About VELA
Long-Term, Valuation-Centric Investing
At VELA, we are dedicated to helping our clients achieve long-term financial wellbeing. Our valuation-centric investment philosophy and close attention to client needs set us apart.
Built on Experience and Alignment with Clients’ Interests
VELA was founded in 2019 by Ric Dillon, CFA, Lisa Wesolek, and Jason Job, CFA. Together, they bring more than 90 years of combined investment experience to VELA. Our founders believed vertically integrated wealth and asset management services and a strong grounding in a valuation-centric investment philosophy would uniquely enable our firm to meet our goal of delivering long-term results for our clients.
Our clients are at the heart of everything we do. Our team brings decades of experience navigating different economic environments and guiding clients to achieve their long-term objectives. Additionally, we place our individual wealth alongside your wealth by investing in the same strategies, thus aligning our interests with yours. Your success is our success.
Our Mission
Our primary goal is to deliver long-term results for our clients, in a consistent and transparent manner. We accomplish this through experienced investors employing a valuation-centric approach with a long-term temperament and aligning our interests with those of our clients. The first letter of each of these values forms the name of our firm: VELA.
Valuation-Centric:
We apply a rigorous research process to understand and value businesses. We invest when the price we can pay offers an attractive risk-adjusted expected return based on our estimate of intrinsic value.
Experienced Investors:
We know that quality experience lends perspective, prudence, and conviction to investment decisions. We leverage substantial individual and collective experience to serve our clients with distinction, and work to cultivate it in our associates.
Long-Term Temperament:
We adhere to a long-term time horizon with both our investment decisions and the management of our firm. Our commitment to maintaining a long-term horizon enhances our potential to buy good businesses at compelling valuations and generate attractive long-term results for our clients.
Alignment of Interests:
Our clients are our partners. We reinforce our solid belief in our client-focused strategies by placing our individual wealth alongside that of our clients.
The Story Behind Our Name
The original inspiration for our name comes from Vela (pronounced “vee-luh”), a constellation in the southern sky whose name is Latin for the sails of a ship. Vela was originally part of a larger constellation, the ship Argo Navis, which was one of the 48 classical constellations first listed in the 2nd century. This historical connection further parallels our time-honored investment approach.