Helen Degener

Helen Degener is a Vice President and portfolio manager at The Mathes Company, Inc., a New York–based investment advisory firm she joined in 1999. The firm, established in 1997 and registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (CRD# 109288, SEC# 801-54747), manages discretionary portfolios for individual and institutional clients in the U.S. and abroad, spanning both traditional equity portfolios and alternative investments in private equity and hedge funds. The firm reports roughly $296 million in assets under management across about 216 clients, with eight financial advisors; it is chaired by Sorrell Mark Mathes, with Richard Charles Mathes serving as President and Chief Compliance Officer.

Degener's earlier career was in institutional trust and asset management. Public profiles indicate she was a Vice President at Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. (J.P. Morgan) from 1981 to 1994, and then a Senior Vice President at Fiduciary Trust Company International from 1994 to 1999 before moving to The Mathes Company. Aggregator records also associate her with Reservoir Investments and Mazama Capital Management.

On education, Degener received an A.B. from Lake Erie College for Women in Painesville, Ohio, in 1963. She subsequently studied at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), Worcester State College and Clark University (both Worcester, Massachusetts), and the New York University Graduate Schools of Education and of Business.

• Works as a discretionary portfolio manager rather than a venture/angel investor; her mandate is client wealth management, not founder-stage capital deployment.
• The Mathes Company's programs combine "traditional" equity portfolios with "alternative" investments — private equity and hedge funds — for taxable and non-taxable, individual and institutional accounts.
• The firm's orientation is long-horizon, relationship-driven discretionary management for high-net-worth individuals and institutions, not direct startup financing.
• No publicly stated personal "what makes me say yes" angel thesis could be found; treat any seed-stage framing in the original stub with caution.