Michael W. Vranos is an American hedge fund manager and philanthropist who in the 1990s was referred to by some as the "most powerful man on Wall Street.

"[4] Vranos headed collateralized mortgage obligation (CMO) trading in the early 1990s at Kidder Peabody at a time when that firm dominated the marketplace.

[3] Seizing the opportunity created by a bear market, he left to start his own firm, Ellington Management Group, in late 1994.

[5] In spite of being affected by fall-out from the Long-Term Capital Management debacle in 1998,[6] as of April 2004, Ellington had delivered a composite annualized return of 15.4%, after fees.

[10] Mr. Vranos earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics from Harvard University in 1983 with both magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors.

[17] During this period, Vranos was highly praised by Jack Welch, chairman of Kidder Peabody’s parent company, General Electric, for his handling of the bear market.

[6] It clarified that although it was meeting margin calls by unloading hundreds of millions of dollars in assets over a two-day period, losses were limited.

[21] One report suggests some of his hedge funds may have temporarily lost around 25% of their value as he liquidated $2 billion in assets[22] after allegedly missing a margin call from UBS.

[27] In October 2007, as the future credit performance of residential mortgages became increasingly uncertain, one of his funds is reported to have fallen in value by 22%[4] and to have temporarily suspended redemptions pending greater clarity around valuations.

[22] In 2014 Vranos opened an office for Ellington Management in London, England in order to expand into the European market.

[32] Ellington Residential Mortgage REIT, chaired and founded by Vranos, went public on the NYSE after its IPO in late 2013, trading under the ticker symbol EARN.

"[11] In December 2022, the Vranos Family Foundation provided a grant to Harvard University researchers to study brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases.

[41][42] The five-year grant will provide support for investigators across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) to challenge the concept that functional decline associated with aging is irreversible.