Alt Goes Mainstream: The Latest on Alternative Investments, WealthTech, & Private Markets

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, we have the second podcast in a special three part series with some of the titans in the alts world.We are partnering with CAIA, the leading global professional body in alternative investment credentialing programs, for a very special episode that dovetails with the release of their latest report on Renewed Professionalism and creating client centered outcomes for the Portfolio of the Future.We are lucky enough to have Michelle Seitz, a stalwart and veteran of the asset management industry who is the Founder and CEO of MeydenVest Partners, LLC, a private investment firm, and was most recently the CEO of Russell Investments, one of the largest investment firms in the world with $300B in AUM and $1.2T in assets under advisement.During Michelle’s five year tenure as Chair and CEO, she helped to modernize client offerings by adding leading edge capabilities around private markets and ESG investing and elevated diversity and inclusion programs.Michelle’s illustrious career includes a number of accolades such as Barron’s Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance and American Banker’s Most Powerful Women in Finance.Prior to joining Russell, Michelle spent 22 years at William Blair, where she was CEO of William Blair Investment Management and on William Blair’s corporate board of directors for 16 years. She took the helm as CEO at the ripe old age of 35, where she led William Blair’s institutional, mutual fund, and private wealth management businesses. She drove 5 fold growth at WBIM and transformed an $11B business into a $74B global asset management firm and a five-time winner of the “Best Places to Work in Money Management.”Michelle and I had a fascinating conversation starting with how her career started with the crash of 1987 and what it meant for how she viewed the asset management world and how to focus on the client’s outcomes, the importance of portfolio construction, how and why alts may not be a fit for every investor depending on the risk, portfolio construction, fee questions, and the importance of understanding risk.Thanks Michelle for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom. It was a pleasure to have you on the show.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, we have the first podcast in a special three part series with some of the titans in the alts world on how they’ve built and run some of the world’s largest asset managers.We have partnered with CAIA, the leading global professional body in alternative investment credentialing programs, for a very special episode that dovetails with the release of their latest report on Renewed Professionalism and creating client-centered outcomes for the Portfolio of the Future.We are lucky enough to have Luke Ellis, the CEO of Man Group, one of the largest active investment firms in the world. Man Group manages $142B (as of June 30, 2022) across a range of liquid and private markets strategies and has the central objective to deliver alpha for clients.Speaking of alpha, Luke and I had a fascinating discussion about what it means to create alpha. Luke believes that alts are all about the return the client gets and he and Man are focused on doing important work to ensure that the end client, the saver, is generating returns over time for the risk they are taking.Luke’s background has a consistent them of helping to make certain investment strategies and asset classes go mainstream. He was part of the early days of the development of the derivatives world at JP Morgan and was a pioneer in the hedge fund space, helping hedge fund of funds FRM enable hedge funds to become a mainstream part of investors’ portfolios.He’s since taken over the helm at Man Group for the past 12 years and has helped steer them become one of the most important investment management firms in the world.Please enjoy this wide ranging discussion where we talk about everything from the importance of active management to fee compression to the importance of technology in investment management to the impact of human behavior on financial markets to focusing on the end client to how Ted Lasso’s management style has informed how Luke thinks about building Man Group to enable clients to achieve alpha.Thanks to Luke and CAIA for collaborating on this important topic. We hope you enjoy.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, we have two guests who have built alts behemoths: the CEOs of iCapital, Lawrence Calcano, and SIMON, Jason Broder. iCapital and Simon recently completed a landmark transaction in the alts space, with the joining together of two of the largest digital platforms that enable advisors and individuals to invest into private markets through iCapital’s acquisition of SIMON. iCapital has built the leading platform to drive efficiency and alternative investing for the asset and wealth management industries. They had grown to over $138B in platform assets before acquiring SIMON, which focuses on helping financial advisors understand and manage structured investments, annuities, and other risk managed products. SIMON adds a track record of $48B of issuances in 2021 to iCapital’s platform.Lawrence and Jason both come from Goldman Sachs roots before building their building their respective businesses.Lawrence spent 17 years at Goldman and was a Partner, where he was Co-Head of the Global Technology Banking Group in the Investment Banking Division. He was a perennial winner of the Forbes Midas List award for the most influential people in venture capital in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006.Jason also spent almost 17 years at Goldman, where he was a Managing Director and Head of Private Investor Products Group in the Americas, which focused on the creation and distribution of structured investments to Goldman’s private wealth management management clients and third party distributors.Lawrence and Jason are both experts on product distribution of alts to the wealth community so it was a treat to have them on to discuss the anatomy of this landmark SIMON acquisition and how this revolutionizes distribution of alts products.We had a fascinating conversation. We discussed:Why this acquisition is so important for the alts space.The importance of building a one-stop shop alts investment platform for financial advisors.How important it is to comprehensively serve financial advisors.Why the platform who figures out distribution will be the winner in the alts space.How data and analytics will play a key role in educating advisors.How alts will no longer be alts, but will be mainstream, as investors think about the reconstruction of the 60/40 portfolio.Thanks Lawrence and Jason for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. It was a pleasure to have you share your views on the continued development of the alts space.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who has rich experience in the alts space.Robert Picard, who was recently tapped to become the Head of Alternatives at Hightower, a $117B AUM wealth management platform, has over 32 years of experience on the buy and sell side in alts.Robert came onto the podcast to discuss how he’s witnessed alts evolve over the past 30 years. He’s worked with top-tier asset managers, built private wealth units for banks, and is now building out Hightower’s expansive alts capabilities in-house to provide bespoke sophisticated solutions for some of the industry’s best wealth managers.Robert was recently First Republic’s MD and Head of Alternative Investments. At First Republic Private Wealth Management, he consolidated two alternative investment businesses into a single platform and generated meaningful growth in wealth management team participation in alts and fund offerings across all asset classes.Prior to First Republic, he founded and was CEO of the Rumson Ridge Group, a consultancy focused on building alternative investment platforms. Prior to Rumson Ridge, he held senior leadership positions at The Carlyle Group / Rock Creek, Optima Fund Management, RBC Capital Markets, and InfraHedge / State Street.Robert and I had a thought-provoking conversation about the evolution of alts and the importance of alts in an investor’s portfolio.We drilled down on how an expert like Robert performs manager due diligence and what he looks for in a successful fund manager, which is becoming increasingly important as many new managers enter the alts world and as new allocators look to invest into funds. 

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a fascinating episode with a wealth management veteran who has transformed his firm into a full fledged asset manager with significant private markets capabilities.Lorenzo Esparza is the CEO and Founding Principal at Manhattan West where he leveraged his legal, corporate, and financial experience to form the modern version of an investment firm.Lorenzo and I had a fascinating conversation that spanned the evolution of wealth management, how advisors are approaching the alts space, how platforms and tech is democratizing access to alts, and Manhattan West’s unique model.Lorenzo manages Manhattan West’s strategic direction while overseeing day to day operations. He is focused on building the firm using a top-down approach to working with clients across a broad suite of services and investment categories.Lorenzo is looking to position the firm as a leader in the investment industry serving ultra-high net worth clients, family offices and institutions across the United States.Lorenzo began his career in financial services at Alliance Bernstein before joining JP Morgan Securities. He launched Manhattan West immediately following his tenure at JP Morgan.Lorenzo is an avid Philanthropist where he supports numerous causes that benefit underprivileged youth. Active in the community, he is a former Board Member of the Richstone Family Center, the former Board Chair of the Cancer Support Community-Benjamin Center in Santa Monica, and is a former Board Member of the Stroke Association of Southern California.Thanks Lorenzo for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. It was a pleasure to have you on the show.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who has seen virtually every evolution of the internet and financial services since the 1990s.Graham Jenkin is the co-founder and CEO of CoinList, the leading token issuance platform in the crypto space that has helped a large number of the top crypto projects by market cap get their earliest funding and customers with an initial token sale on CoinList.CoinList has played a critical role in the crypto ecosystem for early-stage token projects from doing token issuances for Flow to Solana to Mina and more.Given the quality of projects that they work with from the earliest of days, it's no surprise that they have attracted millions of users to CoinList. They have over 5M users on the platform. Graham's background and blend of consumer, engineering, design, and finance lends itself incredibly well to building CoinList.Prior to helping spin out CoinList from AngelList and co-founding the business, Graham was the COO and UX engineer/designer at AngelList over a 6.5 year period. Prior to AL, he led the redesign of the user interface of the world's most profitable online business - Google AdWords, where he also won the inaugural Google Great Manager Award. He also understands financial services innately well - he led BofA.com to two Webby awards. Graham is a fantastic operator with a clear vision for how to build special consumer businesses and a critical piece of crypto market infrastructure.Graham and I had a fascinating discussion on the evolution of crypto market infrastructure, how CoinList provides a critical service to both projects and investors, and the importance of Web2.5 in a world that is transitioning to Web3 by discussing how CoinList is building a centralized bridge to a decentralized world.Thanks Graham for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. It was a pleasure to have you on the show.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who has seen the alts and crypto worlds from multiple angles.Don Stalter is a Partner at Global Founders Capital (GFC) where he focuses primarily on the US early stage venture market. He has a deep operating background as a founder and operator at some of tech’s leading marketplaces.He co-founded CityDeal, which was acquired by Groupon. He then built Groupon’s international offices in Europe and Asia.He subsequently led BD at Airbnb globally and launched multiple offices organically and through M&A.At GFC, he’s been an early investor in fintech titans Brex, Checkr, Deel, Slope, and more. He’s also invested in a number of crypto funds. We had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of technology and venture capital. We also discuss how companies can think about integrating crypto – namely the likes of Airbnb and Brex – into their payments flow and how VC funds can approach investing into crypto funds and companies.This was a fascinating conversation with a really thoughtful VC. Thanks Don for coming on the AGM podcast.

Hi from Mexico City. Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream Podcast we travel to one of the most exciting regions in the startup world – Latin America, which has seen venture backed funding dollars of $14.8B flowing into the region in 2021 come in higher than the prior 6 years combined.Brian Requarth comes onto the podcast to talk about building the company that he wish he had when he was an entrepreneur in Latin America.He’s the co-founder of Latitud, the a16z and NFX backed infrastructure and accelerator for startups. With Latitud, he’s building the operating system for venture backed companies in the region.We had a fascinating conversation about why founders and investors should be #LongLatAm. We discuss:Why LatAm is such an exciting region to invest into right now.How community is the new lean startup and the equivalent of Stanford of the internet.How the confluence of talent, capital, size of the market, and opportunity make LatAm a region of focus for VCs.Why Latitud will play a critical role in developing the startup ecosystem in LatAm.When he sold Brazilian online RE marketplace Viva Real for $550M several years ago, he had to pay over $100M in capital gains taxes due to incorporation errors made early on. It was quite the expensive mistake and one that he hopes to help fix with Latitud for the next generation of founders.Brian is a serial entrepreneur who also worked with ZAP Imoveis, which was owned by Grupo Globo, Latin America’s largest media company.As an angel investor, Brian has invested in over 150 tech startups in Latin America, so he’s quite familiar with the inner workings of starting a company in the region.Thanks Brian for coming on the show to talk about such an exciting region in the startup world. 

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who is making alts go mainstream by streamlining the process of investing into funds.Carta and fund manager veteran Tim Flannery is the Co-Founder of Passthrough, a fund workflow automation tool that digitizes and automates the fund subscription process.We had a fascinating discussion about how Passthrough is providing critical market infrastructure to the alts space and what the future of investing into funds looks like with Passthrough.We discuss:Why there needs to be innovation around fund closings.How data matters in the fund closing process.How creating an investor passport can lead to efficiencies across the alts space.How Passthrough is the “narrow waist” of the alts space — building the connective tissue for funds and LPs to complete closings and then use that data in all sorts of places and sit on top of platforms like iCapital, CartaX, AngelList, Republic, and others. In a sense, Passthrough is a solution for the alts space in a similar manner to how WalletConnect is the connective tissue between wallets and DApps in the crypto ecosystem.Fund closing is generally a painful process for everyone involved — LPs have to manually input data into subscription documents, which means they often miss questions or err in their answers. Much of this data is unstructured, hidden within PDFs, meaning that funds can’t use this when LPs re-up to following funds or to other funds. Fund managers have little visibility into the raise and timing for closings.Tim is building a product with Passthrough that gives fund managers one of their most valuable assets — time — back and provides for a great user experience with fund closings. Passthrough automates the fund closing process by digitizing subscription agreements, turning them into a custom, TurboTax style workflow.We were lucky enough to use Passthrough for our investment into Lowercarbon Capital and we never knew how easy a fund closing could be after using Passthrough. Passthrough’s fastest sub doc completion on record is said to be 6 minutes and mine wasn’t that far off.The process is simple, automated, and efficient since Passthrough collects relevant data on LPs so that it's easier and quicker to subscribe for the next fund.Tim has a great background to be building Passthrough. He was previously the Head of Go-To-Market for Investor Services at Carta and also worked on a number of large strategic accounts. He also spent time as a Partner at Pilot Mountain Ventures and started his career at JP Morgan in PE fund services, so he's seen the lifecycle of a fund investment from all angles.He's a sharp, thoughtful, and focused founder who is building a product that many GPs and LPs already love.This was a fascinating conversation about bringing technology to automate the alts space that I’m excited to see play out over the coming years in the space.

A few weeks ago, Alt Goes Mainstream went to the capitol of capital for alts, AltsLA by CAIA, the largest alternative investments conference on the West Coast, to speak with industry leaders about how they are allocating capital.Alt Goes Mainstream partnered with CAIA, the premier educational organization for the alts space, to have topical conversations on the world of alternative investments.With the backdrop of an uncertain macro environment and changing investor preferences that have resulted in a 60/40 portfolio no longer, top allocators in the industry discussed how alts are becoming an increasingly important part of investors’ portfolios.Over the past few days, we have brought to you CAIA shorts: live interviews with the people who are making the decisions for many of the world’s largest investment institutions. Apologies in advance if there is background noise on the podcasts, but it’s because we recorded live and unfiltered from the AltsLA conference.There were 10 great podcasts with such rich conversations from some of the world’s smartest investors, so we have released these episodes in 4 parts.Today's episode (10/10), the Finale, in this CAIA mini-series is with Bill Kelly (CEO) and John Bowman (EVP) at CAIA. Bill, John, and I discuss the portfolio of the future, why 60/40 is dead, and how institutional investors will adapt to the current market environment.