The Fiftyfaces Podcast

Robert Eccles describes himself – in a nutshell – as a dedicated weightlifter, capital markets activist and professional committed to improving corporate reporting and enhancing ESG integration by companies and investors. He is the Founding Chairman of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, one of the founding members of the International Integrated Reporting Council and a Visiting Professor of Management Practice at the SAID Business School of Oxford University. Our conversation is wide-ranging, so our attention to Robert's background is brief.  We touch on his storied long-term tenure as a professor at Harvard, where he spent 37 years, and describe how he came to the cause of sustainability and his own roots in sociology. This background in sociology is relevant as so much of the journey of "ESG" as well as sustainability investing has been about human behaviour, biases, and fears of complexity and large, lofty goals, all of which relate to essentially human conditions. We begin by unpacking ESG, whether it is currently "fit for purpose" and discuss the polarization that has occurred on both sides as the concept has become politicized.  Robert advocates for a more commercially driven middle ground and an abolition of the term.  We move then to a discussion of standards, and how they have evolved and improved over the past few years. We learn that, like accounting standards, sustainability standards are a construct that will always be debated, rather than set in stone. Looking to the future, and the evolution of the ESG debate, we look at the relevance of corporate law, and how that will be a new frontier for debate and change.We finish with some of Robert's reflections - including the need to be passionate in one's career, to persist and to never forget the importance of networking and moving forward. We touch then on his passion for weightlifting and how Covid contributed to his sustained commitment to a deadlift goal (300 lbs, but then moved to 400 lbs) and how breaking the goal up into small increments was the mental and physical strategy that he needed to achieve this goal.  This is not unlike an ideal approach to the enormous goals that sustainability initiatives present. An analogy for the ages indeed. Series 3 of the 2023 Fiftyfaces Podcast is supported by Eagle Point Credit Management. Eagle Point Credit Management is a specialist investment manager principally focused on income-oriented credit investments in niche and inefficient markets. Founded by Thomas Majewski in partnership with Stone Point Capital in 2012, Eagle Point currently manages over $7.8 billion in AUM. Investment strategies pursued by the firm include collateralized loan obligations (“CLOs”), portfolio debt securities, and other opportunities across the credit universe.  Currently, we believe that Eagle Point is the largest investor in CLO equity in the world and one of the largest non-bank lenders focused on providing financing solutions to credit funds. Learn more about Eagle Point at http://eaglepointcredit.com/

Charlotte O’Leary is Chief Executive Officer and Director of Pensions for Purpose, which exists as a bridge between asset managers, pension funds and their professional advisers, to encourage the flow of capital towards impact investment. She has had a long career in investment management, with a particular focus on pensions as well as ESG and impact investing. She is also a passionate participant in fitness competitions - particularly those organized under the Hyrox Brand. Our conversation starts with Charlotte's upbringing, where her determination took root, and we chart her course into investing and ultimately Pensions for Purpose.  She describes the satisfaction she derives from this bridge between pension funds and their advisers and how it enables them to put their mission and purpose into action.We move then to her passion for fitness, and talk about how this arose and how pushing her own physical limits drives her and the satisfaction she gains from the improvements that she sees every time she competes. Series 2 of 2023 is kindly sponsored by Beach Point Capital Advisors, an investment manager that believes in investment beyond the traditional.  It specializes in credit investments and employs a flexible, value-oriented, risk-controlled focusing on complex and less well-followed opportunities.  You can find all of our podcasts on The Fiftyfaces Hub, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 

John Harney is a senior consultant with AON where he focuses on helping pension scheme sponsors to manage pension risks and maximize potential upside. He is based in the Oxford area. I came across John through mutual friends in the industry and when I was drawn in particular to his LinkedIn posts that mentioned his joy in cooking and baking.This was initially very promising for our inaugural "Love" series, but what we discovered in our conversation was a veritable "Layer Cake" of a career. We start with John's upbringing on an organic farm in Ireland and the serendipity that brought him to studying to be an actuary. We hear about his first professional role, and the mentors that nurtured him.We move then to a new beginning of sorts - his return to university to study theology and music - both early passions for him and delve into the insights and perspective that those pursuits taught him.  He then "returned to the fold" of his pensions work, and brought with him an additional richness that that further study had afforded him.  We speak about how rare it is to have managers who truly understand and appreciate the depth that further study can bring, and how we should all seek to be that manager.Because this episode was first recorded as part of our "love" series in February 2022 we turn then to John's love of cooking and baking, and his LinkedIn post citing Nigella Lawson that drew me to him. We speak about food's power to heal, to allow one to destress and see perspective in life too - whether that be the incremental improvement that every iteration of a recipe can bring and the need to park "perfection" sometimes. John lets us in on his specialty dish - a "croaf" . . listen in and all will be revealed.Series 2 of 2023 is kindly sponsored by Beach Point Capital Advisors, an investment manager that believes in investment beyond the traditional.  It specializes in credit investments and employs a flexible, value-oriented, risk-controlled focusing on complex and less well-followed opportunities.  You can find all of our podcasts on The Fiftyfaces Hub, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Sarah Whitley is Chair at Future Asset, an organization which connects girls, teachers and advisors to the diversity of opportunities in asset management.  Based in Edinburgh, she was previously Head of Japanese Equities at Baillie Gifford and currently holds a number of director roles, including as External Director at Rakuten, and Chair at the Edinburgh Festival Endowment Fund.We start with exploring Sarah's path into asset management and her educational background, then chart her rise through Baillie Gifford and how the fact that it happened relatively early in her career removed some of the more difficult choices from the occasion. We look at how it felt to be a pioneer in many respects and why the absence of role models and mentors should not necessarily be a barrier to making change.We move then to her advisory roles and what she seeks to bring to them, and dive into particular detail around Future Asset, its mission and its achievements. Series 2 of 2023 is kindly sponsored by Beach Point Capital Advisors, an investment manager that believes in investment beyond the traditional.  It specializes in credit investments and employs a flexible, value-oriented, risk-controlled focusing on complex and less well-followed opportunities.  You can find all of our podcasts on The Fiftyfaces Hub, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Afsaneh Beschloss is the Founder and CEO at RockCreek, an investment firm which invests across diverse sectors with a special focus on climate, affordable housing and education investments in developed, emerging and frontier markets. She is on the Board of Directors of the World Resources Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Rockefeller Foundation and holds numerous other Board and Trustee roles. Our conversation starts with Afsaneh's upbringing in Iran and the differences that were in place then in terms of access to education for women. We trace her move to Concord Massachusetts, and the serendipity that attracted her to a role in finance. One of her earliest roles was in the World Bank, where she was encouraged to become an expert on the energy industry, and we discuss her foray into emerging markets from that unique vantage point.We move then to her founding of RockCreek and the concept of partnership with investors that has characterized the firm until this day.  We speak about the adaptation it has undergone in light of changing client needs and expectations. Our discussion of diversity is an essential part of our conversation and we discuss the ongoing challenge that raising capital presents, even as an established firm.  We look also at the venture capital landscape and how diverse managers are starting to gain more traction there, even if progress is slow. Turning to personal reflections Afsaneh notes that fulfillment that followed when her mission and her career started to converge, and similarly reflects on experiences where work environments did not allow for growth. Series 2 of 2023 is kindly sponsored by Beach Point Capital Advisors, an investment manager that believes in investment beyond the traditional.  It specializes in credit investments and employs a flexible, value-oriented, risk-controlled focusing on complex and less well-followed opportunities.  You can find all of our podcasts on The Fiftyfaces Hub, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Kate Nevin is President and Portfolio Manager at TSWII Capital Advisors, a role she has held for over 20 years.  She is active with many industry groups (such as The Academy of Institutional Investors and Nexus) and community organizations focused on conservation and gender equality. She was a Riley Diversity Fellow.Our conversation starts with an upbringing filled with books and the great outdoors, and we trace that all the way through to Kate's undergraduate study of creative writing and her early career as a writer. We move then to her pivot into finance during the years leading up to the GFC and her switch to private office investment that coincided with a move back to her roots in Charleston, SC. Kate is a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion and our discussion is laced with statistics around the gender pay gap and current statistics regarding female founders.  Both in her work at TSWII and as a diversity fellow, Kate has ensured that female founders have access to mentoring, networks and coaching in order to thrive. We end with a some inpiration from a Native American Healer who exhorted that she should Show Up, Deliver and Move On. This dynamic podcast just that.Series 2 of 2023 is kindly sponsored by Beach Point Capital Advisors, an investment manager that believes in investment beyond the traditional.  It specializes in credit investments and employs a flexible, value-oriented, risk-controlled focusing on complex and less well-followed opportunities.  You can find all of our podcasts on The Fiftyfaces Hub, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Adam Saron is Founder of Clara-Pensions, a member-first consolidator of defined benefit pension schemes. He previously ran Black Ant Investment Management, a long-biased value investor, which invested in both public equities and corporate credits.  Our conversation traces Adam's childhood in South Africa, his pursuit of law and reluctant rejection of certain more adventurous career choices such as Karate. We cover his move to London and time in asset management, which saw him not only learn to take risk but also strike out with a founder when he was handpicked to help him run a value investment firm.  Value investing has had its ups and downs, and the lessons learned amid this volatility have been hard won - Adam shares some of them, and the importance of professional detachment (at times) and the focus on the long term. We talk then about the challenges facing DB schemes currently and the potential that consolidation will bring.  We discuss trustees, governance, the importance of challenge and second opinions.  We also discuss the issue of engagement and the difficulty in generating it - a theme we raised earlier in this series in our discussion with Jonathan Hollow. Finally we return to some of the reflections that Adam has at this stage of his career, about the importance of stopping and taking pride in what has been achieved and analytical about how success is defined. Series 2 of 2023 is kindly sponsored by Beach Point Capital Advisors, an investment manager that believes in investment beyond the traditional.  It specializes in credit investments and employs a flexible, value-oriented, risk-controlled focusing on complex and less well-followed opportunities.  You can find all of our podcasts on The Fiftyfaces Hub, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Maneesha Ghiya is Managing Partner and Founder of FemHealth Ventures, a firm focused on providing investment capital to entrepreneurs focused on women’s health. Investing in healthcare since 2000, Maneesha has invested via public equities, private equities and as a hedge fund specialist.  She is a Senior Advisor to ExSight Ventures, an ophthalmology-focused venture capital fund and serves on multiple boards.  Our conversation starts with Maneesha's background and her early interest in the intersection of healthcare, engineering and business.  We then move to the personal experience when delivering her child that catalyzed her interest in FemHealth and the venture fund that she founded with this as its focus.  There is a startling disparity in funding, awareness and the profile attached to female health issues and we list some of these - the lack of participation by women in drug trials, the low level of research dollars applied to health conditions that traditionally affect women and the low level of knowledge regarding disparities in how certain illnesses - e.g. cardiac arrest - present. Maneesha lists some of the innovative solutions being sourced to solve some of these problems and what kind of commercial potential they could have.  Series 2 of 2023 is kindly sponsored by Beach Point Capital Advisors, an investment manager that believes in investment beyond the traditional.  It specializes in credit investments and employs a flexible, value-oriented, risk-controlled focusing on complex and less well-followed opportunities.  You can find all of our podcasts on The Fiftyfaces Hub, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Barry Massarsky is a partner and co-practice leader - music economics andvaluation services at Citrin Cooperman,  and was the founder of Massarksy Consulting, which he sold to Citrin Cooperman early in 2022. He is credited with pioneering the economics of royalty cash flows in the early 1990s. And together with his business partner Nari Matsuura developed a model to guide banks lending to music investors. Last year Massarksy Consulting valued over 400 catalogs totaling more than $9 billion.We start with Barry's path into this somewhat esoteric area of finance, his experience studying at Cornell and how he first developed an interest in valuing music cash flows.  The rather unusual place for this to start was an internship on Capitol Hill and an anti-trust case.  Since then, his career has had ups and downs and we talk about one such "down" which required him to start again, and how he used his network to do so. We dive in then to the dynamics of the music industry today, the impact of streaming and the innovation that essentially saved the industry from cannibalization.  We speak about recent music deals, such as the valuation of prominent music catalogs and the different dynamics that is driving demand today - such as the abundant production of content. We end with paying homage to some of the extraordinary artists and leaders that Barry has worked with and distill some of their wisdom into some takeaways from the podcast. Series 2 of 2023 is kindly sponsored by Beach Point Capital Advisors, an investment manager that believes in investment beyond the traditional.  It specializes in credit investments and employs a flexible, value-oriented, risk-controlled focusing on complex and less well-followed opportunities.  You can find all of our podcasts on The Fiftyfaces Hub, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Jennifer Grancio is Chief Executive Officer at Engine No. 1,  an investment firm that identifies value creation opportunities in once in a generation systems changes the economy is now going through. She is based in the San Francisco area. She previously founded and ran her own firm advising CEOs and accelerating revenue growth. Prior to that was a Managing Director at Blackrock where she led businesses and global distribution teams for close to 20 years. She is a Board Member   of the MannKind Corporation and Ethic Investments.Our conversation starts with Jennifer's upbringing on the East Coast, her pursuit of International Relations at Stanford and how this turned her towards management consulting. We analyze the skillset that that discipline brought to her later move to the investment world. In particular management consulting involves a deep analysis of company business models, supply chains and drivers.  This ability to dissect the drivers of a business would prove to be helpful later when the focus turned to the sustainability of those drivers and ultimately the business. We move then to Engine No. 1 and its focus and dig in to many complex issues such as the future of ESG, whether the name and umbrella title is still fit for purpose, how different companies are navigating the energy transition and how collaboration and activism can work together to further this.  We also discuss the importance of Board Representation, what it means to have a climate confident or climate competent board and the likely future evolution of this branch of governance. The discussion on the integration of sustainability targets with sustainable business models is a detailed one, and we turn to whether there is a case for optimism in this area, where the stakes are high and sometimes overwhelming. Series 2 of 2023 is kindly sponsored by Beach Point Capital Advisors, an investment manager that believes in investment beyond the traditional.  It specializes in credit investments and employs a flexible, value-oriented, risk-controlled focusing on complex and less well-followed opportunities.  You can find all of our podcasts on The Fiftyfaces Hub, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.