4: From $1B Fund Mgr to Investment Boutique Founder, Ethos' James Fletcher on Authentic Leadership | The Power of People & Story to Win Clients | Why Culture is a Differentiator

James Fletcher is an experienced Emerging Markets portfolio manager. He's the CEO and founder of Ethos Investment Management, a $100M boutique EM fund. In this episode, James Fletcher and I discuss:

• James’ backstory: From 9 years old sitting on his grandpa’s lap reading the Wall Street Journal, to living in Brazil falling in love with emerging markets, to running Ethos Investment Management and Young Investors Society
• The importance of culture and how it changes conversations with investors
• How James finds companies in emerging markets growing 10X
• The power of people and story to win clients - even in the investment industry
• How changing one student’s life inspired James to run a non-profit serving over 70 countries
• The fulfillment of entrepreneurship despite the laundry list of challenges

More About James Fletcher
Prior to founding Ethos Investment Management, James was the Director & Senior PM of the EM SMID Cap fund at APG Asset Management, where he managed a ~$1.2B portfolio based in Hong Kong, one of the largest EM SMID cap funds in the world. APG is the largest pension fund manager in the Netherlands and a global leader in ESG investing. Before that, James was the Lead PM at Kayne Anderson Rudnick’s EM Small Cap fund (ticker VIESX), a Morningstar 5-Star rated fund and a Senior Analyst at Westwood Global Investments from 2005-2013. James is a CFA charterholder. 

James is also the founder of the global non-profit, Young Investors Society (www.yis.org), a non-profit that teaches financial literacy and investment principles to high school students. As of March 2023, Young Investors Society serves over 1,700 high schools in 71 countries and over 10,000 students per year.  

James has an undergraduate degree in Finance from Brigham Young University and is fluent in Portuguese and proficient in Spanish and has lived in Brazil and Hong Kong. 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Volunteer Opportunity: Young Investors Society

Book: How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen and James Allworth

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