The Fiftyfaces Podcast

Shari Greco Reiches is founder of Rappaport Reiches Capital Management a firm designed to help clients navigate their most crucial financial decisions. She has a particular focus on “Women in Charge” and is active in a number of affinity groups and holds a number of board roles, including previously ISBI, the Illinois State Board of Investments. She is the author of the book “Maximize your Return on Live” and podcast host. Our conversation starts with tracing Shari's own childhood and her "money story", and we learn the importance of lessons laid down early. These include the reminder that she could have anything she wanted, but not everything she wanted, which instilled the importance of choosing, forgoing some opportunities but ultimately maximizing one's return in life. This concept of maximizing is one that Shari lives out in her private wealth practice as well as the guidance that she gives to her clients. We hear about the heuristics and practices around saving, self-care, choices, open conversations and ranking of values that form the bedrock around her practice and use this to look to the future of wealth management and how it will continue to evolve. Finally, we turn to Shari's book and podcast and discuss the motivation behind each of them and the role of continuous learning in her life. You can learn more about Shari's writing and podcast here: https://sharigrecoreiches.com/book#:~:text=The%20Book%20%2D%20Maximize%20Your%20Return%20on%20Life&text=Her%20personal%20stories%20and%20related,your%20relationship%20with%20money%20today This bonus series is kindly supported by Sound Mark Partners, Sound Mark Partners LLC is a women-owned and led private credit firm focused on commercial real estate.

Saira Malik is Chief Investment Officer at Nuveen, a TIAA company. She is an active voice on social media, regularly posting videos on LinkedIn containing market related and career related content. She recently celebrated her 20th anniversary at Nuveen. We start by exploring Saira's own background, which starts with her grandmother’s determination to study medicine, even though that was not a typical route for women at that time. She succeeded and served as an inspiration for her granddaughter. Saira’s own academic path was an unconventional one and we talk about that and the grit that enabled her to pursue a role in investing. We trace her early investment immersion and then her trajectory at Nuveen.  We discuss then investment beliefs, and the importance of breaking down barriers to promote better financial literacy and access. Saira’s own approach to this is to deliver a prolific amount of bite-sized videos, newsletters, social-media posts and other content that serve to demystify the world of investing and ensure that it is accessible to more. We move then to discuss socio-economic mobility more generally, and the importance of investing in oneself. Leadership styles, mentorship, the power of networks and the importance of visibility – these are all themes that emerge in this rich conversation. This bonus series is kindly supported by Sound Mark Partners, Sound Mark Partners LLC is a women-owned and led private credit firm focused on commercial real estate.

Katie Stitch is a partner at W Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in the NYC area that provides secondary liquidity solutions to private company shareholders and to PE/VC investment firms. She has held a number of Board roles and started her career as an analyst in investment banking. Our conversation tracks her education at U Penn and her discovery of the world of secondary investments. We then do a deep dive into the burgeoning area of secondaries - covering the evolution of the area from largely LP-led to now increasingly GP-led transactions. We compare these investment types in terms of liquidity, return profile and time horizon, and account for the staggering growth in the incidence of GP led secondary transactions as extension vehicles become more and more popular. We examine the investor perspective on all of this and suggest how secondaries could be added to a portfolio and the role they might play. In our reflection section Katie cites her motto of "sharing the credit and shouldering the blame" as well as other words of wisdom gathered over an illustrious career. This bonus series is kindly supported by Sound Mark Partners, Sound Mark Partners LLC is a women-owned and led private credit firm focused on commercial real estate.

Kate Fox is an Investment Manager at Baillie Gifford based in Edinburgh, where she leads the impact strategy Positive Change and is a Partner at the Firm. Our conversation traces her career journey, explores the meaning of "positive change" within an investment context and examines the way to develop a successful career in portfolio management. We start with Kate's upbringing in a small village near Aberdeen and the love of maths and physics that led to finance as a possible career path - discovered through the milk round. She describes her desire to have a positive impact on society, and how, initially, she didn't conceive how a job in finance could deliver that. This sowed the seeds for a focus on how investing could focus on companies with positive change. We move then to what an impact strategy really is, and how positive change is defined and measured. We look at investor demand for and scrutiny of such strategies and discuss the likely evolution of this area in the future. Finally, turning the lens on the finance industry itself, we see what change has happened in a positive direction during Kate's career so far. The future is bright it seems. This bonus series is kindly supported by Sound Mark Partners, Sound Mark Partners LLC is a women-owned and led private credit firm focused on commercial real estate.

If you have heard the term abundance of riches, that is what we have been experiencing this year in terms of our guests. So we are very pleased to bring you this bonus series, sponsored by Sound Mark Partners, a women led real estate debt firm that exemplifies so much of what we endorse and promote in the investment industry. We learn about accidental career paths, innovative strategies such as funds focused on positive change, climate engagement, GP-led private equity secondaries and carbon credit trading. We hear from the CIO of a university endowment about the joy she derives from a role where a university's mission and investment agenda work as one, and about multiple private wealth experts about the challenges in representation in the industry and where they have found opportunities. We include career advice and wisdom for the ages. The guests in our bonus series are: Geeta Kapadia, Chief Investment Officer at Fordham University Apurva Schwartz, a portfolio specialist at Harding Loevner LP Kate Fox who is an Investment Manager at Baillie Gifford Katie Stitch a partner at W Capital Partners a private equity firm Shari Greco Reiches who is founder of Rappaport Reiches Capital Management Saira Malik who is Chief Investment Officer at Nuveen Sinead Faughan a financial advisor with UBS John Teahan, portfolio manager at Redwheel Jane Buchan of Martlet Asset Management and founder of PAAMCO Matt Sherwood, founder of Pothos Partners.

Apurva Schwartz is a portfolio specialist at Harding Loevner LP. She was previously a principal at Rocaton Investment Advisors, where she was a senior member of the investment team. Prior to that she held a series of roles in equity analysis and investing. Our conversation starts with her serendipitous start in finance and how that experience of picking stocks drove her to launch her own hedge fund. Her interest then expanded to analyzing managers themselves and a career in investment consulting. This came full circle then when she chose her next move, which was back into the investment management field. Apurva had a unique lens to apply when selecting her next move as she had spent years analyzing different investment firm cultures, and we spend some time discussing what it is that makes a successful investment company culture. She speaks about the perils of storytelling - of being carried away by the narrative, and of the importance of creating a culture that is conducive to a team's growth. This relates, in particular, to psychological safety and the safety to make mistakes while learning, without a culture of blame. We broaden the conversation then to discuss recent trends in asset allocation, the state of non-US investing and client's use of global portfolios as well as shifts in the industry in light of the rise of passive investing as well as ESG strategies. We end with reflections on the importance of learning from essentially everyone one encounters, the importance of humility and of learning from mistakes. It is a far reaching conversation that I hope you enjoy. This bonus series is kindly supported by Sound Mark Partners, Sound Mark Partners LLC is a women-owned and led private credit firm focused on commercial real estate.

Geeta Kapadia, the Chief Investment Officer at Fordham University since 2022, shares her fascinating journey from health care to finance. She discusses how she channels student ideas into investment strategies, including student-run funds linked to the university's mission. The conversation delves into aligning investments with sustainability and community impact, while also examining the importance of diversity in leadership. Geeta highlights how her experiences shape her approach, emphasizing collaboration and empathy within academia's investment landscape.

Cathie Wood is CEO of ARK Investment Management LLC (“ARK”). Prior to ARK, Cathie spent twelve years at AllianceBernstein as Chief Investment Officer of Global Thematic Strategies where she managed $5 billion. Cathie joined Alliance Capital from Tupelo Capital Management, a hedge fund she co-founded which, in 2000, where she managed $800 million in global thematic strategies. Prior to her tenure at Tupelo Capital, she worked for 18 years with Jennison Associates as Chief Economist, Equity Research Analyst, Portfolio Manager and Director. She started her career in Los Angeles, California at The Capital Group as an Assistant Economist. This was our second podcast recording together but the first for the Fiftyfaces Podcast. We started by tracing Cathie's upbringing and the fusion of innovation, entrepreneurship and travel that led to a peripatetic youth, including a spell in Ireland. We hear what drove her interest in finance and investing, and how she started her career. Our conversation moves then to the founding of ARK, and the almost spiritual reckoning that led to Cathie's decision to strike out on her own. We hear about her commitment to transparency and openness when it comes to research, and to the overarching importance of making their research open source. The team at ARK believes that this makes their process more robust, more resilient and adaptive, and they give the example of the evolution of their "autonomous cars" segment to embrace all of AI and how they have cross-checked some of their assumptions around growth in other sectors. Given how topical the subject is, we dive into a discussion about AI and its likely impact on the investment management industry. Cathie's thesis is an optimistic one, that should get the industry back to its original, forward-looking focus on themes and creativity. Finally we speak about pushback, criticism and debate that ARK and its theses have occasionally attracted. Series 5 of 2023 is kindly sponsored by With Intelligence, which has the mission of connecting investors and managers to the right people and data to raise and allocate assets effectively The music in this podcast series - provided by Julia Kwamya - is available on her album on Spotify: Feel Good about Feeling Bad https://open.spotify.com/album/7lTQWSHeaVo3xHuF9q8ilv?si=uvGJZX7FQ9-2wX-0e951ZA&nd=1

Bruno Kaiser is CFO at Smile CDR Inc, a digital health company based in Toronto. He previously spent over 20 years in a series of investment banking leadership roles with a particular focus on the Metals and Mining Sector. We were classmates at INSEAD from 1999-2000. Our conversation takes a journey from the old economy to the new economy – starting with Bruno’s upbringing in Canada, his path into investment banking and ultimately the field of metals and mining. We discuss valuation dynamics in this field, the evolution of the area, what it takes to deliver value as an investment banker in this arena and how the companies are responding to growing ESG demands. We turn then to something totally different, which is the field of digital health, where Bruno is currently focused. The capacity for data and artificial intelligence to improve the user experience within healthcare is immense and we discuss what that will mean for cost structures as well as the balance between telehealth and in-person interactions. We finish with a discussion about the move from being a banker to a CFO and how that transition looked, and reflect on how bankers can sometimes be pigeon-holed and have challenges in moving to industry. Bruno discusses how this can be countered – through building strong relationships with clients, reading around the industries one works in and really focused on specific rather than generic industry problems. Series 5 of 2023 is sponsored by With Intelligence, which connects investors and managers to the right people and data to raise and allocate assets effectively. The music in this podcast series – provided by Julia Kwamya – is available on her album on Spotify: Feel Good about Feeling Bad https://open.spotify.com/album/7lTQWSHeaVo3xHuF9q8ilv?si=uvGJZX7FQ9-2wX-0e951ZA&nd=1

We are delighted to bring you this lively bonus episode of a live conversation with the legendary Steven Eisman, who became famous for shorting Collateralized Debt Obligations in the run up to the 2008 financial crisis. He was featured in the film adaptation of The Big Short under the name of Mark Baum, and portrayed by Steve Carell. In September 2014, he joined Neuberger Berman in the Private Asset Management division. The group, run by partners including his parents, Elliott and Lillian Eisman, manages portfolios of stocks for wealthy clients If history does not repeat, but instead rhymes, I was intrigued to hear what lessons were learned in the run up to the crisis of 2008 that might be applied today. Steven and I discuss his roots and early familiarity with risk taking that grew from having two parents in the brokerage business. We explore the backdrop to the crisis of 2008 and the frailties of the financial business models as well as the, sometimes blind, faith that management had in them. His response to the abusive and risky practices of some of the lenders and financial architects was, admittedly, an emotional one - and we have a short diversion into the presence of emotion in almost all investment decisions. Moving to today, we look at the opportunity in infrastructure investing and some of the humility that market forces have a tendency to cause. "Peacock Today, Feather Duster Tomorrow" was a famous phrase of Steven's father and we discuss it as an essential "check" on the dangers of hubris and over-confidence. Warm, amusing, self-deprecating and brilliant original thinker - please enjoy my conversation with Steven Eisman.