Mark Mitchell

Biography

Mark Mitchell is Founding Principal at AQR Arbitrage, LLC, an investment-management firm specializing in arbitrage and based in Greenwich, CT. He returned to Chicago Booth and academia in the 2017-2018 academic year.

Prior to co-founding AQR Arbitrage (formerly, CNH Partners) in 2001, Mitchell was a finance professor at Booth (1990-1999) and Harvard Business School (1999-2003). Four of his papers received paper-of-the-year awards: Smith-Breeden Prize from Journal of Finance for “Limited Arbitrage in Equity Markets”; Merton Miller Prize from Journal of Business for “Managerial Decisions and Long-Term Stock Price Performance”; Graham and Dodd Scroll from Financial Analysts Journal for “The Value of Corporate Takeovers”; and Roger Murray Prize from Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance for “Do Bad Bidders Become Good Targets?”.

Mitchell also received five teaching awards at the University of Chicago. He is co-author of the textbook “Mergers, Restructuring and Corporate Governance.” In February 2007, Mitchell served as an emissary of the U.S. State Department to discuss MA with policymakers, business leaders, academics and reporters in Japan.

During 1996-2020, Mitchell served on the board of directors at TD-Ameritrade Holding Corporation. As a TD Ameritrade board member, he chaired four different committees at various times: Risk Committee, M&A Committee, Nominating Committee, and Special Committee. He also served on the Audit Committee, HR & Compensation Committee, Outside Independent Directors Committee, and Strategic Development Committee. Mitchell is also on the Board of Directors of CNH Finance, a specialty-finance company which provides asset-based lending to small corporations. He has also served on a handful of other private boards and creditor committees.

During 1987-1990, Mitchell worked in the Office of the Chief Economist at the SEC where he authored several research papers, worked on merger regulations, and led the development of applying financial economics to assist the SEC’s enforcement efforts in insider trading cases.

Mitchell received his Ph.D. in Applied Economics in 1987 at Clemson University; M.A. in Economics in 1983 at Clemson; B.B.A. in Economics (summa cum laude) in 1982 from the University of Louisiana (Monroe).