Professor K. Geert Rouwenhorst is the Robert B. and Candice J. Haas Professor of Corporate Finance and Deputy Director of the International Financial Center at Yale School of Management. He has spent decades studying the history and mechanics of financial markets, from 18th-century Dutch mutual funds to modern commodity futures. Today, he shared that journey with our Executive MBA asset management cohort, offering a look at what it means to take academic research and turn it into something the market can use.
Rouwenhorst’s academic work laid the intellectual foundation for a seismic shift in how investors think about commodities. His landmark papers, co-authored with Gary Gorton, helped establish commodity futures as a legitimate asset class, not merely a speculative play. Their research demonstrated that commodity futures have historically offered attractive risk-adjusted returns and valuable diversification benefits, especially during inflationary periods.
But Rouwenhorst didn’t stop at publishing. He co-founded SummerHaven Index Management, a Stamford-based firm that put his research into practice. The firm’s flagship product, the SummerHaven Dynamic Commodity Index (SDCI), is built on a deceptively elegant insight: commodities with low inventories tend to outperform those with high inventories, and futures market signals like backwardation can help identify which commodities are in that scarce, high-return state. The index selects and rebalances monthly across sectors (precious metals, industrial metals, petroleum, and grains) in a disciplined, fundamentals-driven way.
What made today’s session particularly valuable was hearing Rouwenhorst reflect on the gap between having a good idea and actually building something around it. Translating peer-reviewed research into an investable index, and then into an ETF that retail and institutional investors can access, required navigating regulatory hurdles, industry skepticism, and the constant pressure to perform. It’s a reminder that entrepreneurship in finance is no different from any other domain: conviction, timing, and execution all matter.
For our EMBA cohort, the lesson went beyond commodities. Professor Rouwenhorst modeled something we don’t always see — the researcher who rolls up their sleeves and takes a bet on their own ideas. In a world that often separates theory from practice, his career is a compelling argument that the two can reinforce each other.