THE HUMAN ALGORITHM

Armina 'Arms' Rosenberg is building a digital twin of herself at Minotaur Capital, turning information into disciplined conviction.

- Riddhima Talwani writes.

When Armina 'Arms' Rosenberg first floated the idea of starting her own fund, the overwhelming advice she received was the same: don't do it. She admits the warning wasn't without reason, noting that only 2.5% of fund managers outperformed their benchmark in the 15 years to 2024 end, according to S&P Dow Jones.

But she has never been one to back down from a challenge. Raised by a single, immigrant mother in Western Sydney, she learned to face life head-on early. Growing up poor, she was determined her future would be different and credits her mother as a "real masterclass" in innovation when working with limited resources.

She had her eye on a computer game when she was young but her mother, ever resourceful, handed her an old computer with Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Excel's predecessor. What started as a workaround quickly became a fascination, and Rosenberg was hooked on the tutorials her first real dive into the world of numbers.

She went on to attend the prestigious selective Sydney Girls High School before studying commerce at the University of New South Wales.

Throughout, Rosenberg enjoyed games like Gazillionaire, where she could trade commodities with aliens in space.

"In school they had the share market competitions - which I liked but didn't do that well in them. Then they had this thing called the portfolio competition, which was about buying and holding stocks, not buying and trading them - I was way better at that game," she recalls.

After university she spent around seven years on the sell side at J.P. Morgan, building her understanding of markets and sharpening the analytical edge that would come to define her investing style.

"One of the key things that I learned at J.P. Morgan was how to analyse a balance sheet. I learned the technical foundations," she says.