Berna Barshay is a seasoned investor with three decades of experience in the capital markets and domain expertise in the consumer sector, with particular depth in industries including retail, e-commerce, traditional and digital media, gaming/lodging/leisure, and CPG.

Berna authors a Substack on investing called Consumer/Culture/Commerce under the handle @HedgeFundGirl. She has also been a research contributor to the Public investing app and conducts primary research in Consumer and TMT stocks as a consultant.

From 2020-2022, Berna worked at Empire Financial Research, a division of MarketWise, which provided investment research to retail investors. There she authored Empire Financial Daily, a free newsletter covering a variety of financial and investment-related topics, which she grew to over 200,000 subscribers. Additionally, she selected stock ideas for three of Empire’s premium, paid investment newsletters.

Prior to Empire, Berna worked for over 20 years on Wall Street as an institutional investor. Berna was most recently a Senior Analyst and Partner at Sky Zone Capital, a startup long-short equity fund focused on the European Consumer sector. Prior to Sky Zone, Berna researched and selected investments at several other funds and platforms, including Metropolitan Capital, Buckingham Capital, Swiss Re, and LaGrange Capital Partners. Earlier in her career, Berna was the Founder and Portfolio Manager of the Ingleside Select Fund.  

Berna began her hedge fund career as a generalist focused on special situations but devoted her last decade on Wall Street to the Consumer and TMT sectors.

Berna started her investing career at Sanford C. Bernstein, and began her Wall Street career at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where she worked on the Equity Derivatives Trading desk.  

Berna has also worked with several early-stage to late-stage startups as an outsourced CFO and consultant and was the lead finance executive for a Series A fintech startup.

Berna graduated with honors from Princeton University and received her MBA from Harvard Business School. She lives in New York City with her husband, daughter, and their three rescue dogs.