Fiduciary Investors Series

The real promise of the total portfolio approach is not simply greater flexibility in choosing investments, but the ability to dynamically manage risk as market conditions change. Nobel Prize-winning economist Myron Scholes, the Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, at Stanford Graduate School of Business, argued that institutional investors focus too heavily on selectivity and average ret...

Artificial intelligence is entering a new era, moving beyond systems that simply answer questions to agents capable of carrying out complex tasks and taking actions over extended periods. Jack Clark, co-founder and head of public benefit at Anthropic, said the shift from chat to agents brings enormous opportunities, from greater economic efficiency to accelerating scientific discovery, but also cr...

T he risks building in the US financial system may not come from a single dramatic policy decision, but from the quiet accumulation of individually defensible changes that together encourage excessive risk-taking. That was the warning from Stanford University economist Ross Levine, who said a series of regulatory and supervisory changes in the US are expanding explicit and implicit government back...

China's advanced infrastructure and ballooning debt are two sides of the same story, says Carnegie Endowment nonresident senior fellow Michael Pettis, who compares China's coming consumption-led rebalancing to Japan's in the 1980s. In conversation with Top1000funds.com Asia Pacific correspondent Darcy Song, Pettis unpacks what this means for institutional investors weighing China exposure over mul...

In the latest episode of the Fiduciary Investors Series, Liao spoke with Top1000funds.com Asia Pacific correspondent Darcy Song on why the convergence of innovation, demographics and improving shareholder returns makes Asian equities an increasingly compelling diversification trade for asset owners navigating a geopolitically fractured world.

APAC equities’ 2025 rally has renewed interest, but Franklin Templeton’s Christy Tan says the case is now structural, driven by trade diversification and domestic growth. Geopolitics and energy volatility will create divergence, so investors should favour targeted country allocations over broad regional exposure. In the podcast with Top1000funds.com, Tan unpacks what this means for portfolio resil...

Pension funds are navigating a more complex environment shaped by higher rates, inflation and shifting currency dynamics. In its latest World View paper, Canada’s IMCO warns of rising bond yields, concentration risks in passive investing, and the need to prepare for a weaker US dollar, with alternatives like the Swiss franc and yen gaining relevance. Speaking to Amanda White on the Top1000funds.co...

In a conversation with Top1000funds.com editor Amanda White, Hamzaogullari unpacks the tenets of good genuine active management including a long-term structural approach and truly differentiated insights, which focuses on the quality of ideas not the quantity.  For example, he says there will only be five to six companies which will benefit disproportionally from the AI trend while most of the oth...

The Trump administration’s strikes on Iran stems from a deep conflict between the two nations which has existed for the past 47 years, according to Professor Stephen Kotkin, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

In this conversation, Top1000funds.com editor Amanda White spoke to James Clarke, global head of institutional capital at Blue Owl Capital, about the credit cycle, the evolution of private credit, data centre financing, and what institutional investors should expect from their managers.

In this conversation Top1000funds.com editor Amanda White speaks to Oregon State Treasurer, Elizabeth Steiner, about the future role and expectations of private equity, how a maturing of the asset class puts pressure on returns, and the private/ public asset mix in the fund’s four-yearly asset allocation review which has just begun.

The board of CalPERS has approved a momentous structural change that gives the $556 billion fund a single reference portfolio for judging performance, delegated authority to investment staff to construct the portfolio, and a simplified measure of success. The fund’s chief investment officer, Stephen Gilmore, has been behind the fund’s shift to this approach which he says can add 50 to 60 basis poi...

In this live recording from the Fiduciary Investors Symposium, hosted by Top1000funds.com in Singapore in March 2025, Professor Kotkin unpacks what’s next for the US and the world

 In the midst of the great power rivalry between the US and China, “we need all the help we can get to carve out a future that works well for all of us” says Danny Quah, Dean and Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, in a talk examining the future of the global economy and the role of Asia. Listen here. 

Investors are currently facing the end of uncertainty around assumptions they have made for decades, and need to shore up their portfolios with greater inflation protection, more active management, and by fostering innovation, according to chief strategist at the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario, Nick Chamie who spoke to Amanda White in the Fiduciary Investors Series podcast.

As carbon emissions continue to rise investors need to innovate on the nature of investment mandates says Colin le Duc, a founding partner of Generation Investment Management. He says real world impact is going in the wrong direction, even though sustainable investing is booming, and the credibility of transition plans is under scrutiny.

About Professor Julian Allwood Julian Allwood is Professor of Engineering and the Environment at the University of Cambridge. From 2009-13 he held an EPSRC Leadership Fellowship, to explore Material Efficiency as a climate mitigation strategy – delivering material services with less new material. This led to publication in 2012 of the book “Sustainable Materials: with both eyes open” - listed by B...

About Professor Sir David King Professor Sir David King is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, University of Cambridge; Founder and Chair of the Centre for ClimateRepair in the University; Chair of the Climate Crisis advisory Group; an Affiliate Partner of SYSTEMIQ  Limited;  Senior Strategy Adviser to the President of Rwanda and founder member of the Clean Growth Leadership Network, CGLN. He served...

About Warwick McKibbin Professor Warwick McKibbin, AO, FASSA is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA) in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University (ANU). He is also Director of Policy Engagement, and ANU Node Leader, The ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR). He is an ANU Public Poli...

What is the Fiduciary Investors series? The COVID-19 global health and economic crisis has highlighted the need for leadership and capital to be urgently targeted towards the vulnerabilities in the global economy.  Through conversations with academics and asset owners, the Fiduciary Investors Podcast Series is a forward looking examination of the changing dynamics in the global economy, what a sus...

About Stephen Kotkin Stephen Kotkin is the John P Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is the co-director of the program in history and the practice of diplomacy and the director of the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. He established the Princeton department’s Global History initiative and workshop, and teaches the graduate...

About Joseph Stiglitz Joseph E. Stiglitz is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is also the co-chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD, and the chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute. A recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979), he i...

About Marcie Frost Marcie Frost joined CalPERS as chief executive officer (CEO) in October 2016. She is the ninth CEO and second woman to head America's largest pension fund. As CEO, Marcie oversees an annual budget of $1.8 billion, an experienced team of 2,800 professionals, and three lines of business for the fund: pensions, health benefits, and investments. CalPERS administers a defined benefit...

About William Nordhaus William Nordhaus was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico (which is part of the United States). He completed his undergraduate work at Yale University in 1963 and received his Ph. D. in Economics in 1967 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA. He has been on the faculty of Yale University since 1967 and has been Full Professor of Economics since 1973 and a...