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William M. Daley, a former White House chief of staff, has joined an upstart hedge fund based in Switzerland in a return to the financial industry.

Mr. Daley, 65, who was a JPMorgan Chase executive before joining the Obama administration in 2011, has been named a managing partner and the head of United States operations at Argentière Capital, a Swiss hedge fund based in Zug. He will stay in Chicago.

The move is the latest career twist for Mr. Daley, who has moved between Washington and the business world over the last two decades. Having worked at big firms, including the telecommunications company that now bears the AT&T name, Mr. Daley said he was looking forward to life at a start-up.

"I figured the next thing I wanted to do was get into something that had the potential to grow, and be part of building something," he said in an interview on Thursday.

His move lends credibility to the hedge fund while underscoring the growing clout of hedge funds in the financial world. Argentière Capital was founded in June by Deepak Gulati, a trader who left his job at JPMorgan as the bank sought to comply with the Volcker Rule, which limits banks' ability to bet with their own money.

Mr. Gulati, formerly the global head of equity proprietary trading at JPMorgan, brought a team from the bank to set up the hedge fund, which has $500 million in assets under management. Mr. Daley will help the firm build a presence in the United States.

"The expertise and the experience that Bill has is the real asset for what we do," Mr. Gulati said. "It gives us a far better understanding of the world."

Mr. Daley's new job was reported earlier by The Chicago Tribune.

Mr. Daley has spent his career at the intersection of government and business. He served as commerce secretary in the Clinton administration for three years, after working as a lawyer and as president of the Amalgamated Bank of Chicago.

He joined JPMorgan as the bank's Midwest chairman in 2004, after a period in telecommunications, and was later named the head of corporate responsibility, a role in which he oversaw JPMorgan's lobbying efforts.

He spent just one year in the White House, resigning in 2012 amid a rare shake-up. In Washington's ferociously partisan atmosphere, Mr. Daley struggled to find his footing, The New York Times reported at the time.

A member of a prominent political family in Chicago, Mr. Daley began campaigning last summer for governor of Illinois. But he abandoned the effort in the fall, saying he did not feel comfortable with the idea.

Earlier this year, he was introduced to Mr. Gulati through James E. Staley, a former head of investment banking at JPMorgan who now works at another hedge fund, BlueMountain Capital Management. Mr. Staley and Mr. Daley had both been on JPMorgan's operating committee.

"I was talking to Bill about whether he wanted to do something entrepreneurial," Mr. Staley, who is known as Jes, said on Thursday. "I think he's going to have a lot of fun learning the buy side."

Arlene Busch
312-498-9595
abusch@contegocapital.com<mailto:abusch@contegocapital.com