AAAIM High ELI

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.

Our guests for today's podcast are Elizabeth Burton, Chief Investment Officer, Employees' Retirement System of the State of Hawaii and Lindsay Burton, Founder and President of the Kayo Conference Series. Elizabeth and Lindsay are two trailblazers and extraordinary women in the finance industry and they happen to be sisters. As CIO for Hawaii, Elizabeth is responsible for overseeing over $17 billion in assets for over 145,000 beneficiaries. That is a lot of responsibility, but for those who know Elizabeth, she is a task master and just knows how to get stuff done! Equally as impressive is the success Lindsay has achieved by starting Kayo and being a catalyst for women in the private equity industry. I had a fun time interviewing both Elizabeth and Lindsay, hearing about their upbringing and the path each took to getting to their current positions. Through hard work, grit, determination, and support for one another, both Elizabeth and Lindsay have achieved awesome success in their early careers thus far. There are many words of wisdoms in the podcast for mid career professionals aspiring to be CIO one day or launching their own business. Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with the Burton sisters.

Our guest for today's podcast is Ginger Lew, who along with Maeley Tom, conceived and co-founded AAAIM in 2006. Not surprising, it took two awesome Asian women to get AAAIM started! Ginger has enjoyed amazing success in her career in both the public and private sectors, having served under the Clinton and Obama administrations in key roles and more recently having helped to start, operate and sell a very successful infrastructure company.

I asked Bennett Kim, one of AAAIM's founding board members, to conduct this podcast with Ginger given their long and special relationship together. For those of you fortunate enough to know Ginger, she is one of the most delightful people to be around as she is full of optimism, positivity and altruism. There are so many tidbits of wisdom embodied in this podcast so without further ado, please enjoy Bennett's conversation with Ginger Lew.

Our guest for today's podcast is Carrie Lo, Portfolio Manager for the $25B Risk Mitigating Strategies group at CalSTRS (one of the largest public plans in the US) where she has led the venture into hedge funds, specifically those uncorrelated strategies to equities especially in global macro, trend following strategies and systematic risk premia.

Carrie takes us through her personal and professional path from investment banker turned venture startup to hedge fund investor before landing at CalSTRS over 12 years ago. Her journey took her from CA to NY to London (with some time in HK) and ultimately back to CA. Carrie started out in the Innovation and Risk group in 2009 and in 2016, due to the immense successes of this group, the Risk Mitigating Strategies group was born.

Coming from an immigrant family from HK, I found Carrie to be humble, thoughtful and gracious and immensely grateful to her family for their sacrifices in order to build a better life here in the U.S.Carrie is extremely intelligent and curious and a great role model for younger female investment professionals.She takes pride in setting the example that, with hard work, a commitment to excellence, and a "if you don't ask, you don't get" attitude, anything is possible.

Without further ado, here is my conversation with Carrie Lo.

Our guest for today's podcast is Deborah Way, Managing Director, Co-Head of Global Markets Recruiting for Sheffield Haworth, a leading global executive search and talent advisory firm.

After spending over 20+ years in various roles in Global Markets both as a producer and desk head, Deborah made the transition to become a recruiter after leaving Barclays in 2019. From her early days growing up in Wyoming to the campus of Princeton University to the trading floors of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Barclays, Deborah takes us through her journey rising to MD and heading up high power teams both in New York and Singapore.

As an Asian female, Deborah shares many insights on what it takes to be successful in the ultra competitive world of sales and trading and succeeding on Wall Street. We touch upon all topics including promotion, compensation, unconscious bias, grit, determination, the bamboo ceiling, and how you know when it is time to leave your job.

Without further ado, here is our conversation with Deborah Way.