Kara Tan Bhala is Chief Executive Officer of Seven Pillars Consulting, LLC., an Asian financial markets consulting firm. From 1992-2001, Kara was Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager of the Merrill Lynch Dragon Fund. She is also a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and England’s Royal Society for Asian Affairs.

As the head of the Dragon Fund, Kara was responsible for managing nearly $1 billion on behalf of about 50,000 shareholders around the world. At the height of its assets, the Dragon Fund was the second largest Asia (ex-Japan) fund in the world. The Dragon Fund was dedicated to the Far East (excluding Japan). Thus, Kara traveled many times to, and worked extensively in, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and China. She also worked in India and Turkey. In 1993, the Dragon Fund Dragon Portfolio won the Micropal Award for being the third best performing fund in a group of 177 offshore funds in the Global Mixed Sector. Kara also managed a US$300 million closed-end South-East Asian fund called the Emerging Tigers Fund. In total, Kara has managed US$2 billion in funds invested in Asia (ex-Japan) for Merrill Lynch.

Kara is fluent in Cantonese, Malay, and Indonesian, and conversant in Mandarin. She has published articles on Asian investment in the Far Eastern Economic Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The Financier, and the Journal of the Royal Society of Asian Affairs, and a chapter in the widely acclaimed The Handbook of Portfolio Management. She also has appeared on television many times, including on Adam Smith’s widely-watched program, Money World. Kara was the first woman invited to be the keynote speaker at the Annual General Meeting of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.

Before joining Merrill Lynch in 1992, Kara was the Vice President, Institutional Investments, for Fiduciary Trust International, a New York City money management company. There, she managed the Pacific Rim (excluding Japan) investments in various mutual funds. She also managed the $450 million portion of the $10 billion United Nations Pension Fund devoted to Southeast Asia. From 1986-90, Kara worked at James Capel, Inc., the securities subsidiary of the Hong Kong-Shanghai Banking Corporation. At Capel’s New York office from 1988-90, Kara worked as a Vice President for Far East equity institutional sales. At Capel’s Singapore office from 1986-88, Kara was a Senior Investment Analyst, where she specialized in the Singaporean and Malaysian economies and stock markets.

Kara received her Masters degree in Philosophy from the University of Kansas. Her master’s thesis was on Aristotle’s concept of practical wisdom. She did graduate work in Philosophy at Catholic University, completing courses on Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Aquinas. She is currently working on her doctorate in Philosophy at the University of Kansas.

Kara received a Masters degree in Management from Oxford University. There, she wrote her thesis on marketing strategies for declining industries and using Britain’s door-step milk delivery industry as a case study. While at Oxford, she was awarded an Overseas Research Scheme Scholarship by the British Government for academic excellence.

Kara earned a Master’s degree in Liberal Studies from New York University, where she specialized in philosophy and wrote her thesis on Nietzsche’s concept of the heroic man. Kara obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Systems and Management, with honors, from the City University of London. Kara attended high school in her hometown of Johor Bahru, Malaysia, at the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus.

Kara lives in Kansas with her husband, Raj, an international law professor at The University of Kansas, and their daughter Shera.