Executive Leadership

Founder & Managing Partner

Rudy
Sahay

Rudy Sahay is the Founder and Managing Partner of Aquarian Holdings and Chairman of Investors Heritage Life Insurance Company. He is also Co-Founder of 54 Madison Partners, a real-estate private equity investment firm. He was a founding member of the principal investments group and real-estate private equity group at Guggenheim Partners. He also served as Co-Head of Guggenheim’s venture-capital and growth-equity investment platform.

Mr. Sahay joined Guggenheim from private equity firm H.I.G. Capital. He served as an adviser on emerging-markets investments to Albright Capital Management, the private investment fund of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and as an investment professional at Jupiter Partners, a middle-market private equity firm. He began his career as a consultant for The Boston Consulting Group.

He earned an M.B.A., with honors, from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an A.B., cum laude, from Harvard University.

General Counsel

Ben
Goodman

Ben Goodman is the General Counsel of Aquarian Holdings. Mr. Goodman is an experienced corporate finance attorney and was previously a Senior Managing Director and Head of Legal Transactions at Guggenheim Partners. He started his career as a securities and corporate lawyer at Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York and Ballard Spahr in Philadelphia. He earned a J.D. from William & Mary Law School and a B.A. in Classical Studies from the College of William & Mary.

Chief Accounting Officer

Brian
Cook

Brian Cook is the Chief Accounting Officer at Aquarian Holdings. Prior to joining Aquarian, Mr. Cook was Controller at Investcorp. He served as Manager of Global Fund Accounting at GSO Capital Partners (Now Blackstone Credit and Insurance), Fund Accountant at Och-Ziff Capital Management, and Senior Associate in Financial Services and Business Advisory Services at Rothstein Kass (Now KPMG). He began his career as an analyst at Huron Consulting Group.  

He is a Certified Public Accountant and earned his M.A. in Taxation and B.S. in Accounting from the University of Albany.

Chief Human Resources Officer

Hope
Cooper

Hope Cooper serves as the Chief Human Resources Officer at Aquarian Holdings, where she is responsible for managing the company’s talent and its development. Prior to joining Aquarian, Ms. Cooper served as Chief Human Resources Officer at safeXai. She had previously served as Vice President of Human Resources at Genpact, Head of Human Resources at Bridgewater Associates, and a Managing Director at UBS. She has also spent several years in public service, serving as Chief Executive Officer for the State of New Jersey Civil Service Commission.  She began her career as a lawyer, serving as a Litigation Associate at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP.

Ms. Cooper earned her B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, her M.A. from New York University, and her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law.

Chief Financial Officer

Jagan Pisharath

Jagan Pisharath serves as the Chief Financial Officer at Aquarian Holdings. Mr. Pisharath previously served as a Research Analyst at Point72 Asset Management, focused on public equities. He was also a private equity investment professional at H.I.G. Capital, a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group, and began his career at Citi Investment Banking.

He earned an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Rutgers University.

Operating Partner

John Frye

John Frye is an Operating Partner at Aquarian Holdings. Mr. Frye previously served as Chief Strategy Officer at Advisors Excel, a leading insurance marketing firm. He served as Chief Financial Officer at Security Benefit and its life insurance subsidiaries. Mr. Frye began his career with General Electric, where he spent 20 years in numerous senior positions at GE Capital, the company’s financial services business. He served as Chief Financial Officer for both the GE Employers Reassurance Business – a $25 billion life and health insurance business – and GE’s commercial insurance business, responsible for covering medical, municipal, special lines and catastrophic risk, as well as GE’s European fleet leasing business. 

He earned a B.A. in Finance from Michigan State University.

Head of Client Services

Kristen
Dickey

Kristen Dickey is the Head of Client Services at Aquarian Holdings. Prior to joining Aquarian, Ms. Dickey was Non-Executive Director at Somerset Reinsurance. Prior to that, she served as a Managing Director at BlackRock in various senior roles including Global Head of Financial Institutions Group, Global Head of Investor Relations, and Global Head of Equity Index Product Strategy. She is on the boards of several companies, including Aperture Investors and Marstone, and is a member of the board of trustees at BNY Mellon.

Ms. Dickey earned her MBA from the Anderson School of Business at the University of California, Los Angeles, and her BA from Pitzer College.

Chief Operations Officer

Sasha
Sanyal

Sasha Sanyal is the Chief Operations Officer at Aquarian Holdings. Prior to joining Aquarian, Ms. Sanyal acted as Business Leader of Financial Services in the Americas at Microsoft. Prior to that, she spent 19 years at Genpact in various senior roles including Global Business Leader of Insurance, Global Leader of DEI & CSR, and Chief Strategy and Operations Officer. She started her career as a consultant at E&Y.

Ms. Sanyal earned her BS from Southern Methodist University.