analytics and artificial intelligence into MPI’s investment research and product capabilities.

At MPI, Olga has contributed to developing quantitative models that help institutional investors understand portfolio performance, identify risk exposures, and bring greater transparency to complex investments, including hedge funds, private equity, and sustainable investment strategies. Her work bridges quantitative research, technology, and practical investment applications.

Prior to joining MPI, Olga developed forecasting and optimization software for banking, retail, and manufacturing industries. She also held academic positions at Moscow State University and other leading research institutions.

Olga holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Russian Academy of Sciences and has authored numerous scientific publications on machine learning and quantitative modeling.

In leading product engineering for the firm, Billy’s work spans platform development, product design and client delivery. He designed and built the analytics engine for  StylusCloud, MPI’s new cloud-native platform, which is the shared foundation for MPI’s newest products, including Allocator Web, a forward-looking asset allocation and tax-aware wealth projection tool. After joining MPI in 2011 as in Investment Analyst, Billy has also served as a Senior Analyst and then Director of Client Research.

Billy works directly with clients from requirements through rollout. He specializes in turning actual product workflow into product, from guiding major institutions as they move from desktop to cloud workflows to shaping the portfolio-level analytics that anchor MPI’s roadmap. He leads a distributed development team with an AI-enabled engineering model, pairing dedicated developers with AI agents to compress delivery timelines without sacrificing analytical rigor. Billy holds a BA in Mathematics and Statistics from Rutgers University, as well as an MS in Mathematical Finance (also from Rutgers).

Tyler joined MPI in February 2021 and leads the technology behind MPI’s cloud platform. He is responsible for the engineering, infrastructure and security of the systems that deliver Stylus analytics, reporting and data services to MPI’s clients.

Tyler first built the cloud deployment pipeline for MPI’s data platform and later managed it. As head of DevOps, he was a lead architect of the cloud platform and infrastructure that power MPI’s web tools. Tyler is passionate about automation and has brought a DevOps culture to MPI’s engineering team. Better developer tools, including AI-assisted engineering, and automated testing of every change now support more agile development and more frequent, reliable releases.

Tyler holds a BE in Engineering Management and an MS in Financial Analytics from Stevens Institute of Technology. He lives in New Jersey and likes to hike and travel in his spare time.