Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry

[REPLAY] André Perold – Academic Practitioner (Capital Allocators, EP.02)

Dec 21, 2020

André Perold, Chief Investment Officer at HighVista Strategies and a legendary finance professor at Harvard, shares his wealth of knowledge on investment strategies. He dives into the active vs. passive investment debate, emphasizing risk management and client needs. The conversation also covers the importance of adapting talent strategies in a competitive market. André reflects on his teaching experiences, revealing the significance of engagement in finance education. He lightens the mood with anecdotes about golf, showcasing both the challenges of the sport and valuable life lessons.

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ANECDOTE

Early Influences

André Perold developed an interest in investing through probability and a resource-constrained upbringing.
This fostered a fascination with how things work, aligning perfectly with investing's focus on understanding the world.

INSIGHT

Teaching as Learning

Teaching offers a unique learning opportunity.
Explaining complex topics clarifies one's own understanding, as demonstrated by Perold's self-taught finance journey.

ANECDOTE

Early HBS

André Perold's early teaching experience at Harvard Business School was challenging.
He and his students learned together, eventually building mutual respect and appreciation.

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André Perold is the Chief Investment Officer and Co-Managing Partner at HighVista Strategies, where for the last dozen years he has sat at the helm of a now $3 billion fund that takes a multi-asset class, endowment-like approach emphasizing broad diversification and risk management. Over this period, André has definitively rebuffed the cliché that those who can't do, teach. In his prior career, he spent over 30 years teaching at the HBS, where he is the George Gund Professor of Finance and Banking, Emeritus. André had a distinguished career teaching investment management at Harvard and is a legendary master of the case study classroom. Just about everyone in the investment profession with Harvard Business School on their resume took a seat in his classroom at one point in time. André received numerous awards for teaching excellence, including being voted the School's most outstanding professor in a Business Week student survey. While at Harvard, André authored and co-authored 27 articles in financial journals, two books, and over 100 case studies, all relating to investment management, capital markets, and the financial system. He literally chronicled the development of modern finance as it occurred through is work at HBS. Among his directorships and trustee roles over the years, André currently is a Board member at The Vanguard Group. In this episode, we spend the first 11:30 talking about teaching at Harvard, and then turn to the practice of investing: the active vs. passive debate, a risk-based approach to asset allocation, and what makes investing so hard. I found it fascinating hearing how André takes all of his academic experience and knowledge and applies it the practice of investing at HighVista. His wisdom and clarity of thought are second to none, and his soothing South African accent only adds to the allure. Learn More Read 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