The Fiftyfaces Podcast

It has been an exciting summer, but we have managed to squeeze in a set of global guests for Series 4 of our 2025 Fiftyfaces Podcast – which takes us from the evolving world of hedge funds and the support infrastructure needed, to emerging market equities to late-stage venture capital to public pension pooling. We start with hearing from Nadia Cobalovic, and the evolving world of hedge fund operat...

Lisa Laird is CIO at Mercy Investment Services in St. Louis. She has previously held senior strategist roles as well as other healthcare leadership roles, and currently holds a number of additional board roles.   Our conversation starts with her dream to become a ballet dancer, and how this ultimately required a serious pivot, and we then hear about a series of financial services roles that ultima...

Nick Spencer is a senior consultant and sustainability risk specialist in the Milliman Life and Financial Services practice based in London. He is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and past Chair of its Sustainability Board and a past Council Member. He has written extensively on the integration of climate risks into actuarial work as well as on natural capital, biodiversity and b...

In Part 1 of this special series focused on our brain power and whether we are losing our minds, we addressed the slide we are reported to be experiencing in terms of attention span and critical thinking capacity.   Now In Part 2 we ask what we can do now to address slide. We are joined again by Carolina Pacheco-Punceles. She is a Behavioral Economist, AI Survival Kit Creator, Executive Function S...

Kristen Van Gelder is Partner and Co-CIO at Evanston Capital Mangement, where she has spent her entire career since college.    We begin our conversation with the roots of Kristen’s career, which corresponds quite closely with the roots and growth of Evanston Capital Management from the Northwestern University Endowment Management Team. Her career has spanned a significant period in the evolution...

Are we slipping in our intellectual abilities? Have we lost the ability to read, reason, analyze, and more importantly pay attention?    Over the past decade we have seen a deluge of challenges – from Covid and its disruptive effect on education, to the rising use of screens and smart phones to the more recent threat from LLMs and an increasingly proficient set of AI tools that threaten to compete...

Artemiza Woodgate is Founding Partner at Integrated Quantitative Investments LLC, based in Seattle.  She has spent most of her career in the quantitative investment arena, including close to 5 years with Numeric, Man Group, and over 11 years with Russell Investments.   Our conversation opens with the 3Ms that Artemiza says define her – she is a mother, a mathematician and a lover of mountains. We...

Henry Song is a portfolio manager for Diamond Hill, a asset manager headquartered in Columbus Ohio with approximately $30 bn in AUM. He joined the firm in 2016. Prior to joining Diamond Hill, Henry was a portfolio manager at J.P. Morgan Asset Management from 2005 to 2016.  He specializes in securitized credit.   Our conversation races Henry’s somewhat unorthodox background and path into running mo...

Jo Kempton is Head of Lincolnshire Pension Fund, where she has spent most of her career in various roles, including as the manager of an internal UK equity portfolio. She is an active participant on the local government pension scheme circuit.    Our conversation starts with Jo’s early career and how she ended up pursuing a role in pensions. We speak about her work on the stock picking side, and d...

Stuart Dunbar is a Partner at Baillie Gifford, based in Edinburgh, where he has worked since 2003. He previously held a range of institutional marketing roles, but before that there were some unexpected interests and pursuits. We start there, with his move to Hong Kong and some of the cultural differences that he perceived when working overseas more broadly, much of them to do with self-confidence...

Jen Choi is CEO of ILPA – the Institutional Limited Partners Association, where she has spent over a decade. She previously spent over 7 years at the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association. Our conversation traces her background and her path to representing LPs and their interests in the fast-pace private asset arena. Our conversation has a strong emphasis on transparency – we open with a quo...

We are delighted to release as a bonus episode this conversation with long-time industry member, mentor and advocate Jennifer Strickland.  Over the course of Jennifer’s career she has held a series of roles starting out in the annuity space, moving into private wealth, hedge fund business development, alternative asset business development and most recently was Head of Business Development for Pre...

Krishna Mohanraj is International Portfolio Manager at Diamond Hill Capital Management, a $30bn asset manager headquartered in Columbus Ohio. Prior to joining Diamond Hill, Krishna spent time at Sanford C. Bernstein and Exelon corporation and prior to that was a product manager and solution architect.    We start by discussing Krishna’s background, starting in South India, how he moved to studying...

Debby Blakey is CEO of Hesta a $91 bn AUD Australian superannuation fund dedicated to the health and community services sector. She is also President of the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors and a director of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN).  Our conversation traces Debby's personal and career journey from South Africa, where she did consulting work, to build a n...

We are delighted to bring you Series 3 of our 2025 series, which we again are launching amid significant volatility in markets. However, as you will hear, the more things change, the more they stay the same. We start this series down under, hearing from Debby Blakey, CEO of Hesta, who describes what it means to be a “Super with Impact”, and a gutsy advocate for a fair and healthy community.    We...

Daniel Gore is a Founding Partner of Orthogonal Partners, a boutique asset manager investing in "next generation" alternative investment strategies.  He has had an extensive career in investing, including time spent in angel investing, in a family office and in film finance. He is currently pursuing opportunities in small and mid market UK firms.     Our conversation starts with the path that Dan...

Fernando Vinzons is Chief Investment Officer at the Chicago Teacher’s Pension Fund, a role he has held for almost 3 years. He previously spent over 13 years at the Cook County Pension Fund and started his career in investment research. Our conversation starts with Fernando's initiation into stock picking, and how he earned the ropes pitching stock ideas to a legendary hedge fund manager. We move t...

Peter Wilson is Managing Director at HarbourVest Partners, a private markets specialist firm with over $140 billion in assets across 14 offices. Peter has worked at HarbourVest for most of his career, in a series of roles, most recently as one of two members of the firm's Executive Management Committee which ran the firm from 2012 to 2024. In this broadranging discussion, Peter discusses his caree...

Tom Doyle is Partner and Head of NAV Financing at Pemberton Asset Management, a role he has held for over three years. He previously held a similar role at 17Capital. Our conversation takes us on a tour through the evolution of private markets, the role of innovation in it and some of the dynamics that have driven NAV financing. We dig in to the evolving nature of client demand and understanding o...

Cathy Bevan is Head of Structured Credit at Benefit Street Partners.  She has spent most of her career in credit structuring with roles on the sell side and buy side. Our conversation starts with her university study of math, and the career trajectory which was not specifically planned but assumed its own momentum quite quickly. We speak about the details of structured credit, how it appealed to h...

Series 2 of the 2025 podcast was born into a time of tremendous market turbulence. In our ten conversations with a diverse range of guests – sourced globally, we go top down, and bottom up – into the weeds, and take helicopter views. Tune in to hear about the technologies in venture capital and climate tech that excite even the most experienced investors who have seen multiple cycles with podcasts...

Victoria Barbary  is Director of Strategy & Communications for the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF) in which her focus is to help sovereign wealth funds become better investors for the benefit of their citizens.  She formerly worked in research roles relating to Sovereign Wealth Funds and prior to that was a PhD student in the field of Victorian History. Our conversation s...

Rich Byrne is President of Benefit Street Partners as well as a decorated Brazilian Jiu Jitsu champion. In this fascinating podcast we discuss his journey from a fine arts major to a leading figure in finance and the many twists and turns in between.  We discuss his previous roles such as his internship with Manufacturers Hanover Trust, which is now JP Morgan, and his first job at Wall Street at M...

Sonali Pier is a Managing Director at PIMCO in Newport Beach, with a particular focus on Multi-Sector Credit.  She previously worked as a credit trader and was named recently to the Marketwatch 50 most influential people in markets.  Our conversation starts with her education, and a stock picking competition at the tender stage of sixth grade, which launched an interest in finance and economics. S...

Erik Hirsch is Co-Chief Executive Officer of Hamilton Lane, where he is responsible for the firm’s strategic direction and operations. The firm currently has over $900 billion in assets under management and supervision and is committed to driving meaningful change in private markets for the institutions and other clients that it serves.  We start with discussing Erik's unconventional path into fin...