Investment Management Operations

Dan Ricci is the Head of Information Systems at Prime Buchholz, an independent investment consultant and OCIO founded in 1988.

If you are building or buying software, this is the episode. Dan shares how they built Prime Plus, an investment analytics tool that is used by their investment consultants and their clients.  

Dan shares his thoughts on a wide range of topics with regard to fintech. We cover going digital with investment committee reporting and when to leverage channel partners to bolt on third party SaaS to your native applications.

We then discuss the future of investment statistics and why he likes being an early adopter of SaaS but also sees good use cases with later stage and mature technology solutions. 

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Hal Liebes is the COO of Alger, an investment firm known for its bottom-up fundamental research process that was founded in 1964. Hal joined Alger in 2005 as they were rebuilding the firm after losing 35 of its 55 employees on 9/11.

Hal shares how curiosity and knowing how you work is crucial for finding the right type of role for career happiness.

We talk about the role of the COO and the myriad of issues he faces on a daily basis: how to build consensus, selecting new service providers, and best practices on the common challenges with merging and managing people-based businesses.

We then turn to how Alger has evolved over time with a number of strategic efforts across products, acquisitions and a global eye towards distribution.

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Jim La Creta is the Chief Technology and Information Officer for Brandeis University.

Jim shares a fascinating and different perspective on technology for an investment office and university broadly. We discuss his career path at Brandeis which started at the help desk 21 years ago to the CTO seat. He shares how he partners with the investment committee and the CIO to assess risk with new technology and information security for its investment office.  We also discussed common challenges and how to partner with technology teams for better outcomes when selecting technology.

In addition to being a CTO, Jim is an adjunct professor in organizational leadership at Brandeis. I found this interesting because there is no playbook for leadership, but Jim shares his lessons learned about leading teams today, the impact of going hybrid and creating teams built for flexibility.

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Adam Weinstein is a Managing Director, COO, and CFO of New Mountain Capital, a $50 billion private equity firm focused on middle market buyout, credit, and net lease strategies.

I really enjoyed this conversation because we focused on two critical elements of building investment firms: people and process.

Adam discusses their investment committee governance process that seeks to foster broad input from the team to mitigate errors and promote consistency. We also uncover some of the challenges in group decision making and why New Mountain is opposed to the term “back office.”

We then dig into how inclusiveness drives performance reviews, compensation structures and how to develop a mentor program. 

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Steven Schwab is the GC and CCO for Thoma Bravo, a $142 billion private equity firm that invests in growing software and technology companies.

Prior to joining Thoma Bravo in 2015, Steven practiced law at Winston and Strawn and Katten Munchin.

Steven shares how to make best use of your legal resources. He shares his thoughts on when to bring legal in-house, how to get the most out of your outside counsel, and why they opted to combine the GC and CCO roles.  We also discuss the current state of fundraising and how LPs are interacting with GPs. 

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Nicole Adrien is the Chief Product Officer and Global Head of Client Relations at Oaktree Capital.

If you work directly with clients and prospects, this is the conversation for you. 

Nicole discusses her career path beginnings at Goldman Sachs, and how she turned a summer internship during business school into a career at Oaktree.

Working with clients today is all about transparency, speed, and accuracy. We discuss how exogenous factors from the GFC have shaped client demands and how Oaktree transformed its business to meet these new requirements. 

We discuss the continuous demand of portfolio and company information and the “multiplier effect” from the increasing level of sophistication within the industry.

We close with how Oaktree builds new products today, what a good prospect meeting looks like, and how Oaktree hires and instills culture and values.  

It's worth noting - this year, Nicole was named to 50/50 Women on Boards’ second annual 50 Women to Watch for Boards list, which highlights exceptionally qualified women leaders from various sectors across North America.

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Taimur Hyat is the Chief Operating Officer for PGIM. PGIM manages over 1.3 trillion in equity, fixed income, real estate, alternatives, and multi-asset solutions.

Being a “strategic COO” is the wave of the future, and Taimur provides some great insight on how he does it.

He shares his evolution from doing development economic research to consulting at McKinsey before landing in asset management with stints at Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse Asset Management.

Taimur shares his thoughts on understanding the moving parts of the big picture being just as important as the “hard ops” that happen on the front lines.

PGIM’s size and scale creates an opportunity to uncover around-the-corner ideas they call MegaTrends.

Taimur shares the importance of how different cultures, markets and regulators work together and what it takes to bring a global mindset to your work. There is a lot here on what it takes to be “COO version 2.0” so take a listen.

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This Sponsored Insight features Hank Boughner, the CEO of Dynamo Software – an end-to-end platform for the alternative investment industry.

Hank has been the CEO of Dynamo Software since 2017. His unique career path as an engineer, investment banker, and private equity investor gives him a unique perspective on what the future holds for investment technology.

Hank shares his insights on why software verticals are consolidating, single point versus platform solutions, and why he believes that platforms will win over time. We also discuss the importance of brand awareness, advice on user adoption, and his thoughts on the implications for incumbents versus new entrants with M&A activity.

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Darshan Desai is the COO and Head of Risk at Beach Point Capital, a $15 billion credit shop based in Santa Monica, CA.

Darshan and I discuss his career path, which began at York Capital, his move to Kansas City to works for BATS, and then finding his way to Beach Point in 2010. Darshan shares his experience and learnings from seeing two firms ramp up assets and people.

I was curious to speak to Darshan as he is also the Head of Risk, making for a unique opportunity to talk about data/analytics, how to be a risk-oriented COO, and why they outsourced their entire middle office.

We close with the importance of IQ and EQ when building teams and how Covid changed the way he manages others.

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Amy Knapp is the COO of Corsair Capital, a private equity firm that is focused on buyouts and infrastructure.   

When we started the podcast, the goal was to share best practices among investment operations professionals, and my conversation with Amy fires on all cylinders.

Amy discusses her career path from public accounting to an unexpected opportunity to be a CFO early in her career, eventually becoming the COO.

We then cover an array of topics from the operational challenges with having multiple strategies, a deep dive on ESG/DEI, and how to make the shift from being a controller to a strategic CFO/COO. The team at Corsair practices what they preach, so there are some great take-aways. 

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