Our guest for today's podcast is Christina Qi, Chief Executive Officer of Databento, an on-demand market data platform she co-founded after spending several years running a high frequency trading hedge fund. Earlier this year, Christina and her co-founder raised $7.5 million in seed funding to build out "their data-as-a-service" solution for the financial industry. I very much enjoyed interviewing Christina as I found her to be quite authentic and transparent about her failures and missteps in her career. But as the great Winston Churchill once said, "Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss in enthusiasm." Christina has accomplished much in her early career including being named on Forbes "30 under 30" list in finance and she is absolutely a role model for the AAAIM community. I discovered Christina through linkedin as she is very generous about sharing her wisdom and experience for entrepreneurs looking to start their own firms. Christina takes us through her upbringing in Utah, path to MIT, and subsequent launch of her hedge fund from her dorm room after failing to secure a permanent full time offer after a Wall Street summer internship. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Christina Qi.

Our guest for today's podcast is Dave Liu, a 30-Year Veteran of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Dave is an entrepreneur who has started multiple companies, advisor who has raised over $15 billion for hundreds of companies, and investor in multiple billion dollar exits. He is passionate about advancing new ideas in technology and entertainment, and supporting philanthropic causes for disadvantaged groups. He is a creator who enjoys writing books and drawing cartoons. I asked Bennett Kim, one of AAAIM's founding board members, to conduct this podcast with Dave as they have been good friends since attending Harvard Business School together. Dave shares many lessons he learned along the way in achieving career success. AAAIM thanks Dave for taking the time to take us through his personal and professional life journey.

Our guest for today's podcast is Sona Menon who is a Partner at Cambridge Associates. Sona serves as an Outsourced Chief Investment Officer and adviser to institutional clients such as pensions, endowments, and healthcare institutions. She is directly responsible for overseeing over $20 billion in assets.

Cambridge Associates is a global investment firm that focuses on building and managing investment portfolios for institutional clients such as endowments, foundations, pensions, and private clients. They have over $500 billion in assets under management/advisement.

As a woman and minority, Sona is a role model for us all, rising through the ranks at Cambridge Associates over her 20 year career at the storied firm. What a pleasure it was for me and AAAIM Co-Chair, Brenda Chia, to interview Sona for this podcast.

Without further ado, here is our conversation with Sona Menon.

Our guest for today's podcast is Eric Nierenberg, Chief Strategy Officer for the $80 billion Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board (MassPRIM) where he has been responsible for hedge funds and low vol strategies and over time, became the CSO. He is a "jack of all trades", leading a team in asset allocation, risk mgmt., research, Real Assets and the Portfolio Completion Strategies effort. PRIM is known for a more active investment approach oftentimes including more esoteric strategies but also direct investments and SMAs allowing them to invest with and support highly talented but smaller, emerging managers.

Eric is well known in the industry and has received numerous awards as a top allocator and rising star, CIO Magazine's "Forty Under 40", Institutional Investor "Allocator Voice", the list goes on. While a top investment allocator, he is also a prized professor at Brandeis' International Business School.

Eric takes us through his personal and professional path from equity portfolio manager to public service as an allocator at a public plan to academia. Hear how he his experiences growing up in a diverse community in Miami and working at large international academic institution at Brandeis ingrained in him the importance of diversity and being a strong mentor and sponsor. He is clearly passionate about the value of diversity.

I found my conversation with Eric to be enlightening and endearing as he talks about the importance of helping others to achieve greatness. He is extremely intelligent, thoughtful and caring and while viewed as a highly talented investor, he is also well deserving of the moniker " fantastic mentor and Best boss ever!"

Without further ado, here is my conversation with Eric Nierenberg.

Our guest for today's podcast is Pooja Malik, CEO & Founding Partner of Nipun Capital. Pooja founded Nipun Capital in 2011 after a very successful career at Barclays Global Investors (BGI) where she was promoted quickly to become one of the youngest Managing Directors at the firm after successfully turning around BGI's active small cap equity strategy. I very much enjoyed interviewing Pooja given she has been a perenial "underdog" all her life but has tackled every conceivable obstacle and overcome them by leaps and bounds. As the middle child and daughter of a strong Indian mother who raised her family as a single parent after the death of her father when Pooja was 12, Pooja learned a lot about grit and determination from her mother. As a woman and minority, Pooja is a role model and an inspiration for all of us in the AAAIM community. I am so happy she believed enough in herself to launch her own hedge fund almost 10 years ago and took the time to share her story with us.

Our guest for today's podcast is Dennis Jean-Jacques, Founder & CIO of Ocean Park Investments. Dennis is what I would characterize a "Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch, Michael Price, and John Rogers" influenced value ninja… as he has spent the last 25 years perfecting his craft: studying, working with, and being mentored by these investment legends. Starting a hedge fund without seed capital is hard. In fact, the probability for success is miniscule. Despite these odds, Dennis took the leap in 2016 to launch Ocean Park, given his prior 10 year successful track record running equity long/short absolute return portfolios. As the old saying goes: "If you don't believe in yourself, why should anyone else!" I found Dennis to be thoughtful and very down to earth as he shares snippets about growing up and going to school in Boston, how he caught the investment bug, and why he has such high conviction in hard cash flow businesses. As an emerging and diverse manager, Dennis has it all: pedigree, qualifications, experience, track record, integrity. If you are an allocator and a believer that diversity matters for generating long term sustainable returns, then Dennis is someone you should meet. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Dennis Jean-Jacques.

Our guest for today's podcast is Dr. Ranjan Bhaduri, Founder & CEO of Bodhi Research Group. After spending 15 years as a researcher and asset allocator in alternative investments working with a number of top investment firms, Ranjan decided to hang up his own shingle and start Bodhi Research Group to provide advisory, research and education in the alternatives investments space. Bodhi's clients include some of the leading institutional investors and family offices in the field, including past assignments with top Canadian pension plans and Sovereign Wealth funds. Bodhi prides itself as being independent and completely unconflicted. I found Ranjan to be humble and very thoughtful about how he is building out Bodhi leveraging his extensive network of experts across the alternatives space. It is great to see an Asian Canadian take the entrepreneurial plunge and we hope this podcast helps to highlight Bodhi's unique approach and value proposition. Without further ado, here is our conversation with the Dr. Ranjan Bhaduri.

Our guest for today's podcast is Barbara Byrne, Former Vice Chairman of Investment Banking at Barclays and Lehman Brothers. I had the good fortune of getting to know Barbara during my time at Barclays and she is quite simply a legend in the business. Inspirational leader, money maker, glass ceiling breaker, relentless motivator, role model, and comedian – these are all things I think about when I think about Barbara. Not many can say that they survived almost 40 years in the ultra competitive world of investment banking, but Barbara can and she did it with grace and character, leaving behind a legacy pulling both women and men up along the way.

Oh, and by the way, she raised 4 dynamic children along the way; easily earning the designation of super woman banker and mom. Grab a pen and paper because you will want to write down all the wonderful advice she shares during this podcast.

Without further ado, here is our conversation with the great Barbara Moakler Byrne.

Our guests for today's podcast are Deepak Gurnani, Founder and Managing Partner, Versor Investments (formerly known as ARP Investments) and Thiago de Freitas, Portfolio Manager for Liquid Alternatives, UPS Group Trust. Alpha is hard to come by, but uncorrelated alpha is even more rare. I wanted to dive deep into a hedge fund strategy that was truly uncorrelated to equity beta as well as long duration rate/credit beta. When discussing the topic with Thiago, one of the best in the business with a keen eye for uncorrelated alpha, he suggested a conversation with Deepak Gurnani who runs a systematic, relative value global macro strategy leveraging AI and ML. I found Deepak to be humble, transparent, and grounded despite the success he has achieved in his career formerly as the CIO for Investcorp's fund of hedge funds and now as the founder and managing partner of his own hedge fund, Versor Investments. It is great to see a good guy, an Asian guy albeit, achieve success and truly build something unique and high impact for sophisticated institutional investors. Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Deepak and Thiago.

Our guest for today's podcast is Seema Hingorani, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley Investment Management and Founder/Chair of Girls Who Invest, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the number of women in portfolio management and executive leadership in the asset management industry. As part of the senior leadership team at MSIM, Seema is focused on strategic client relationships, investment talent development and diversity initiatives; She is part of the Diversity Council and Diversity and Inclusion Senior Leaders Advisory Council. Seema brings a unique perspective as she had been on the sellside as a banker and research analyst then buyside as long only then HF investor and ultimately became CIO for one of the world's largest public pensions, NYC Retirement System.It was here that she recognized the need for more women investors in the investment management industry and through an OpEd piece with Bloomberg planted a seed about the need for an organization like GWI which could help to create a pipeline of talented women investors. This has now become a highly successful organization which has helped > 800 women start a career in finance through training, mentorships and internships. Seema is a prolific speaker on the topic of a more robust inclusion of women in the corporate sector and most recently received the French Legion of Honor award and was the first AA to do so. She has numerous accolades including being recognized as one of 100 most influential women in U.S. finance by Barrons this year, as a 2019 Bloomberg 50 "Ones To Watch", and Wall Street Women Entrepreneur of the Year in 2015 by Traders magazine. Join me today as Seema takes us through her personal and professional journey and describes her commitment to serving the greater good. Born in CT and raised in an immigrant family from India where her parents had an arranged marriage, Seema is the embodiment of the AA success story having gone from Yale to Wharton and worked at some of the most prestigious investment firms. She is a talented investor who has become a champion of leveling the playing field for women in the investment world. Seema has an entrepreneurial spirit, is engaging, passionate, a clear visionary, who attributes her success to her parents especially to her mother who inspired her to help others around her. Seema is a powerhouse figure in our industry and has succeeded in truly paving the way for women of all ages with her work at GWI as well as now at MSIM. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Seema Hingorani.