Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry

Michael Mervosh, clinical psychologist and founder of the Hero's Journey Foundation. Michael joined me to talk about how people are managing their way through the crisis. Our conversation covers the unexpected resonance of shelter-in-place, facing ordeals, valuing connection, and discovering creativity. We close with a simple tip to participate in something bigger than yourself, and a poetic word...

Both times I was interviewed (by  Khe Hy  and Patrick O'Shaughnessy ) and shared those conversations on Capital Allocators, I made reference to a special experience I've participated in for the last five years called the Hero's Journey. The weeklong journey in the mountains of West Virginia provides a setting and platform for each participant to access their best self. Michael Mervosh is the deepl...

Andy Golden is the President of PRINCO, where he has overseen the management of Princeton University's $25 billion endowment since 1995. He was an early guest on the show and came back to discuss steering the ship in this tricky time. Our conversation covers communicating remotely, adding value incrementally in volatile markets, managing time, considering liquidity, and playing offense. Join Ted's...

After getting some great feedback from the replay of my conversation with Scott Malpass, I am going to repeat some gems from the past every few months. This week I picked out my conversation with Andy Golden, the venerable head of Princeton's 24 billion dollar endowment. It's another master class in endowment management from a seasoned veteran. Andy Golden is the President of Princeton University'...

My friend Brian Portnoy recently put together a Zoom call where he and Jonathan Novy interviewed Annie Duke about decision making in the crisis. Brian was a long-time fund investor and has authored two books in the field of behavioral finance. He and I discussed his second book, The Geometry of Wealth, on Episode 57 that follows on the feed.  He is currently a financial wellness consultant for adv...

Brian Portnoy Brian is currently the Director of Investment Education at $100B investment solutions provider Virtus Investment Partners, where he strives to simplify the complex world of money in an effort to help investors make better decisions and lead a joyful life. For the past two decades, he has held senior investment, research, and strategy roles in the hedge fund and mutual fund industries...

My guest on today's show once again is Annie Duke, decision-making expert, former world-famous poker player, and author of the best seller, Thinking in Bets .  I had a chance to interview Annie at The Investment Institute's Fall Forum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and the live interview follows. Special thanks to Andrea Szigethy and Donna Holly, founders of the Institute, for having Annie and me...

Sandra Robertson, OU Endowment Management's esteemed CEO and CIO, rejoined me for an update on how she and her team have been navigating the markets. It's quick and chock full of wisdom, including her priorities, calibration of the portfolio, assessment of opportunities, and shopping list in a time that she renders too late to sell and too early to buy. Learn More Read the  Transcript Subscribe to...

Sandra Robertson is the CEO and Chief Investment Officer of OU Endowment Management Ltd, a subsidiary company of the University of Oxford that manages the 4 billion GBP Oxford Endowment Fund. Simply put, she is one of the most respected endowment managers in the world. Our conversation covers Sandra's start at the Wellcome Trust in the mid-90s, her arrival at Oxford in 2007, Oxford's investing len...

Steve   Nelson is CEO of the Institutional Limited Partners Association or ILPA, a non-profit that engages, empowers and connects limited partners (LPs) to maximize their performance. It has over 500 member institutions that represent $2 trillion in private assets under management or approximately 50% of the global institutional market.  ILPA is the only global organization dedicated exclusively t...

Eric Peters is the founder and CIO One River Asset Management, an investment manager dedicated to delivering high conviction absolute-return strategies, where each individual strategy comes out of the team's expertise in thematic macro, volatility, systematic, and inflation trading/investing. Eric has been a long-time trader and writes a widely dispersed email called Weekend Notes, in which he sha...

Mark Baumgartner is the CIO of the Institute for Advanced Study, where he oversees a $1 billion portfolio. I reached out to Mark in this rapidly changing environment to get his take on how he's navigating these rough seas. He was kind to spare a few moments to share his thoughts. Our conversation covers Mark's framework for approaching this crisis, communicating with his team, orienting to the env...

Mark Baumgartner is the CIO of the Institute for Advance Study, where he oversees a $1 billion portfolio that seeks to achieve just median returns but with significantly less risk. Prior to joining IAS, Mark had stints at the Ford Foundation overseeing risk, at Morgan Stanley's Alternative Investment Partners, at both quantitative and qualitative hedge funds, and as a management consultant. Oh, an...

Jennifer Prosek is the founder and CEO of Prosek Partners, a leading international public relations and financial communications consultancy with offices in New York, London, Los Angeles and Connecticut. Prosek Partners ranks among the top 10 independent public relations firms in the U.S., and among the top financial communications consultancies. The firm has been listed as an Inc. 5000 Fastest Gr...

Ben Inker is the head of the Asset Allocation team at GMO, a $60 billion asset manager known for its value bias under founder Jeremy Grantham.  Ben joined GMO right out of college nearly thirty years ago and has been there ever since. Our conversation starts with Ben's early investment lessons from renown economics professors at Yale and how that led him to GMO upon graduation.  We discuss his fra...

Michael Mauboussin is the Head of Consilient Research at Counterpoint Global and fortunately, a regular guest on the show. Michael is an astute researcher of behavior, decision-making and complex systems, and I reached out to him to get his reasoned temperature on the current climate. We discussed frameworks for making a good decision in turbulent markets, monitoring stress, assessing valuation, a...

Michael Mauboussin is the well-known investment strategist currently plying his wares at Blue Mountain Capital. He joined me for the second time to discuss his new research entitled "Who's on the Other Side?" Our conversation dives into the work, discussing how investors can focus on process over outcome, the four types of investment edges, behavioral traits of single and group portfolio managers,...

Michael Mauboussin currently is the Director of Research at BlueMountain Capital, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund and asset manager. He spent the majority of his professional career thinking and writing about decision making, behavior and complex systems, with long stints at Credit Suisse and nearly a decade alongside Bill Miller at Legg Mason. Michael has been an Adjust Professor at Columbia Bu...

In the midst of this unprecedented time, I thought it would be helpful to hear from James Aitken, the extraordinary macro strategist who specializes in understanding the functioning of the financial system. I reached out to James with one key question in mind – are we facing a systemic risk outside of what we see happening to the economy and markets.  That conversation follows. Please stay safe an...

Greg Fleming is the founding CEO of Rockefeller Capital Management, where he took the helm of a storied family office in 2018 to build and serve other families and institutions as well. Prior to taking on this challenge, Greg was the President of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and Morgan Stanley Investment Management and before that spent seventeen years at Merrill Lynch, culminating in serving...

Christie Hamilton is the Head of Investments at the $2 billion Children's Health Medical Center of Dallas.  She's perhaps the most well-followed institutional allocator on Twitter, under the handle @ROIChristie. Our conversation covers Christie's career path, experience with Twitter, and the investment process at Children's, covering the mission, strategy, manager selection, opportunities and risk...

Mike Mauzé is the General Partner at VMG Partners, which is one of those little known, closed capacity private equity firms that a small number of top institutions have loyally invested with since its founding 15 years ago.  VMG manages $2 billion focused solely on building iconic consumer brands and has an astonishing record of delivering a 45% IRR to its LPs since inception. Our conversation cov...

Doug Phillips is the CIO of the University of Rochester, where he has overseen the school's $2.6 billion endowment for twenty years.  Doug's two-decade tenure at Rochester constitutes only the back half of his work in the endowment world, as he previously managed Williams College's endowment for fourteen years and started his career in the early eighties at Princeton. Our conversation covers the h...

Dan Rasmussen is the Founder and portfolio manager at Verdad Advisers, which he launched in 2014 to replicate the historical success of private equity in the public markets.  He's an outspoken critic of the market's enthusiasm for private equity, resulting from research he conducted in the business while working at Bain Capital. Our conversation covers Dan's early education in the Socratic method,...

I'm excited to announce Capital Allocators LIVE!, a live event that will take place in NYC on June 18th. I'll host a series of live podcasts with Michael Mauboussin, Morgan Housel, Andre Perold, Atomic Habits author James Clear, and Annie Duke. You can hear us live and sit alongside a bunch of other past guests on the show as well. Founder's Class Tickets and Golden Tickets are now available. Foun...