Mr. Balls is a managing director in the London office, a member of the Investment Committee and head of European portfolio management. (He leads PIMCO's European investment team, which is based in London and Munich, and manages European and global portfolios.) Mr. Balls was previously a global portfolio manager in Newport Beach and the firm's global strategist. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2006, he spent eight years at the Financial Times, most recently as editor of the U.S. Lex column and as chief economics correspondent in Washington, D.C. He has 11 years of investment and financial market experience and holds a bachelor's degree from Oxford and a master's degree from Harvard University. He was a lecturer in economics at Keble College, Oxford.