Reena Jashnani-Slusarz is the chief operating officer and General Counsel at Juniper Hill, a multifamily office based in Menlo Park, California.

I had fun sitting down with Reena to talk about her non-linear career arc to find herself in a GC and COO role. 

This was a wide-ranging conversation touching upon some of the legal and operational complexities of investing in crypto from a VC perspective and how one gets up to speed on new asset classes like catastrophe reinsurance. This is all about the intersection of traditional operational frameworks on new and emerging asset classes. 

We then discuss the current state of multi-family offices today and how investors want a higher touch experience and the implications for those in operations and beyond. 

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Letti de Little is the Chief Compliance Officer for Grain Management, a private equity firm that invests in telecom, infrastructure, and wireless spectrum assets.

Today’s LP is focused on finding uncorrelated assets more than ever.  But doing so often requires an understanding of the operational nuances which are different from buying traditional, tradable securities.  I spent some time with Letti to unpack some of the common legal and operational elements for investing in this asset class. 

We cover how wireless spectrum auctions work and how Grain manages the dual regulatory oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.  We also talk about what ODD practitioners should know about with this lesser-known strategy. 

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John Fitzpatrick is a Senior Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer of Alternative Asset Management Technology at Blackstone.

These are exciting times in technology with a lot of moving parts so I was excited to sit down with John to get his perspective on where we are today and where we’re going.

John shares his thoughts on the big picture with trends in data acquisition, automation and process improvement.   Whether you are a technologist or someone accountable for technology there are some great takeaways.

We also discuss common challenges of technology selection and adoption, budgeting, and how one can effectively manage expectations with non-technical leaders.

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Melissa Dickerson is the Managing Director of Operations and CFO at Genstar Capital,  a private equity firm based in San Francisco and founded in 1988.

In today’s competitive market, a common road map to revenue diversification is product expansion or adding a new office overseas.

This conversation is a case study on having one strategy and one office.

Melissa shares her thoughts on how the industry has changed and how their operations, reporting and service provider model have evolved while expanding their LP base globally. 

We then go further down the chain to explore the current state of portfolio companies and how go-to-market playbooks have changed from an all-in-one approach to using a specialist model on things like talent management, capital markets and finance.

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Scott Farden is the COO of Nonantum Capital Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm that spun out of Charlesbank Capital Partners in 2018. 

Launching a first-time private equity fund has a myriad of challenges from leaving your old firm, raising capital, finding talent and activating operations, so I turned to Scott to share his experience. 

We also cover topics like proper preparation and common pitfalls when pitching LPs, building a team that can evolve with future organization complexity and things one can do to proactively build culture for firm durability.  

After our sit down, Scott shared that he believes that Operations can add alpha to a PE portfolio by running it so well that it leaves the investment team out of the back office.

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We can’t ignore the fact that AI is playing an increasing role in our day-to-day lives. But the question is how do we do it properly?

So I turned to Kathleen to get her insights on bringing AI in house. We cover a range of topics like how to develop an AI policy, how do we identify and assess the growing list of AI service providers. Once selected, how does one perform proper legal and technical due diligence? 

As an ops or legal professional what can you do yourself and when to bring in third-party vendor due diligence providers.

We also discuss the state of legal tech today and how things like ChatGPT and Perplexity AI can play a role in the fast-moving pace of investing in our highly regulated world. 

This information provided is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. For specific legal guidance, please consult your own legal counsel. 

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Rob McGrail is General Counsel and CCO for DUMAC, the management company for Duke University

As one of the world’s leading endowment managers, Rob shares his career evolution from being the first lawyer at DUMAC, how to create strong team dynamics when closing deals and how the operational investment process has evolved over time. 

We cover best practices when working with established and emerging managers and the evolution of the technical and reporting requirements across direct fund investing, separate accounts and co-investments.

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Jae Chon is the COO of Knollwood Investment Advisory.

Jae talks about his early days at Legg Mason before moving over to Brown Advisory where they grew 10x over his tenure. We talk about expanding talent, operations, technology, and serving ultra-high net worth clients.

We then turn to converting a single-family office for the growing multi-family office space and the advantage of being a $5 billion startup. Converting a family business to one that is regulatory ready and marketing forward is a mindset change and Jae shares how they made the shift.

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Emi Larson is the COO of UCLA‘s endowment.

Emi shares what it’s like going from an ops role at an emerging market manager to a hedge fund of funds and how it led to a COO role of a well-known university.

We cover how to make that leap from Director of Operations to the COO seat and the key skills needed for that position. We tackle how non-profits keep up with growing business complexity, the challenges with West Coast hiring and how overbuilding select parts of your tech stack can help you scale.

I would like to note that we recorded this not long before the fires engulfed Los Angeles. With UCLA being is in the heart of LA, our hearts are with the folks out there.

Here is a link to donate to the LAFD Foundation.

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Eric Wortman is the COO and CCO of Stable, a GP stakes firm with over $4.5B in assets.

If you are an emerging manager or thinking about spinning out, this is the episode for you. As people will tell you, building your own firm and team is vastly different than managing a portfolio.

We cover the fuzzy topic of what it means to be “institutional”, how to select the right service providers, critical tech, talent acquisition and other foundational areas of launching a firm.

We then tackle best practices on designing a repeatable sales process, the importance of branding and common areas that slow down early-stage managers.

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