The Fiftyfaces Podcast

In the final series of the main Fiftyfaces Podcast for 2021, we have a number of treats in store - from members of underrepresented groups that we often don't hear as much about - such as the Native American and the Asian American population - from Bob Snigaroff who moved from a fishing village in Alaska to Wall Street - but via one of Alaska's biggest allocators, and from Susan Soh, whose America...

Susan Martin is MD of Greenstone Consulting, a change and and transition management firm.  After a long career in the public sector, culminating in a CEO role at a financial services business, she now holds a number of director roles and works as an executive coach.  Our conversation tracks Susan's childhood and early career, and how she became used to frequent change and adaptation.  This led to...

Amanda Pullinger is Chief Executive of 100 Women in Finance, where she leads a staff team and provides direction to 500 volunteer practitioners globally.  100 Women in Finance is focused on empowering women in the finance industry and inspiring the next generation of pre-career young women and has over 20,000 registered members globally. She previously held a series of roles in asset management an...

Elois Joseph is co-founder of the Greenwood project, which is an organization that connects Black and LatinX students with career opportunities in financial services and fintech. She previously held a series of roles in investment banks and other financial service firms, mainly in the trading support and compliance divisions. Our conversation traces her upbringing in Chicago, the positions and men...

Johara Farhadieh is Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer of The Illinois State Board of Investment (ISBI), in which she oversees a $20 bn defined benefit fund and a $5 bn dollar defined contribution plan with over 150,000 beneficiaries. She has been at ISBI for over 13 years, and prior to that was a financial analyst. She was named an All-Star Chief Investment Officer by Trusted Insight...

David Vafai is Chief Executive Officer at bfinance International Limited, an investment consulting and advisory firm that he founded over 20 years ago.  The firm is known for its innovative service model, which has shifted some of the traditional structures in investment consulting, manager selection and asset management.  Our conversation traces David's early entrepreneurial roots which saw him c...

Jessica Portis is Head of Member Portfolio Management and Services at TIFF Investment Management.  She previously had a long career in investment consulting, first at Summit and then Mercer.  Our conversation start with her first internships - and the Inroads program that she participated in.  This opened the door of opportunity to her - and not only provided an internship, but committed to broad...

Henry Tapper is the CEO at Agewage, a firm committed to helping people understand their pension pots, and the Founding Editor of the Pension Playpen, which provides guidance on pensions.  He has been involved in financial services for his whole career, and is a high profile advocate for pensions education and transparency.  We start with Henry's background, his year on a herring fleet in Iceland a...

Daniele Beasley is a Board Member at Mission Bank, a role she has held since February 2021, and is also a Chief Client Officer in charge of distribution at Apex Financial Advisors. She is a Certified Financial Planner currently focused on using her 30 years experience in the sector to educate and mentor clients  in what she terms “her mid-life reset”.     Our conversation dives in to the theme of...

Darren Johnson is Chief Operating Officer in Listed Equities and Executive Director at Impax Asset Management, where he is responsible for Global Operations, including Portfolio Services, Technology, Change/Project Management and Client Onboarding. He previously worked in a series of accounting and operations roles.  Our conversation starts with his upbringing in South London and why he was born w...

Anji (Anjuman) Kaur Kang-Stewart is Global Head of Marketing at Man Group, based in their London office.  She previously held a series of senior marketing and business development roles throughout the investment industry and is a Member of the Board of Trustees of Nova New Opportunities and the steering committee of Talk About Black. Our conversation tracks the extraordinary story of Anji's childh...

We are back after an eventful summer with Series 4 of the 2021 Fiftyfaces Podcast, with a selection of 10 stories that provide insights from challenges at the beginning, middle and end of life, and the change and personal growth that happens in between. Social mobility is a core theme of this podcast series and we hear how social housing was so essential as safety net for some families and how it...

Gerald Chen-Young is Principal and Chief Investment Officer at GCY Associates, which provides consulting and advisory services based in Washington DC.  He has over 25 years of experience as a Chief Investment Officer, 14 years of which were spent as VP and Chief Investment of the United Negro College Fund.  He previously held a range of financial services roles at firms including UBS, Paine Webber...

Jennifer Ockwell is a Partner at Triple Point Investment Management, based in London, and previously held a series of senior institutional business development roles at large asset management firms.  She is an ambassador for the Diversity Project with a specific focus on the neurodiversity work stream and is a passionate advocate for neurodivergent individuals and their improved integration into t...

Toyin Alalade's last role was as a Senior Strategy Manager with Royal London. She previously worked in a range of financial and marketing roles at Standard Life and Moody Monday. She recently left Scotland and  returned to her home country of Nigeria, and it was a moving Linked In post that she wrote that led me to her.  Our conversation starts with Toyin's upbringing in Nigeria and what led her t...

Stephan Breban is Head of Research at Renewity, the Founder of Giants Shoulders Capital and a consultant to a number of different firms.  He is known as one of London’s original (and legendary) private equity investors and advisors and has witnessed some of the good, the bad and the ugly of that the sector presents. We had the pleasure of working together, side by side in our own entrepreneurial v...

Deb Clarke was Global Research Chair and Global Head of Investment Research at Mercer for close to 16 years, following an extensive career in asset management and consulting which included 20 years as a portfolio manager.  She retired from her position at Mercer in June 2021 and is building a portfolio career, including a NED role on the EMEA board of Blackrock and a member of the UK CFA Institute...

Mark Steed is Chief Investment Officer at Arizona PSPRS Trust, a US public defined benefit fund with over $13 bn AUM, where he has spent over 14 years.  He previously worked as a banker and prior to that as a financial analyst, and has a Masters in Predictive Analytics.  He describes himself as an “investment ideas” guy and an out of the box thinker at that.   This wide-ranging conversation canter...

Bevon Joseph is co-founder of the Greenwood project, which is an organization that connects Black and LatinX students with career opportunities in financial services and fin-tech.  He previously held a series of roles in investment banks and other financial service firms, mainly in trading management functions. He is an advisory board member at the DePaul Career Center and is a graduate of the GS...

Annabel Gillard is an International Advisory Council Member at the Institute of Business Ethics.  She previously had a long career in asset management where she ran institutional business development businesses for large asset managers and held various board and committee roles in the CFA UK organization. She is currently pursuing a post-graduate degree in the twin disciplines of Philosophy and AI...

Julian Tregoning has worked in the asset management business for many years, having had senior roles in the Flemings Group (where he also covered Latin America) and at BNY Mellon. He has held multiple Director and Chair roles and is a member of the investment committee for SAUL, a multi-employer defined benefit scheme for the non-academic employees of the University of London, which is where we me...

Esther Peiner is Co-Head of the Infrastructure Group Europe in Partners Group, based In Zug.  She previously spent close to 11 years at Macquarie Group, where she was a managing director focused initially on the TMT sector and then infrastructure and real assets.  Our conversation traces her entry into investment banking, how she thrived there and how she found being in a minority worked to her ad...

Sam Kunz is Chief Investment Officer at Core Financial Partners, a firm that provides financial planning to small and medium sized businesses based in Venice, CA. He was previously a Senior Managing Director responsible for asset allocation and investment strategy at the University of California and prior to that he was my predecessor as CIO at the Chicago Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund.   O...

Sandy Urie is Chairman Emeritus at Cambridge Associates, a role she has held since 2016, when she retired as Chairman and CEO, having held the CEO role since 2001, and capping an over 30 year career at the firm. Her current focuses include sustainability and impact investing and she has held multiple board and investment committee roles. Currently she sits on the boards of the Stanford Management...

Faisal Rafi is head of research at Riscura, based in London – Riscura is a South Africa-based financial services firm that focuses on providing purpose driven investment solutions for investors as well as investment managers. He previously worked as an investment manager at a UK corporate hedge fund, and prior to that in various asset management and consulting roles. He trained as an actuary. Our...