Our guest for today’s podcast is Philip Yau who is a Managing Director at GI Partners.  Phil serves as a member of the firm’s Executive Committee and is head of the firm’s capital formation-business development team. His responsibilities include managing strategic relationships, developing new business initiatives, and overseeing the capital formation efforts. Prior to joining GI Partners, Phil spent over 24 years in investment banking, including 12 years as a senior leader of the UBS Private Funds Group.

I met Phil at the most recent AAAIM National Conference held in Los Angeles.  Phil sought me out and shared his desire to be featured on the podcast in order to pay tribute to both his parents who served as great role models for Phil and his brother Andrew.  Phil’s father, Dr. Stephen Yau, Is a famous professor of computer science who is still teaching after 63 years at 89 years old.  Phil’s mother, Victoria Yau, was a well-recognized contemporary artist.

Without further ado, here is our conversation with Phil Yau.

Our guests for today’s podcast are Jen Vigilante and Maine Park, Counselors at College Labyrinth. College Labyrinth provides a highly personalized framework for students to pursue genuine interests, enriching the journey to college while finding the right next step. 

Most recently, Jen spent the past decade working in the Princeton University Undergraduate Admission Office, where she was an Associate Dean primarily responsible for the New York City schools, evaluating more than 2,000 applications each year. 

Maine is a long time friend AAAIM.  During her own children’s college application processes, Maine recognized the incredible value in reassuring and steering parents and students through an often difficult period. In Maine’s own words, “Every child, including my own, has such different interests and strengths. It can feel overwhelming to try and find the right school, the right word, the right deadline! By starting College Labyrinth, I became the guide I wish I had when going through this process. My goal is for College Labyrinth to help students achieve more than just an acceptance letter, but an honest and healthy understanding of who they are and who they might become in the future.” 

Without further ado, here is our conversation with Jen Vigilante and Maine Park. 

Our guest for today’s podcast is Tim Hsia, founder and Managing Partner of Context Ventures, a venture fund that invests in military veteran founders and also in consumer startups. Some of Tim’s startup investments prior to Context Ventures include Workflow (acquired by Apple), Morning Brew (acquired by Business Insider), The Hustle (acquired by HubSpot), and Thredup (which IPO’d).  Tim is also the CEO & Founder of Media Mobilize (an online ad network, marketing agency, and media company).

Tim is a distinguished honor graduate of West Point and was commissioned as an infantry officer in the US Army. Tim transitioned from active duty in 2010 and graduated from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Stanford Law School in 2014. While at Stanford he taught ROTC to cadets at Stanford and Santa Clara University.

Tim is the eptiome of the word “grit”.  Without further ado, here is our conversation with Tim Hsia.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Vishal Bhutani, Chief Investment Officer of AMS Children’s Fund (AMS), a new fund launching in early 2025.  Together with David Gaynes, Vishal is forming AMS to capitalize on the growing interest by institutional investors in the Indian equity markets.  Vishal believes that the middle market opportunity in Indian equities is one of the best investment opportunities available today.  Leveraging his experience as an event driven portfolio manager, AMS believes it will be able to achieve superior risk adjusted returns.

Vishal has spent the bulk of his 20 year investment career as an Event Driven investor, investing across the capital structure.  Joining me on the podcast is Clark Cheng, CEO and CIO of Merrimac Corp, a large single family office with investments in hedge funds, private equity, venture capital and real estate AND David Gaynes, co-founder of AMS Children’s Fund.

So why should investors care about the Indian equity markets now?  Vishal provides many insights and answers why in this podcast.

Without further ado, here is our conversation with Vishal Bhutani.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Darren Xu, Co-Founder and Portfolio Manager of Questline Capital. Questline Capital is a long/short equity fund focused on the gaming, media and communications sectors. After almost a decade as an investor at Farallon Capital Management, Darren decided to leave his job and will be launching his fund in the 1 st quarter of 2025. Darren started his career in investment banking in Mergers and Acquisitions at Citigroup after graduating with two degrees, one in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania and the other in Business from the Wharton School. I named this podcast “Living the dream: playing video games for fun and for work.” Literally, that is what Darren does. How fun is that? So, how does one create a career playing video games. Well, we are here to find out. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Darren Xu.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Dave Lu, Managing Partner of Hyphen Capital, an early stage venture capital firm focused on Asian American founders. Dave is a veteran of the technology industry, having founded two prior companies: Expo and Fanpop, as well as having worked at Apple, eBay, Cisco, Yahoo and Sony. Dave produced the Emmy-winning HBO documentary 38 at the Garden about Jeremy Lin. Amidst the rise of anti-Asian hate during the pandemic, Dave led a movement with an open letter signed by 8,000 leaders including President George Bush and the CEOs of Google, DoorDash, Zoom and others that was published in the Wall Street Journal and launched Stand with Asian Americans. Dave sits on the advisory board of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific Center and the Asian Pacific Fund. Dave received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and his BA from the University of Pennsylvania.

To say that Dave is a role model would be an understatement.  I applaud Dave for his selfless efforts to help inspire and galvanize change for the AAPI community.   

Without further ado, here is our conversation with Dave Lu.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Raymond Chan, Partner at Atalaya Capital Management, a leading private credit firm.  Ray is responsible for the firm’s investing in Financial Assets, which focuses on sourcing and executing specialty finance and other private asset-backed transactions. Prior to joining Atalaya, Ray was a Partner and Co-Founder of TTM Capital, LLC, an investment firm focused on acquiring and lending against portfolios of financial and other assets. Previously, he was a Managing Director and co-head of the Assets Group at Highbridge/Zwirn Capital Management.  

Earlier in his career, Ray was a member of the Principal Transaction and Principal Finance teams at Lehman Brothers and worked on numerous securitizations across multiple asset classes at Salomon Brothers. He began his career as a consultant at Price Waterhouse, followed by internal consulting and operations roles at Lehman Brothers. He holds a BA in Economics and Political Science from Columbia University.

As our podcast listeners know, I have a bias for featuring successful Columbia alumni, my alma mater.  Ray’s success hits home for me as I knew him as a peer over 30 years ago and I am so happy for all the contributions he is making for the AAPI community, both professionally in his firms’s support of AAAIM and personally as a Board Member for Apex For Youth. 

Without further ado, here is our conversation with Ray Chan. 

Our guest for today’s podcast is Tem Tumurbat, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Nomadic Venture Partners (NVP), where he focuses on fund strategy, fundraising, portfolio construction, valuation, and financial analysis.

Prior to co-founding NVP, Tem was an investment professional at Resource Capital Funds (RCF), a mining focused private equity investment firm, managing early to late stage investments. He de-risked companies, commercialized their businesses and successfully completed M&As that delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to investors.

Prior to RCF, Tem worked for Newmont Mining Corporation as a mining engineer and then project engineer. Tem also co-founded MNG Summit, a non-profit organization supporting Mongolian students and early career professionals.

Tem started his professional career as an entrepreneur where he started and operated a transportation company in college to help pay for college tuition and support extended family.

I found Tem’s story to be fascinating.  Joining me on the podcast and my guest co-host is Brian O’Neil, former CIO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and long time supporter of AAAIM.  

Without further ado, here is our conversation with Tem Tumurbat.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Glenn Hosokawa, Director of Fixed Income at CalSTRS.  After over 25 years serving CalSTRS, Glenn will be retiring at the end of August 2024 and riding off into the sunset.  If you google or search for Glenn’s biography, you won’t be able to find anything.  I tried.  Glenn is as old school as they come and doesn’t have a social media profile.

For those that know Glenn, he is credited for building a world class Fixed Income investment division at one of the most admired places to work.  Glenn isn’t looking for any accolades as he just enjoyed coming in, day in day out, working hard to generate returns to help secure the retirement benefits of all the great teachers that serve the State of California.  Great mission, great guy, great career.

So who is Glenn and what is he known for?  Well, Glenn was gracious enough to share his story with me and my guest co-host Sylvia Owens from Kennedy Lewis Investment Management.  

Without further ado, here is our conversation with Glenn Hosokawa. 

Our guest for today’s podcast is Gino Reina, Principal at SECOR Asset Management.  Gino is a portfolio manager and member of the client advisory team at SECOR, responsible for client relationship management and business development.  Gino has over 20 years of investment management industry experience, including time at Segal Advisors as Director of Research, UBS Paine Webber, and Neuberger Berman as a portfolio manager on the mutual fund wrap platform. Gino holds a Bachelors of Business Administration (BBA) in Banking and Finance from Hofstra University. In addition, he is a member of the CFA Society New York and Vice Chair of the CFA New Jersey Chapter.

I’ve always found Gino to be very pleasant to be around.  In addition to his full time job, Gino is also a co-owner and restaurant entrepreneur of two pizza restaurants and an avid long distance runner, having completed a 100 mile ultra marathon.

Needless to say, Gino is an interesting person to get to know!  Without further ado, here is our conversation with Gino Reina.