Russel Kinnel

Russel Kinnel is director of manager research for Morningstar Research Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. He heads the North American Morningstar Analyst Ratings Committees, which vet the Morningstar Analyst Rating™ for funds. He is the editor of Morningstar FundInvestor, a monthly newsletter, and has published a number of prominent studies of the fund industry covering subjects such as manager investment, expenses, and investor returns. Follow Russ on Twitter: @RussKinnel

He also writes the Fund Spy column for Morningstar.com, the company’s investment website, and authored the book Fund Spy: Morningstar’s Inside Secrets to Selecting Mutual Funds That Outperform, published in 2009.

Since joining Morningstar in 1994, Kinnel has analyzed virtually every type of fund and has covered the most prominent fund families, including Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, and Vanguard. He has led studies on the predictive power of fund data and helped develop the Morningstar Rating for funds and the Morningstar Style Box methodology. He is also co-author of the company’s first book, The Morningstar Guide to Mutual Funds: 5-Star Strategies for Success (Wiley, 2003).

Kinnel holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and journalism from the University of Wisconsin.