Anjelina Belakovskaia

Anjelina Belakovskaia is a Senior Lecturer in Global Finance at Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University. She has been teaching at Thunderbird since January of 2016. Ms. Belakovskaia was also a Senior Finance Lecturer at the Eller College of Management, University of Arizona, where she taught undergraduate, graduate and MBA students between 2011 and 2021. Anjelina's expertise lies in the area of risk management and financial derivatives. Over the last 25 years, Anjelina has been involved in trading of Foreign Exchange, equities, weather and exotic derivatives and cryptocurrencies. As a weather derivatives trader and Head of the weather desk at Williams Energy, she was one of the pioneers, who introduced new dual-trigger weather-gas and weather-power options, developing important cutting-edge risk management solutions for utilities and other end users. In 2002, Anjelina was recognized as one of the “Best Female Employees” for her contributions to the company. 

For the last 10.5 years, Anjelina has been sharing her expertise and passion with the students. She is currently teaching "Global Financial Engineering" and "Principles of Finance for Global Organizations" classes, while her overall teaching portfolio also includes "Risk Management and Derivatives", "Advanced Risk Management & Derivatives", "Applied Risk Management", "Fixed Income" and "Chess, Leadership and Business Strategy" classes. In 2016 and 2017, Belakovskaia also served as a Faculty Advisor to Eller College MBA students in their Experiential Learning 16-week programs, working with government organizations and national and International corporations. In 2016, Anjelina was a recipient of Undergraduate Course Innovation Grant and in 2017, she received an APAC Professional Development Reimbursement Award that supported her participation at the 2017 AMS Washington Forum, where she was both - a moderator and a presenter. In addition to teaching, Anjelina helps students with interview preparation, career path selection and related topics. She also encourages participation and guides students through various trading challenges and competitions, with one group of her students advancing to the Final round of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Trading Challenge in 2016.  

Belakovskaia earned her master’s in Mathematics in Finance from New York University in 2001. Prior to that, Belakovskaia earned a Bachelor’s in Economics from Odessa State Agrarian University in Ukraine. She graduated in 1990 and spent a few years on postgraduate work on Ph.D. in 1990-1991 in Ukraine. 

For many years, Anjelina was a Professional Chess Player, member of the US Olympic Women’s Chess Team (1991-2000). She achieved the highest chess title – Woman International Grandmaster (1993). In 2000, Belakovskaia was honored by the President of Brooklyn, City of New York for superlative chess and leadership skills and overall outstanding achievements. Since 2010, Anjelina has run the Belakovskaia Chess Academy for children in K-12, to share her exceptional knowledge and accomplishments as a 3-time US Women’s Chess Champion. 

As Chess and Weather Risk Management continue to be her two passions, Belakovskaia is actively involved in both areas, having served 3 years as a Member-At-Large on the Executive Board of the US Chess Federation (2015-2018) and being a member of Financial Weather / Climate Risk Management Committee of American Meteorological Society (AMS) since its inception. In 2020, she received the AMS award for her contributions and dedication. 

In July of 2021, Belakovskaia moved from Tucson to Phoenix, AZ, with her husband and 2 school-age children, while her oldest son is currently a freshman at the University of Arizona, Honors College. In her spare time, Anjelina loves to travel, exploring different cultures, architecture, languages, customs and food. Native Russian speaker, she grew up in the USSR and so far has visited 44 countries, traveling extensively for chess tournaments and business