Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry

Latest Episodes:

EP.245 – Eva Goicochea Aug 31, 2020

Show notes

EP.245 – Eva Goicochea

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154) Aug 31, 2020

Show notes

Joel Wittenberg is the chief investment officer and vice president of W.K. Kellogg Foundation, where he has managed the foundation's $8 billion in assets since 2009. The Kellogg Foundation is guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive. In accordance with that mission, in 2007 its Board committed to be an effective anti-racist organization that promotes racial equity. Over the ensuing thirteen years, the organization has become a leader in applying research and taking effective action.

Our conversation touches on Joel's background in the fixed income markets and the application of duration and convexity to allocating capital. We then turn to his work at the Foundation fostering racial equity. We discuss the importance of open conversations about race, Kellogg's expanding equity program for majority-owned managers, emerging manager allocations and impact investments. Lastly, Joel shares his plans to broaden the expanding equity program to allocators and managers in the coming years.

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SPECIAL EPISODE – Introducing Invisible Forces Podcast Aug 27, 2020

Show notes

Today's show is an episode of another podcast called Invisible Forces. It's hosted by insiders at Jefferies, Shannon Murphy and Erin Shea, who dive into unseen influences that are dramatically changing the global economy. Season 2 looks five years into the future to understand where we'll live, how we'll live, and what we'll buy. What follows is the first episode of Season Two. I hope you enjoy this show, and I suspect you will. If you like what you hear, search for Invisible Forces anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153) Aug 24, 2020

Show notes

Shundrawn Thomas, President of Northern Trust Asset Management, where he oversees the $900 billion organization. Shundrawn joined Northern Trust Corporation in 2004 and rose to the leadership team in 2008. Over the last 8 years, he has hired and promoted much of Northern Trust Asset Management's executive team, whose fifteen members include nine women and minorities. Shundrawn is deeply involved in diversity efforts across the industry and was named one of this year's Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America and previously one of the Most Powerful Blacks on Wall Street. Our conversation covers Shundrawn's early career and issues of race, the culture that drew him into to Northern Trust, and examples of unconscious bias. We turns to his values-based methodology to foster change across recruiting, mentorship, promotion, leadership and performance at Northern Trust, and we close with his perception of how the renewed interest in diversity provides an opportunity for businesses to take action.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 2: Kim Lew – The Opportunity and Challenge (Capital Allocators, EP.152) Aug 17, 2020

Show notes

Kim Lew is the highly regarded Chief Investment Officer of Carnegie Corporation and a two-time former guest on the show. Our conversation starts with Kim's childhood and early career experience with conscious and subconscious bias. We then turn to her career as an allocator and cover the challenges and opportunities afforded by diversity across investment teams, manager selection, and running a fund. We close with a discussion of organizations supporting diversity and the challenges of making progress in a mature industry.

[REPLAY] Kim Lew – The Carnegie Way (Capital Allocators, EP.52) Aug 17, 2020

Show notes

Kim Lew is the Vice President and CIO of Carnegie Corporation, where she is responsible for the investment and oversight of the Corporation's $3.5 billion Foundation. Kim joined Carnegie in 2007 after spending a dozen years at the Ford Foundation. She is also a Trustee of Ariel Investments, the Board Chair of the Stevens Cooperative Schools, and a member of the investment committees of the Girl Scouts of America and the ACLU, and the steering committee of the Private Equity Women Investor Network. Last year, Institutional Investor awarded her Endowment & Foundation CIO of the year.

Our conversation covers the American dream story of Kim's parents, Kim's path to picking technology stocks and venture capital managers at Ford Foundation, two very different models of successful Foundation investing, blow-by-blow of the creation of an atypical Co-CIO seat at Carnegie, responsibilities that CIOs hate, idiosyncratic investments, committee meetings that foster long-term thinking, evolution of a farm team of managers, risk-taking in investing and life, and what to do when you turn 50 years old.

Learn MoreRead the Transcript Subscribe to the Capital Allocators Blog or Monthly Mailing List Don't Subscribe, but Let Us Know Who You Are Write a review on iTunes Follow Ted on twitter at @tseides Review past episodes of the Podcast

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) Aug 10, 2020

Show notes

Jake Walthour is the Co-Founder and CEO of Blueprint Capital Advisors, an alternative investment manager that advises, sources, and oversees portfolios of managers on behalf of institutional clients. Jake launched Blueprint after two decades of experience on Wall Street, including senior roles at investment consultants Aksia and Cliffwater, and at investment managers Cowen, Citadel, Moore Capital, and Morgan Stanley Asset Management. Black Enterprise Magazine recognized him as one of the Most Influence Blacks on Wall Street. Our conversation discusses Jake's path through investment banking to investment management, lessons from top alternative managers, and the business at Blueprint. Along the way, we address examples of structural and unconscious racial bias on Wall Street, points of sensitivity for Black professionals, and Blueprint's current lawsuit alleging racial discrimination. Jake's experience sheds terrific insight into some of the subtle problems causing Diversity and Inclusion challenges in finance.

Matthew Granade – Inside Data Science at Point72 (First Meeting, EP.22) Aug 03, 2020

Show notes

Matthew Granade is Chief Market Intelligence Officer at Point72 and the Managing Partner of Point72 Ventures. Matthew oversees all proprietary research and data efforts at the firm, manages several of the internal systematic strategies, leads early stage venture investing, and recently launched Hyperscale, a new strategy that invests in AI-driven startups and connects them with operating companies to build model-driven businesses. Before joining Point72, Matthew started his investment career at Bridgewater and later was a co-founder of Domino Data Lab, a business that develops systems-of-record for enterprise data science teams across industries. Our conversation covers Matthew's work optimizing the research process at Bridgewater, creating Domino Data, and leaving the company to join Point72. We turn to his tackling research and data science at Point72, blending the power of computers and humans, and overseeing Point72 ventures and Hyperscale.

Randall Stutman - Admired Leadership (Capital Allocators, EP.150) Jul 27, 2020

Show notes

Randall Stutman is founder and co-head of the Leadership Practice at CRA. and the Admired Leadership Institute. Randall is probably the top executive coach that you've never heard of before. He's spent 30 years coaching and learning about the behaviors and routines of extraordinary leaders. To give you a sense, he was worked in the White House and the Olympics, with something like 2,000 senior executives and 400 CEOs, and in our world, the most senior executives at JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Blackstone. Randall is also well known among the titans in the hedge fund community, where he's worked with many of the industry's leading funds. And he's done all of this entirely by word of mouth referral. Randall was one of the first people I asked to come on the show three years ago, and he respectfully declined – at that point in time not wanting share the uncovered behaviors that drive his work. A few months ago, he and his partners launched Admired Leadership, an online course with short videos of 100 behaviors repeated by the most talented CEOs. The course is extraordinary. It's so ridiculously good that I started sharing a link to it in my email signature as a gift to those who don't know about it. Our conversation covers Randall's path to coaching and the coaching process. We cover behaviors common among hedge fund managers, the admired leadership course, and examples across inspiring others, decision making, time management, and elevating performance. We close with Randall's thoughts on behaviors that allocators can identify in their manager research.

Taimur Hyat – After the Great Lockdown (Capital Allocators, EP.149) Jul 20, 2020

Show notes

Taimur Hyat is the Chief Operating Officer at PGIM, a $1.3 trillion asset manager across public equity and fixed income, private credit, real estate and alternative strategies. Alongside President and CEO, David Hunt, Taimur distills insights from across PGIM's portfolio teams and shares long-term views on the investment implications of global megatrends annually. Their most recent Megatrends piece, After the Great Lockdown, is the subject of our conversation. We cover Taimur's lessons from academic research in economics, management consulting, and Lehman Brothers through the financial crisis, PGIM's business, and the Megatrends series. We then turn to the latest Megatrends piece and discuss the impact of the pandemic on supply chains, inventory management, weightless firms, commercial and residential real estate, remote work, and purposeful firms. We close with a discussion of investment opportunities coming out of the pandemic. If you're as intrigued as I was, you can see all the previous Megatrends reports at pgim.com.