Alamar Capital

George Tharakan, CFA, serves as Chief Investment Officer and co-founder, leading investment decisions. He was previously Director of Research at Santa Barbara Asset Management, where he helped manage over $4 billion. Tharakan holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson and an MS in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois.

Yes, Alamar is a registered investment advisor and explicitly operates under a fiduciary standard, which legally requires it to act solely in clients' best interests. This contrasts with broker-dealers who operate under a less stringent suitability standard. The firm has also adopted the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct.

The co-founders make meaningful personal investments in every strategy they manage, creating direct economic alignment. Alamar states this co-investment approach is essential to its philosophy. The firm also uses large global banks as custodians to provide independent third-party reporting on client assets.

George Tharakan and L. John Murphy, CFA, co-founded the firm after careers at Santa Barbara Asset Management. Tharakan was Director of Research there, with earlier engineering experience at Intel. Murphy was a Principal and Managing Director, having begun his investment career at Canterbury Consulting.

Alamar serves both select families and institutional investors, providing customized investment management and advisory solutions. Its team's prior experience managing over $4 billion in institutional assets at Santa Barbara Asset Management underpins the firm's approach to serving both client types.