Investment Management Operations

Lakshay Chauhan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Finpilot, an AI knowledge management system for the investment office.
Lakshay shares how he saw the opportunity to build Finpilot, which has evolved into a platform that knows everything the office knows about its managers, funds, and portfolio. Agents do the work on top of it, covering diligence, monitoring, and reporting.
We discuss what software engineering can tell us about where investment work is headed, what makes for great design partners, and why certain technology favors the lean team.
We also dig into what it actually takes for an office to use AI well – the importance of being a subject matter expert and what will follow the AI chat window.
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Dan Dashiell is the COO of Asia Alternatives, one of the first Asia-dedicated private equity fund-of-funds, with approximately $13 billion in assets.

Let’s face it: investing in Asia requires a different set of skills, contacts, and an understanding of how culture impacts your own investment and operational playbook.

Dan shares what LPs need to know about the legal, tax, and operational nuances of investing in Asia – from domicile selection, ODD considerations, and legal investment restrictions to the tax details that can quietly eat away at returns in places like India, China, Japan, and Korea.

We also dig into how AI is showing up across the region and how a 65-person firm across six offices is building its own data and technology roadmap.

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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)

Olivier Babin and Naunidh Bhalla are the co-founders of Tetrix, an AI-native investment intelligence platform built for allocators. They met during their time at Stanford GSB and talked to more than 200 potential clients before deciding what to build.

Tetrix is a single stack covering document collection, extraction, normalization, and analytics, with proactive insights.

We discuss what next-gen analytics looks like, with features such as portfolio company valuation variance across managers and analytics on management fees.

We also dig into combining quantitative data with manager letters and other qualitative inputs without losing traceability, and the importance of getting client design feedback and turning it into a shipped feature.

If you're an allocator wondering what AI-native actually looks like in practice, this one is for you.
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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)

Alberto Rizzoli is the Co-Founder of V7 Labs.  
 
Today's conversations are all about workflow, and Alberto shares how to turn your ops process into AI workflows for document-heavy work across private markets, from due diligence to investment memos and more. We discuss finding that sweet spot for non-technical ops teams using workflow systems to get output that is tied back to its source and a context graph that gives the whole firm a shared memory of past work.  
 
We discuss where the value sits beyond Claude and ChatGPT, why consistent process beats a good-looking first run, and how knowledge workers become designers of process while AI does the grunt work. We also dig into avoiding vendor lock-in and why the best way to adopt AI is to jump right in.  
 
If you're an allocator ready to move from AI experiments to workflows, this one is for you. 

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Brendan Lloyd is the CTO at Glenmede, a $50 billion firm spanning wealth management, OCIO, and asset management. His team supports all three, combining operations and technology under one roof. I always enjoy these conversations because building tech and operations across different products with different stakeholders is complicated. There's no single solution that does it all really well, but Brendan uncovers how they tackle it.

We also get into how they took their 450 employees from pockets of AI enthusiasm to firm-wide adoption, how groups like internal audit saw immediate ROI with the help of AI, and how his team thinks about budgeting for token burn.

We also get into the latest thinking on cybersecurity and vendor management, and why the data layer is the unglamorous work that makes everything else possible.
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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)

John Kaminsky is a Managing Director and the Head of Data Strategy at Maverick Real Estate Partners, a New York City distressed credit investor focused on commercial real estate.

John spent nearly 20 years working at data consulting firms before bringing Maverick's entire data function in-house.

John shares what it takes to build AI agents, the importance of ontology, and creating moats that lives when everyone has the same models,

He also discusses how documentation of “the why” became their most valuable asset. 

John explains the effort from prototype to production and how they keep token burn in check by handing every task to the lowest-cost actor that can do it.

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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)

Peter Heskopoulos is the Co-founder and CEO of Petra Funds Group, a fund administrator built on the premise that experienced talent — not scale — is the true differentiator in private fund administration.

Pete’s career began in public accounting at Arthur Andersen before he spent nearly 16 years at Riverstone Holdings, ultimately serving as CFO. We discuss how that experience convinced him the fund administration industry had it backwards: relying on lower-cost offshore talent to service increasingly complex fund structures. That frustration as a client became the founding thesis for Petra.

From there, we dig into how Petra finds and retains the people who make the model work. Pete walks through the firm’s hiring framework, what they call the “fingerprint” — a specific set of criteria built around technical depth, an ownership mentality, and client service skills he believes have become a lost art in the industry.

For anyone launching a fund or considering a change in administrators, this is a ground-level look at what separates a true fund administration partner from a processor — and why getting that decision right in your first few closes matters more than most GPs realize.

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Alex Gentilli is the Director of Investment Operations at the Colby College Office of Investment Management. He came to Colby after spending time in trading and investment operations at places like Arrowstreet Capital and The Baupost Group before moving to the allocator seat.
We get into building an operating model from a blank slate — digitizing the investment book of record, selecting a portfolio management system, standing up a research management system, and putting cash controls and capital call discipline that had been part of the college treasurer’s office for years.
Alex describes the common tech stack build as a New England farmhouse — rooms added one at a time as the need came up — stepping back and decided it was time to redesign the house than do another addition.
We also dig into how he actually runs vendor selection: a weighted rubric, scoring each product immediately after the debrief to beat common organizational challenges and best ways to run a process.
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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)

Natalie McIntyre is the Global Head of Consulting at Cutter Associates, a research and consulting firm that is focused exclusively on the investment industry.

In today's conversation, Natalie talks through how she got to Cutter from Bridgewater Associates, and how she took that knowledge base to help other organizations be the best version of themselves. We dig into what separates a good consulting firm from the rest and what a typical engagement really looks like once you get past the pitch.

Natalie shares the stories and the tipping points, those moments where a firm realizes that it can't solve something internally and picks up the phone. From there, we get into data, why data strategy has moved from a back-office task to the center of decision-making. We get tactical on building a tech stack for today and tomorrow, the common challenges, the tradeoff between bespoke builds and single platform solutions, and the ongoing tension between incumbents and the nascent players trying to unseat them.

We also talk about how the role of talent is shifting as technology takes on more of the workflow. For anyone building or scaling operations, this is a conversation about what changes when data, technology, and talent start pulling in the same direction.

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Andrew Dorle is the Director of Investment Operations and Analytics at GHR Foundation.  Based out of Minneapolis, GHR’s mission is to is to be of service to people and their limitless potential for good.
Andrew takes us through his migration from the investment side into operations — the unexpected lessons that carried over and why that dual perspective has become a competitive advantage. We dig into how GHR moved analytics from a secondary focus into the core of decision-making.From there we discuss how communication works between teams, why data integrity is the non-negotiable first principle, and what a lean, all-director team can do faster when they’re aligned on the fundamentals.
We get tactical on technology and vendor strategy - their philosophy on best-in-breed versus all-in-one platforms, how they evaluate new entrants and where AI can realistically help a small, nimble foundation move the needle on workflows. For anyone building or scaling operations at a foundation or multi-family office — this is a conversation on what foundation operations can look like when operational discipline and analytical rigor are aligned.
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