How Dan Chung Rebuilt Alger Management After Losing 35 on 9/11
Dan Chung survived 9/11 by chance and rebuilt Fred Alger Management after the attack killed 35 staffers. He's still picking winners today.
Dan Chung didn't plan to rebuild a firm from rubble. He just survived when others didn't. As CEO and chief investment officer of Fred Alger Management, Chung was spared by chance on September 11 while 35 of his colleagues were not. That's the kind of starting point that would break most people — or most organizations.
Instead, Chung took on the reconstruction. Thirty-five staffers gone in a single morning. The institutional knowledge, the relationships, the daily rhythm of a functioning investment shop — all of it shattered. Rebuilding wasn't just an operational challenge. It was a human one, and Chung had to lead through grief while keeping the firm alive for clients who still needed their money managed.
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What's striking is that Alger didn't just survive — it endured well enough that Chung is still at the helm decades later, still doing the core work of finding market winners. That kind of continuity after catastrophic loss says something real about leadership under pressure. It also says something about the firm's investment culture, which clearly outlasted the worst day in its history.
For retail traders, the Alger story is a reminder that the best long-term managers aren't just quant jockeys or momentum chasers — they're operators who can hold an organization together when everything goes sideways. The ability to keep a clear investment thesis intact through chaos is exactly the skill that separates durable funds from flashes in the pan. Chung's longevity in the seat is itself a signal worth paying attention to.
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