The Wall Street Lab

Rich Nuzum is President of Mercer's Investments & Retirement business and a member of Mercer's Executive Leadership Team. Rich is also the Executive Sponsor for Mercer's Pride Business Resource Network.

Rich's prior roles include President and Global Business Leader for Mercer's Investment Management business and global Chief Investment Officer for Mercer's Investment Management business.

Rich holds an MBA (with high honors) in analytic finance and accounting from the University of Chicago and a bachelor's degree (with honors) in mathematical sciences and mathematical economic analysis from Rice University in Houston, Texas. He is a CFA® charterholder and a member of the CFA Institute.

Rich has repeatedly been named to CIO magazine's annual list of the world's most influential investment consultants and received CIO's 2017 Industry Innovation Award as Consultant of the Year.

Mercer is the largest investment consultant ranked by worldwide institutional assets under advisement, reporting $15.96 trillion in institutional AUA as of June 30, 2020 and further has Delegated Assets under Management of $304.5 billion USD as of 30 November 2019.

We speak about investment consulting, what needs differently sized asset owners need from an investment consultant. We also talk about finding innovative investment managers, the strategies small, medium, and large asset owners use to outperform relative to their capabilities. We also get into the concept of Outsourced CIOs, the trends in the retirement fund world and of course, we get some career advice.

Martin is Chief Executive Officer, Head of Business Development and a member of the Executive Committee of Capital Dynamics. He has over 30 years of experience in sales, marketing and general management. Prior to joining Capital Dynamics, Martin was an independent management consultant and CEO at TestQuest, Inc., a start-up software company in the US. Earlier in his career, he held general manager positions at several publicly traded technology companies in the US. Martin holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Capital Dynamics is a global private asset investment company founded 1988 with over $17 bn Assets under Management. In this episode, we talk about private assets, including a very broad range of private equity topics: from Primary Fund-of-Fund investments to secondaries and co-investing. This is followed by a discussion about the characteristics of private credit. We then talk about clean energy infrastructure, the importance of Responsible Investing and, as always, Martin leaves us with some great career advice.

Rob is the CEO of IPC Systems, the leading voice trading company famous for their dealer turrets, which you can find on every trading floor. Previously, Rob was the President of Global Trading at FIS, the world's largest Fintech and a Fortune 500 company. Before that, Rob was COO of several different companies. Rob recently won the CEO of the Year award.

We speak about the past, present, and future of trading, especially voice trading. We dive into the effects of Covid19 on the trading world, how trading evolved in a working from home environment and how technology enabled this shift. Rob shares his views on leadership, how to become CEO of the Year and how to lead through transformational times. And of course, with such a high profile guest, I ask for some career advice.

Andrew White is the founder and CEO of fundapps, a regulatory technology company founded 10 years ago. He completely bootstrapped fundapps and grew it from a small startup to over 60 people and 9 trillion USD in monitored client assets. The company provides Shareholder Disclosure software to Hedge Funds and other asset owners. Before founding fundapps, Andrew was a managing director at aquin components, a company that was acquired by State Street.

We start off our conversation by Andrew walking us through the space of regtech, giving us a history of the space, and how the regulation technology industry changed over the years. We talk about the difficulties to adhere to all regulations globally as a Hedge Fund or Asset Owner.

We then take an unforeseen and interesting turn and Andrew gives us a masterclass in the art of Bootstrapping a startup. This part starts at about minute 30.

Lila Preston is a Partner at Generation Investment Management, and is Co-Head of the Growth Equity platform – Generation's private equity fund. Generation was, amongst others, founded by former US Vice President Al Gore. In Addition, Lila serves on the board of several companies. Lila holds a Bachelor's degree from Stanford University and an MBA from London Business School.

In this episode we deep dive into the world of ESG and Sustainable Investing. Lila talks about Generation's investment approach and process, from research, over pipeline building, deal sourcing, to the decision factors. We take you step by step through the process of what it means to invest with impact into Private Equity. Lila also shares some great career advice and the importance of culture in a company.

Jacco Minnaar is the Chair of the Management Board and Managing Director of Triodos Investment Management, a globally active, multi-billion Dollar Impact investor.

Jacco has 25 years of experience in the financial and investment industry. Prior to his current position as Chair, he served Triodos across various positions including Director of Energy and Climate, Fund Manager of Triodos Fair Share Fund, and Regional Manager of Africa and Latin America. Before joining Triodos in 2006, he managed the Financial Markets Development Program of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in the Mekong region. Jacco holds a Master of Science degree in Industrial Engineering and Management Science and is a CFA charter holder.

Jacco explains to us what is Impact Investing and why it is important, how you can differentiate yourself as an Impact Investor. We debunk myths about impact investing and lagging returns by looking at the performance drivers of sustainable investments. We also speak about Triodos' investment process, the areas they invest in, and how they choose their portfolio companies and strategies.

Clare Flynn Levy, Founder and CEO of Essentia Analytics, a behavioral data analytics service that helps professional investors make measurably better investment decisions. She also sits on the board of several and before founding Essentia, she was active as a fund manager, both for a company she founded herself and big names like DWS.

Clare tells us how data analytics can be used to become a better fund manager by analysing decision patters. She goes into a concept called the alpha lifecycle. We talk about trends in the asset management industry like AI, blockchain, or model delivery.

Toby is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Efficient Frontier Investing, a Swiss financial product engineering firm. He also founded Isla Capital Management, a company that providers bespoke financial Solutions in Asset Management and Advisory Services. Before he was active as as Interim CIO at Status Capital and active in several Roles at Bedrock Group, one of Europe's biggest Family Offices.

Toby tells us his approach on getting returns above the efficient frontier by understanding, quantifying and managing risk. Toby takes us through their Investment Process and gives us some great insights into the Private Equity Market in Switzerland. We also talk about the importance of Mentoring, a having good reputation and building trust. Toby didn't mention it in the episode, but sent me the link to a great TED talk on coaching and mentoring he wanted you listeners to know about. The talk is named "Want to get great at something? Get a coach" by Atul Gawande. The link is of course also in the show notes.

Gregory Zuckerman is a Special Writer at The Wall Street Journal, a 23-year veteran of the paper and a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb award - the highest honor in business journalism. Greg is the author of five books: The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution; The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters; The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History; Rising Above: How 11 Athletes Overcame Challenges in Their Youth to Become Stars and Rising Above: Inspiring Women in Sports.

In this episode we talk about his job as a journalist for the wall street journal, how he finds the stories he writes about for his articles and books. We get into his book „The man who solved the market ", and what lessons he learned from his research about Jim Simons, the founder of Renaissance Technologies, probably the most successful trader of all times.

Howie is the Head of ETF for Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM). Prior to joining LGIM, Howie was the CEO of Canvas, an ETF platform acquired by Legal and General in 2018. Prior to that, Howie trained and worked at Simmons & Simmons in London advising the hedge fund industry. LGIM is with 1.5 trillion USD AuM among the 20 largest Asset Managers in the world.

This episode is all about trends. We talk about thematic investments and the underlying trends. Howie leads us through the thematic investment process LGIM makes with examples like changes in e-commerce. We also talk about the three changes in the asset management industry: Quantitative Analyis, Digitalisation, Regulation.