Sasha Datta: GE Vernova

In this episode, Sasha Datta from GE Vernova joins Joel Palathinkal to discuss her journey from a personal background to a successful career in finance. Sasha shares insights into balancing personal life with a demanding career and her experiences during the financial crisis while at EY and GM. She talks about overcoming personal challenges, her return to GE, and her roles in cash and risk management at GE Capital Americas and Synchrony Financial. The conversation delves into GE's corporate culture, the significance of honesty and empathy in venture-backed companies, and strategies for handling conflicts. Sasha also discusses GE Vernova's formation, risk management, M&A advice, pension fund management, and the importance of continuous learning.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
And, in my personal life at that point, Ibrought my parents from India.

(00:04):
My father got a job in The US, so he moved overhere.
He and my mom, they moved over.
I'm the only child, so they started living withme.
They were in the East Coast, I was in theMidwest, and I get a call that my dad had a
stroke.
So I had to pretty much drop everything andcome back.
You and you have to understand the GE jobs.

(00:24):
They take pretty much everything of you.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palofinkle, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.

(00:47):
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
All right, so excited to have another podcastthis week with Sasha Dutta.
Really got to know her recently.
New friend.
I'm just going to give a quick intro and thenSasha is going to go a little deeper on her

(01:08):
career journey and kind of a lot of things thatshe's doing recently in her current role and
just all the exciting roles that she's had inthe past.
But just a quick overview, Sasha is the seniordirector of pension and retirement solutions at
GE Vernovas defined benefit and definedcontribution plans.
In her past role at Citi, she successfullyexecuted on the federal reserve capital stress

(01:33):
testing report submission for comprehensivecapital analysis and review.
And she did that for about three years andshe's also managed and responded to governance,
regulatory, internal audit inquiries, and alsohas supported bank examiners and regulators.
So really strong institutional investment andproduct background.

(01:56):
So, Sasha, hopefully that was a good overview,but love to have you start out with your early
education, maybe just kind of what you thoughtyou were going to do starting out in your
career and kind of some of the surprises thatcame along in your career journey.
And I'll probably interject with some questionsalong But, the you know, would love to kinda

(02:18):
just hear a little bit about you, your family,kinda your upbringing, what you thought you
would study, and and then we'll we'll have fun,you know, uncovering this journey a little
further.
Okay.
Alright.
So I grew up in India
Mhmm.
As you know, and grew up in a big city,Calcutta and New Delhi.
Spit my time over there.

(02:39):
And then when I was out of high school, I camestraight to The US to study over here.
As for family background, and that has a bigrole in who I am.
My mother's side of the family, they were alllawyers, judges, tax lawyers, criminal lawyers,

(02:59):
big, well known folks over there.
And then my mom's my dad's side of the family,they were all professional folks in a way that
they were they worked for companies.
They were either professors, teachers, or theyworked for companies.
And my father had a thirty years thirty someyears of experience in telco, which is the
Tata's, one of the Tata engineering company,and I was born in the Tata hospital in

(03:22):
Jamshedpur, Kelkar in India.
So you have to understand that I I grew up inan environment which was where you worked in a
company for several years.
You took a retirement.
You got the watch.
And that's how it was.
That's how I was taught.
My dad was an engineer.
He was one of the first graduates from IIM, themanagement institutes in India.

(03:45):
And so that's the path I was supposed tofollow.
I was supposed to go into engineering.
I was gonna go to IIT.
I didn't get into IIT.
I was smart, but not that smart.
And but that actually opened up a lot moreareas for me.
I was always curious.
I was always curious how a company works, howthey can really weave their effect into the

(04:09):
fabrics of the society.
And because I grew up in that kind ofenvironment, that was absolutely very noble to
me.
So I was always interested, and I knew somehowI'm gonna work for big companies.
I knew that much.
But how I'm gonna get there?
I didn't wanna be an engineer, but that's howpeople think, you know, in India most of the
time when I was growing up.
Things are different now, but things weredifferent at that time where it was more

(04:33):
traditional path.
So I applied to The US.
A lot of my friends, previous years in highschool, they were applying to come to The US.
A lot of them were coming as graduate students,but I actually chose to apply and get into an
undergraduate program.
I got into a small school where I got a goodscholarship actually that made it easy.

(04:53):
Back then we were not able to bring funds fromIndia, so we had to depend on a lot of
scholarships.
I got a good scholarship with Salem College inWinston Salem, North Carolina, And I actually
applied for mathematics.
I got into mathematics.
I became a honor student in mathematics, butalso wanted to see how economics works.
So in India, we you either go on bachelor ofscience, bachelor of arts, but here, I could do

(05:17):
a bachelor of science and bachelor of arts in,economics.
Took all the courses.
Took sure.
I did honors levels courses, like graduatelevels courses in undergraduate.
When I was graduating, was so over qualifiedfor a lot of things, but which was good.
Got me a job at Morgan Stanley in the fixedincome area.
It was intellectually, it was great, and alsoit was the first rank.

(05:40):
So what do you do, you know, as an analyst?
Did that for a few years.
They did my green card, got that one out of theway, got a job.
This time, I wanted to see how the other bigcompany again, I was always drawn to large
corporations.
So MCI telecommunications was a big well knownname in the telecommunications industry at that

(06:02):
time, and, this is after the Bell Canada wasderegulated.
They were all baby bills, and a lot of thesecompanies were also going into the local
markets.
MCI wanted to go into the local market.
So became an analyst, corporate analyst withMCI in Washington, D.
C.
Moved for them.

(06:23):
The whole telecommunications company, the wholeindustry was actually was going through a lot
of upheaval at that time.
People were buying each other, valuations wasoff the chart, And so our careers, people who
were in that whole industry, it was goingthrough an upheaval.
As much as we were wanted and needed, if acompany gets sold out, there's a chance the

(06:47):
corporate functions are gonna get consolidated,and one's gonna get some people are gonna get
eliminated.
MCI gets bought out.
Went to work for two venture backed startups.
One was DigiNet.
One was LightTrade.
I learned.
My curiosity actually drove me that you wannalearn how the business works, not just finance,
even though my background was in finance.

(07:08):
Really learned a lot, and the last stop ontelecommunication was at Teleglobe.
I became a product manager.
I was a product pricing manager and then becamea director at that point.
I had a group, and I was relatively young eventhen.
And, we get bought out by Bell Canada.
And around this time, I was a little bitdistraught.

(07:28):
What do I do next?
And I needed a certain amount of stability.
As much as I'm learning and learning was inoverdrive, but I need certain amount of
stability.
What do you do?
You know?
But your industry is going through a lot ofupheaval.
Around this time, back then, you have tounderstand it was not very customary to apply
to jobs through Internet.
I did.

(07:49):
A company called General Electric, their theirtelecommunications and technology arm was GXS,
GE Global Exchange Services.
And they did a lot of the technology stuff,everything for for GE and outside vendors.
They are third parties.
So I applied there.
They were looking for a senior director offinance, and I applied.

(08:13):
I get a call.
I went for my interview, and I got an offerafter, like, 15 interviews.
15 people interviewed me.
You have to understand I did not come throughthe GE ranking files, so I came as an outsider
after, like, nine, ten years outside in theindustry.
So it was a little bit of a shocker, but Iembraced the culture.
I loved Gee.

(08:34):
I became I loved their process, peoplemanagement, and their the kindness of the
people.
You know?
Gee was cutthroat.
This was Jack Walsh's era, but there was acertain amount of kindness, honesty.
You know?
People wanted to develop people.
That was one of the thing that I reallyenjoyed.
And I worked there.

(08:55):
Within eighteen months, that particular companywithin the g portfolio gets sold out.
Now I realize why they bought me because theywould know that somebody coming from that kind
of environment, a people environment, I will bemuch more stable, and I was.
This company has never gone through any kind ofchanges, structural changes in thirty five

(09:15):
years, and here comes a major change.
They get bought out by Francisco Partners inMilleau, California.
I wanted to stay with GE.
I made a plea that what do I need to do to staywith GE?
And they actually made it happen for me.
They said, well, you know, you wanna go aheadand eliminate your own position.
You run the risk that you may not get a job inGE, but GE will be open to you.

(09:38):
I interviewed and I got a job with GE Medical.
This was before GE Healthcare Systems, whichlater on became healthcare, but it was GE
Medical up in Milwaukee.
My first assignment was to go to the Midwestand buy a company that they were actually
scheduling to buy, make that company I had oneyear to make that company into a g business,

(10:01):
which is basically people process knowledgetransfer.
Everything has to be done.
Put that company under G Americas, G Capital, GMedical Americas, and then move on to my next
role.
Great.
I worked double shift, pretty much.
I had two jobs.
I had a GE job, and I had the job at AmbassadorMedical, which we bought in Indiana.

(10:23):
And you have to understand that I've never lefta crossed over Ohio before this.
So it was a cultural shock too for me, but Iembraced it again.
This is GE.
I am sent to do some work and I'm going getthat work done.
Got the work done.
Everything was done, and I'm looking at my nextrole to be in China, going and looking at the

(10:43):
inventory, just the inventory line, all of GEMedical, which is a pretty big role.
And in my personal life at that point, Ibrought my parents from India.
My father got a job in The US, so he moved overhere.
He and my mom, they moved over.
I'm the only child, so they started living withme.

(11:04):
They were in the East Coast, and I was in theMidwest, and I get a call that my dad had a
stroke.
So I had to pretty much drop everything andcome back.
You and you have to understand the GE jobs,they take pretty much everything out of you.
Most these
companies, they do.
So I could not do a GE job and take care of myfather.
So I had to leave the job, focused on myfamily, got my family back in gear.

(11:28):
After that got better, I I had my eyes open forGE, but I also started looking what do I do
next?
You have to understand that I've already becomethe CFO for one of the GE businesses.
So for me, I wanted to do something else.
I wanted to expand my knowledge.
And in order to do that, I got a call from acompany called Ernst and Young around that

(11:49):
time.
They wanted somebody to come and set up theirentire risk management program and the
valuations program.
And, I took that and set up the entire thereyou go.
I can see you now, Joel.
Okay.
I don't know what happened, but I
just Yeah.
It's it's been working fine the whole time, sono worries.
There you go.
So I concentrated and set up the whole process.

(12:12):
I traveled quite a bit and worldwide, actually,internationally, set up a lot of process in a
company software development company in Israel.
Then another GE business, they wanted to do aspecial purpose entity and go public in the New
York Stock Exchange, worked within with theDublin based company and US, set up the whole

(12:34):
thing.
Did a lot of fantastic roles.
And around that time, I could see the financialcrisis coming.
And I realized that if I don't leave publicaccounting at that time, I will be stuck there
for the next ten years probably.
And I knew the the problem in the whole balancesheet for these companies, it's pretty great,

(12:56):
and it's gonna take time to clean out.
And around that time, I got a call from GeneralMotors Asset Management.
They wanted somebody to come and, set up theentire valuations and pricing program for their
assets.
So I went in, got that whole thing done.
GM was going through their bankruptcy at thattime.

(13:17):
So it was very tough environment for all of us,and we believed in this whole industry.
It was hard for us emotionally, but we had alot of good people.
I've always depended on my mentors, formal orinformal.
I developed the relationships, and the kindnessof those people have actually always me.
And I've always noticed that, you know, if Igive back, I get 10 times over.

(13:41):
So the universe keeps a tab.
So, basically, what you give, you get back,much more so probably.
And, GM actually decided that they are going tooutsource that entire function.
And I was it was open to me that they wanted meto stay with the company, become an analyst.
And I said, no.
I mean, I did not like that whole thing.
I had to get jobs for people who worked for me,took care of everybody, and then around that

(14:06):
time, GE calls me again.
GE's like, you know, I think the CFOs know kneweach other.
GE asset management and GM asset management.
I get a call from the CFO who knew some of thefolks I have worked for in the past.
So I walk over there, and they they know me,obviously, and, I get the job.
I became, again, valuations director at, GEAsset Management in the pension fund.

(14:32):
I set up the whole process and procedures andeverything, and two year goes by.
And in the meantime, in my personal life, myfather was diagnosed with cancer, and he was at
the last stages of his life.
So I literally said that I'm going to leave GEagain.
I resigned.
I was told that I can take a sabbatical, but
Sure.
I literally left.

(14:53):
I took some time off, came back, and I wasmoving.
I moved to New York area, so around that time.
So I came back to Washington again to take careof my family.
My father passes away.
Six months goes by.
I applied only to GE.
There was a treasurer role in the GE CapitalAmericas.
I got the role and became a treasurer.

(15:15):
So fund management, risk management, and cashmanagement.
So really understand everything.
And with my background as a CFO and as well asin the valuations group, it was a very good
job.
But what I lacked at that time was sometactical work that I needed to really learn.
Really did a lot of good work in the cashmanagement area.

(15:36):
There was a lot of problem.
GE goes out on a buying spree.
All of these companies, big companies, they buyall these companies.
Some of them, they don't get integratedproperly.
They have their own platforms and everything.
There was some problems.
So in order to fix those problem, I took careof the whole thing.
I I personally, I have a team, but I personallygot involved, cleared out everybody who should

(15:58):
be access, put the processes and procedures,went through a audit, made sure everything was
okay.
That was one of the big things I did.
Then when GE was getting and right after that,GE decided to divest around that time, all the
GE Capital companies.
Yet again, we are facing a situation where wehave dependent on a company where the company

(16:20):
the trajectory is completely changed.
There's a structural change in our lives and inthe whole environment.
So but I took it in strides.
I always believe that tomorrow's gonna be abetter day.
Be positive.
You know, something good comes out of it.
Always whenever there's a change, somethinggood's gonna come out of it.
You're gonna make it happen.
Have that faith in yourself.

(16:40):
So, I actually worked and I got called.
I said, they said, you know, you haveevaluations background.
You know, I know how to build models, verysuccessful financial models.
And they asked me to go through 6,000 modelsthat we have accumulated.
I had a team of couple of people.
We rolled up our sleeves.
I have never had any problems.
Ego never comes.
I checked that at the elevator and come in.

(17:03):
So this is what I say generally.
I'm like okay check that over there.
You're gonna do what you need to do.
You know.
So tactically, I'm very I became very good inthis, you know, very tactical.
You know?
I understand the strategy, long term direction,but you have to also get the work done,
results.
You know?
Don't just talk about it.
Get it done.
Know how to get it done.
Understand the pain points.

(17:23):
So I, went through the whole thing and, toldthem, you know, segregated the entire all the
6,000, models, financial models, combcombinations, basically, divestiture, what's
gonna stay, what's gonna stay with us, what'sgonna get eliminated, what's gonna get

(17:44):
combined, you know, consolidated, all of thesethings.
We got everything done.
And around this time, I'm thinking what's nextfor me, and I got actually called that GE
Money.
Back then, it was GE Money, but it becameSynchrony Financial later on.
They were looking for somebody to go throughtheir they failed their model validation.

(18:05):
And this was more of a project management job.
And under no circumstances, I was given an ideathat I'm gonna stay there forever.
Two years, get it done, you're gonna move on.
Okay.
Fine.
Sure.
Done credit risk before, went in over there,really did the entire trajectory of the seven
big models.
This is credit risk.
This is, understanding what is the what is theproblem in the portfolio.

(18:31):
I'm not going into too much of detail.
What is the problem?
What could be a write off?
You know, this is a money manage this is acredit company, credit card company.
So, basically, what the biggest cost that theyhave in their balance sheet is basically what's
the write offs gonna be.
How do we reduce that?
There are big models, fundamental models that'sbased on the macroeconomic factors.

(18:52):
Understanding them, rebuild them, get thempassed.
So got that done after two years.
I I liked credit risk, but I don't I I realizedthat that is not what my forte is.
Sure.
What do I do?
So I went and started doing some more worksimilarly similar work in the risk area and
ended up at Citibank and doing regulatory risk.

(19:13):
They needed somebody to go and streamline theirentire area for regulatory reporting.
Got that done.
I'm thinking what to do next.
I get a call from GE.
Vernova is GE is breaking up in three parts.
Vernova has their own pension funds, and theyare going to have they need somebody who has
the knowledge, who used to be.

(19:34):
How can you find somebody more perfect than me?
I worked with people.
I know the building.
I know everybody.
So come in, Sasha.
Will you come in and do this one for us?
Yep.
Sure.
Why not?
G is my love.
You know?
This is a love hate relationship.
I keep leaving.
I go go back.
But I like G.
You know?
So I came back and for the last couple ofyears, segregated the entire cash.

(19:56):
I act as their CFO and COO.
I used to have the CIO role, but then I was theone who actually went to the board and
basically said that you as a as a company, youdon't want so much on your own responsibility
for asset management.
You wanna work, you know, outsource that entirecapability.

(20:19):
Because that way, you don't have to hire veryheavy hitters.
You can depend on a major large companies, andthey will do a lot of the work for you.
Sure.
And that's the way we are going.
When I look at the industry, a lot of thesecompanies are looking at fully funded nature.
And to get to fully funded, they get So we Iwent through the selection process, went
through 12 different companies, and we selectedBlackRock.

(20:42):
BlackRock is our OCIO right now.
So my goal is to manage them, manage the OCIOfor the DC and their DB side.
On the four zero one k side, we have NEPC.
This is a public knowledge.
And making sure that we set up the assetallocation in such a way that we get to a
funded fully funded level in a couple of years,hopefully.

(21:03):
So that's where we are.
There's a lot of more work to be done and lotof background processes and procedures.
Those needs to be done, and, we are still goingthrough that.
And I'm also started looking what do I do next.
And, so that's where I would stop.
Go ahead and ask me your question.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A couple things I'd like to unpack, and Iappreciate the the high level overview on just

(21:25):
your journey in your career.
Some things that I think might be helpful forthe audience is just unpacking a little more
about the culture of GE, kind of some of themissions of GE, and I guess the brand of
Vernova would love a little more background onjust kind of that platform and how that relates
to GE.
Is that an acquisition?

(21:47):
Once you do that, I'd love to unpack thosethree pillars that you talked about: fund
management, risk management and cash managementand how that ties together for just the entire
asset allocation process.
And then we can move on to the next topic afterthat.
But I
think those would be good to kind of maybeunpack slowly as we kind of continue going.

(22:10):
So whenever I looked at a company, why did Ilike GE?
Right?
One of the reasons that I look at my life, howI behave, and I like to see the value alignment
with the company.
When I joined GE, it was a Jack Walsh's time.
This was a rah rah time for GE.
You know?
Things were great.
You know?
But the fundamentals of GE has not reallychanged a lot.

(22:32):
Humility, at least in myself, I had thatcompany was not that humble, but it had grown
humble for over the time.
Kindness and empathy.
Those are the three major things.
Because as a human being, we have to we cannever forget that we are part of this broad
universe.
What we do here matters somewhere else.
Mhmm.

(22:53):
To someone else.
And GE, we were always given that idea that,you know, what do you do?
Does that align with the universal value?
Okay.
We have the value system.
Every year, we would be getting four four midmajor values that will be in on everybody's
card, you know, everybody's desk, you know.
So we would always keep that.
And one of the biggest thing was alignment,value alignment, process alignment.

(23:18):
Always we were told that, you know what?
What you are doing?
You can do it better.
Figure out a way to do it better.
I became a six sigma certified person withinsix weeks of joining my g job because that's
how I was aligned with the company.
I believe that.
I actually made sure that I can eliminate myposition at any time.

(23:38):
And remember, the universe will take care ofyou.
It's a tree.
If one branch falls, the other branch is there.
That's how it used to be.
You know?
Now it's a smaller company, obviously, but itstill is because we have a big network, and the
network always never fails for us.
And so it's always with the humility, and thenhumility gives you the curiosity.

(24:00):
Why?
Because if you're humble, you know that youdon't know everything.
Right?
So your curiosity should be able to supersedethat and go out and learn as much as you can.
Don't have to be in when you're looking at acompany like GE or any large company, there's
so much to do.
Sure.
Don't just be siloed.

(24:21):
Learn other things.
So I normally a lot of times, you cannot changeareas.
So what I do when I tell this to younger folks,you know, who comes come to me is that have
coffee.
Coffee chats.
Develop these relationships.
Have coffee chats with people from other areas.
You have five days in a week when we used to gointo office.
Now at least two to three days, hopefully.

(24:43):
And talk to people.
You know, talk to people from outside yourcomfort zone and say, I'd like to know more
about would you like to have coffee one day?
And most people will say yes.
They will be flattered that somebody wants toknow about them, their work.
So go talk to them.
And now what you just did, they you you madethem curious about you.

(25:03):
They know you.
They're if they don't know know you, they won'tknow what you're capable of.
So you have to make people know you and showthem that you're curious about that area.
When they have a new job or something positionscoming open, they will make a call to you.
Hey.
Do you know anybody?
You know?
Or you might be in the in interested in that.
So that will open up an area.

(25:24):
Particularly when I was in the venture backedcompanies when I was very young, what I faced
was that not just finance.
I had to help out in operations.
You take different roles.
But in doing that, in one year of venturebacked company startups, I learned what I would
learn in a in a big company in five years.
It's such a huge, big amount of learning.

(25:45):
Now the next one was kindness.
The kindness, I look at it in a very differentway.
Kindness at few fold.
Right?
Like I said, universe always keeps a tab.
You help people.
You help anybody.
And sometimes you do it.
And most of the time I do it.
I don't get any return.
I know I'm not gonna get any return.
That's okay.
You do it because it will come back to you insome other forms.

(26:06):
And when I say kindness, I also mean honesty isalso kindness.
Be honest to yourself.
As you go through your career, reflect.
Every three months, I write down, Where am I?
Has my values changed?
Am I still aligned to the values?
I call that the mental health checkup.

(26:28):
And I also look at people around me and if theyneed feedback.
Most people want to get up in the morning anddo a good job, and you want to be there to help
them.
People around you.
If you see somebody who's not pulling theirweight, it happens a lot in big companies.
You have to figure out be empathetic again andto figure out what's going on with their life.

(26:51):
Do they need help?
Is this a process issue?
Is this a knowledge issue?
Or is this a something else, an attitude goingon?
You gotta figure that out, and then you have towork how to motivate that person to be able to
help get to their potential.
Because you're looking at the whole universe.
Right?
You're not just looking at yourself.
Take a step back.

(27:11):
Give yourself a feedback.
What could you have done better in in in incertain circumstances?
You know, after a major meeting or a quarterlymeeting, just go back and I take notes, and I
would go back and say, yep.
This could have been explained better.
I could have made a better chart, or I couldhave talked better.
You know?
And prepare, prepare, prepare.

(27:33):
Preparate.
There is no question about hard work.
You have to put in the hard work.
I still do.
I mean, I know the stuff, but I still will takea look at it, you know, give it and sometimes I
would say I need to focus on this area a littlebit more on my own because there might be
questions.
Read the room.
Understand your audience.
Every audience is not the same.

(27:54):
Younger generations, they have different way oftackling them, giving them the knowledge.
Mid level careers, different.
Senior executives, you have to give them enoughbut not confuse them.
They have a lot more in their mind.
Right?
And then you also have to be your kindness willcome from the honesty.
One of the thing this is controversial, but Iwanna say this to people.

(28:15):
Be honest to the organization that you'reworking for.
Right?
That also means sometimes decisions are made,which may not be what you want.
Right?
You have to handle it carefully, but you haveto go and ask your leadership why that decision
was made and why you believe it was not theright decisions.

(28:37):
Okay.
And then you take the feedback what they give.
Now in most of the cases, if you don't do it inpublic and do it in private, it's best.
Okay.
I in my case, I have actually raised thequestions in public, which is backfired.
Mhmm.
But remember, the company is paying you to behonest and not to be a yes man.

(29:00):
People don't talk about this, and this has hurtme into some extent in my career.
In terms of being honest or in terms of notbeing honest?
Oh, in terms of being honest.
Too honest sometimes.
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
But you always take it positive and proactive,and and that's where the communication factor
becomes very, very important.
You have to let the senior executive know whyyou're questioning them, you know, where you're

(29:25):
coming from, and they might be able to squelthat problem for you right there.
No.
No.
We are thinking about this.
This is a strategy.
You don't know anything about it.
That's fine.
It is not for everyone to know.
That's understandable.
There's stuff that you want to know, and that'sokay.
You have to work without in the anomaly,obviously.
In some cases, we have to do.
We all have to do.
Sure.
But you raised it.

(29:46):
You gave them that thought, and that's where itmatters.
Okay?
So now let's go back.
So that's those are the main reasons I went toGE.
Whenever I look at companies, those are thethings that I normally look at because, you
know, we are we just people think that worklife balance doesn't work.
I mean, it did never work for me.

(30:06):
But we still have a family to take care of,whether it's traditional or a nontraditional.
Like, I, you know, I had to take a day offbecause my mother was sick.
So things like that, I had to take some timeoff from my career when my dad was dying.
So, you know, I mean, those things happen.
Right?
That's part of life.
So you have to be have that empathy.
Right?
Sometimes you have to help out the peoplearound you, which is not your job definition.

(30:29):
You have to work.
Are tough too.
But hopefully, you will get them to help youwhen you need them to help you.
And it comes back.
Trust me.
In my life, I have seen that too many times.
So, those are the main things.
And then do you want to know more about thefund management, cash management and the risk
management factor?
Yeah, before we get to that real quick, Sasha,one more thing.

(30:51):
So just for background, it looks like based onmy research, GE Vernova was formed from the
merger and subsequent spin offs of GeneralElectric's energy businesses in 2024.
So would love to add that into the mix.
Guess the unique nuance of you guys obviouslybeing part of a larger conglomerate focusing on

(31:12):
energy equipment, manufacturing and services.
So we'd love to tie in how that plays intobreaking down fund management, risk management
and cash management.
Sure.
So Vernova used to be what is Vernova now?
Present day Vernova is the energy, the entireenergy sector of GE.
Sure.
The way it's set up now, it's power sector,grid, electrification and renewals.

(31:38):
Those are the four major areas of business inGivaNova.
And those used to be generally all the powerplants, the nuclear power plants, the windmills
and everything.
Those are the ones that went into differentsectors.
And now we also have the electric grids, andthen we also have one area which is the
consulting area where we do a lot of consultingwork for the other power companies or the IPPs,

(32:04):
individual individual power producers.
A lot of them are breaking in from the otherareas of the world into The US market, but
given what's going on with the macroeconomicsituation and the government regulations at the
moment, I think there is a little bit of apullback, but I believe there's a lot of work
that needs to be done in that area.

(32:26):
So Mhmm.
That's what you see.
It's reflected in the stock price of thecompany.
Sure.
No.
That's really helpful.
Yep.
So those are the four areas.
So when I actually went into treasury, when Itook the treasurer role, I I had already had
some experience as a CFO on the treasury side.

(32:46):
So I knew the fundamentals.
Basically, the fundamentals of a treasurer roleis basically to make sure that your investment
background, investors relations, yourrelationship with the rating agencies and all
of them, they stay well.
You also have to have enough money to fund theoperations of the company, and you also have to

(33:07):
make sure that the liquidity is there, hencethe cash management.
Those are the main three pieces of treasure.
Sure.
Okay.
So I, as a CFO, I already had the background,quite a bit of that.
But what really became emphasis is the cashmanagement cash management and the risk
management portion of it.
And why is so?
Basically, when you are in the finance area,you're siloed.

(33:29):
You're looking at the numbers.
You're looking at how it's built, what is beingproduced, what is being sold, product or
services.
I'm talking in general.
And then how you're billing them and how is thebill materializing into dollars.
Right?
So that's how you do it in a as a CFO of acompany.
You're also looking at the business, but yourrole is basically counting the dollars, most of

(33:51):
them, keeping the investors happy.
Right?
Yeah.
When you're a treasurer, your role is mostlyliquidity.
I have to make sure there's enough liquidity.
So how does that do?
You have long term and you have short term andthen your medium term Mhmm.
Investments.
Your short term will give you, okay, what do Ineed to buy today to be able to cover all the

(34:14):
cost of General Electric Company for sale.
Okay?
We So would that be would that be mostly liquidsecurities investments or also possibly buying
companies like you did previously?
So there's two ways of doing that.
Like Mhmm.
We can go and get the money from outside.
We can borrow the money to do that workingcapital.
Mhmm.
Or you can also buying companies separate.

(34:35):
That is your top line
Sure.
Of the numbers.
Right?
Mhmm.
Yeah.
You do you buy a company for two reasons,market share or cash.
Really?
They have a huge big product.
Basically, you're taking the It
increases your balance sheet with having morecash.
Cash.
And then and then also just just owning themarker because you you know, it's another
electric company that now falls under yourentire revenue projections

(35:01):
pretty much.
Right?
Took it out for another competitor to buy fromyou.
Sure.
Got it.
That's the other thing.
Sometimes things are done, so other competitorscannot come in.
Mhmm.
Right?
Yeah.
So the biggest thing that we also have tounderstand is the risk management factor.
And that was new to me even though I was withwith with enterprise risk.
When you're looking at the enterprise level,you're looking at the different areas.

(35:24):
Right?
So, basically, what can go wrong?
What is your risk appetite?
That as a company, you have to do qualitativeand quantitative measures, and you have to come
come into an understanding where you are rightnow, what what kind of money that you see
materializing coming in, where is the softness,What is the probability of those falling in?

(35:45):
Which bucket they are going to fall in?
And how much money do you have to keep in cashin your hand to be able to say I'm going to be
okay.
To fund all your work.
There is another twist to this.
Because GE Capital was a significant financialinstitution after the financial crisis, we were
told by the feds that, hey, you know what?

(36:06):
You're a SIFI, you know, significant financialinstitution.
So you have to keep whenever you have very, Iwould say, very products that's not very
traditional products, very, you know, newproducts into the market, there are new
fundamental lending products that GE was alwayscoming up with.

(36:27):
If you have those in the market, there is achance that you're not going get the money
back.
Okay.
So in that case, you're going to have to holdtwo to 300% of what you have deployed already.
Now becomes a problem.
This was part of the reasons why GE Capitaldecided to get out of that business.
Sure.
Because
you're putting in you're putting money awaywhich could not be used, so you're not gonna be

(36:50):
in business much longer.
And so those are the reasons that we had toreally be careful on our risk management side.
We have to really understand what is entirecredit facilities that we are giving out and
how much of that can go bad.
Again, write offs.
And Mhmm.
Which means basically how much in the longmedium term and the long term, I may not see

(37:10):
that.
And each one of these product I learned productproduct line profitability in Teleglobe.
And that kind of flowed through for me.
I actually sat down and we did the cost ofcapital for each one of the areas.
And we started assigning them, like, how muchthey should be putting in into the coffers.
You know, how much money they should be puttingin as a preserve, like, put that away so that

(37:33):
we be able to pull that in when we need to.
So that's mostly the cash risk management area.
The risk management area went through a lot offlushing.
And then we also had to look at all the models.
And this is where I came in because of my modelbackground.
And because I was a treasurer, I was workingvery closely with the CFOs of the organizations

(37:54):
to make sure that they are enforced.
A lot of times you will have policies, but theyare not enforced.
So I was looking at all the deals that thecorporate finance groups they were making, the
headquarters was making as an umbrella andmaking sure that the covenants are not
breached.
Each one of them, they would have their ownterm sheets and basically covenants were not
sheet.
I mean, they were not broken.

(38:16):
And if anything that can get broken within fewbasis point, I will get an alarm.
We set those up.
They were not there be before we came in.
The transfer pricing entire thing, there was ahuge big backlog.
I came in and I passed through a created asmall not big.
It was small mini process improvement.
We went through the whole thing.

(38:36):
We cleared out the backlogs.
So those are the major heavy hitters that Idid.
And because I was part of the, I've done riskbefore.
I was when we were working towards theenterprise risk for the whole company, I was a
charter member.
I did and I'm glad I did that because I couldput my, 2¢ into that, and we we created a very

(38:57):
good system for risk assessment and, I wouldsay, appetite, how to figure that out and how
to really be realistic about it.
And, that's still used in all the g businessesat the at the moment.
And some of the models I created in ginvestment management years back, they're still
using those.

(39:18):
Sure.
That's when you know that you actually didsomething correct.
You know?
That's amazing.
Yeah.
So and because now that I'm back, they say it'syour model.
You you build it.
You figured it out.
So Yeah.
You know, it worked.
You know?
It was nice to be able to come back home again.
That's the way I look at it.
But GE is different, and, at some point, I'mprobably going to have to think about what's

(39:40):
next for me.
And and then one thing I wanna hit.
When you're looking at funding, liquidity,funding, and cash management, they'll go hand
in hand.
Your cash management is your short term, mediumterm, and long term cash management
requirements.
What is coming in?
How do you predict them?
There are lots of different ways of predictingthem.

(40:03):
You can do statistical analysis to be able todo the long term and the medium term.
But the short term, you should be able to tellwhere your cash positions are on a daily basis.
And I used to be able to do that for all thebusinesses that was under me.
And it was replicated pretty much everywhere.
Then the other thing is the liquiditymanagement.
Right?
You have your cash, and then you also have theborrowed money for the working capital.

(40:25):
K?
You want to always remember during thefinancial crisis, the commercial paper market
completely froze up.
GE was big into commercial papers.
It froze up, and it came to a point that we hadto borrow money from Warren Buffett at a higher
interest rate.
So so when you say commercial papers, those arenotes that you issued to borrowers?

(40:51):
Got it.
And then they were just, insolvent.
It's a revolving.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Got it.
So we had to be very careful.
So when we came over here, when I came overhere, we I worked very closely with the
liquidity department to do a lifeline.
Three major lifeline that we created with JPMorgan, two with JP Morgan, one with Deutsche
Bank, and these are public knowledge by theway.

(41:12):
Sure.
And it was $3,000,000,000 That's like when youhave to close your door.
Mhmm.
Do not touch that.
Sure.
Any under any reasons.
Okay?
Yeah.
And you have your liquidity.
So anywhere whenever you're buying companies orsell doing projects, major projects, you're
buying investments or you're, you know,releasing investments, you have to come up with
a lot of liquidity.

(41:33):
Right?
It's like every anything that we do also.
So on a regular basis, I would have, like, fivedifferent projects that needs to be funded.
I would give heads up to the cash managementgroup.
Okay, this is coming.
I would need this by Friday.
And they will come and tell me, this is thisweekend, do this, this much.
I can do this much.
I can allocate this much of fund for you.

(41:55):
Okay.
Which one do you wanna go first?
And I know that they are not doing it forpurpose.
I'll say, okay.
Do do one, two, and three, maybe four and fiveon Monday.
Okay.
And then I'll give a heads up to the CFOs thatthis is what we are doing.
Sure.
Anything that needs to be signed over 20 or$50,000,000, you know, that has to be signed by

(42:15):
the CFOs.
So I better know what I'm talking about, eventhough I'm a finance person and treasurer.
Right?
But I would be going and explaining to them,this is why we need it.
This is what's gonna happen.
This is the financials, and I have to know.
So you prepare consistently.
We had the asset liability management,discussions, meetings every quarter, every

(42:36):
month, and then it became to every quarter.
It's a prep work and they can ask anybody.
Entire SLT is going to be their seniorleadership.
They will ask you any question they wantanywhere.
So you have to be prepared.
And I'm not the only one who went over this.
We had a whole group going over there, but wehad our assigned areas, our businesses, and we
will do that.
I had a total responsibility about$50,000,000,000 total turnover between several

(43:03):
of the businesses.
And I also had the renewables and on the energyside.
So that's part of the reason that I'm actuallyI have a little bit more knowledge on the
renewable side.
Yeah.
No.
That's helpful.
And then, you know, one thing that is anamazing experience is to do m and a for a
larger business.
So you got to oversee that process.

(43:25):
So what's some advice that you would give tosomebody that's maybe joining a bigger
conglomerate that's now going to be doing, youknow, corporate strategy M and A?
What are some of the things that you look forin a company in terms of revenue as far as
qualitative aspects of the company to be anacquisition target?
Would love some wisdom on that because I thinkthat'll be helpful for a lot of our private

(43:46):
equity professionals in our community in termsof just buying an asset.
And obviously there's a downstream process toto make that business now part of GE, right?
So what's kind of the transition process, youknow, maybe just for any big company.
And I've actually gone through that process aswell.
Know, I was part of a bigger organization, alarge massive insurance company that bought a

(44:08):
fintech startup, and it was really interestingseeing that startup become now part of you
know, all those employees are now, part of thebigger conglomerates who would love you know,
some advice that you have that.
Right.
When we are looking at companies, particularlywhen I was at when I've been on both sides.
Right?
I got bought out, and I also bought companies.
So when we are looking at particularly whenyou're buying on the one side of the seat and

(44:30):
you're buying companies, you're looking atdifferent things.
People, process, revenue.
Mhmm.
Definitely, it's gonna be driven by thenumbers.
You know?
You're looking at a revenue ad for, like, youknow, seven to 10% to your top line.
Mhmm.
You're looking at processes that how much howhow can I integrate them?

(44:51):
How difficult it's gonna be to integrate thisinto a GE company?
Sure.
GE has very strong traditional portfolios andprocesses.
Right?
You know, the financial system is a process.
IT system is a process.
Your order management is a process.
Everything is a process.
So you bring in different stakeholders.

(45:11):
You don't know everything.
Right?
So you're going to Sure.
Before you wanna go into a whole thing, you'regonna talk about the similar industry folks in
your company.
You're looking at stakeholders.
You're gonna bring them in.
You're going to also bring in your lawyers,your accountants, and your tax lawyers.
Yeah.
Legal and tax lawyers separate.

(45:33):
Mhmm.
They will tell you where the benefits are asfar as tax is concerned, which they will tell
you on the entity level.
Like, this entity, do not put anything overhere.
Put it on this side.
You know?
They will tell you.
They will tell you everything.
They'll give you the guidance.
Then you talk to your corporate finance group,start putting together the numbers.

(45:54):
P and L balance sheet cash flow Mhmm.
Do have discounted cash flow and see do themarket comparables and see where you fall.
What is the total valuation?
Now you're looking at the contracts that thecompany will in a service environment.
You're looking at contracts that the companyhas, how far the services are, how valuable the
contracts are, the key people on theorganization that you wanna keep in the company

(46:16):
because lot of the contacts that they have,businesses are done in a different way.
So you wanna retain them.
That is one of the major factors.
The key fact one of the factors that Cisco usedto look at.
I know for a fact because we had CFOs goingover there and we used to talk.
Right?
Yeah.
They would say, I will not buy a company evenif it's the best company in the whole world if

(46:37):
I do not think the people can integrate.
Culture is different.
Culture of a company precedes it.
Like, you know, I always say your characterwill precede you.
People will talk about you when you're not inthe room.
And that depends and that matters to youbecause that's how you're going to get your
reputation or ill reputation.

(46:58):
So you want to make sure that the culture of acompany is such that it can be positive, it can
be kind, and it can actually look at themselvesin an honest manner and be able to say, okay.
I can integrate.
I will be able to do this one.
So people and the culture is a if if there isno cultural alignment, it's going to be very

(47:19):
difficult.
I'm not saying you cannot do that.
I mean, many, many years back, I used to bepart of I'll give you one anecdote over here.
Mhmm.
I used to be and, again, I did a lot of thingsthat was because I wanted to learn the culture
of GE.
I used to become the registrar of the AfricanAmerican forum.
When I first joined, I became that.

(47:40):
So everybody had to go through me.
I had to know every every senior executivethat's coming in.
So I had a chance to talk to some of them.
One of them, he interviewed me years before,and I went up to him when I saw him at the
forum.
And I introduced myself, and he said, what areyou doing now?
Because he is a big company.
Nobody knows what they're doing a lot of times.

(48:00):
You know?
Years go by and see I told him that I wasworking in on an integration.
Basically, we bought a company in the Midwest,and I'm gonna be integrating that in the g
business.
And he told me something, and then it stuckwith me.
He said, many, many years back, we bought acompany.
He was in the power sector at that time inAtlanta.
And he said, many, many years back, we bought acompany out in the Midwest.

(48:23):
It was one of the renewable companies backthen.
Mhmm.
Five years goes by.
He went to visit.
The name of the company outside hasn't evenchanged.
It doesn't say GE.
No.
Interesting.
That's a problem.
That's a problem.
Yeah.
When I was actually at Midwest with thatcompany, I saw the resistance to change.

(48:45):
It's a small company of three owners gettingbought by this large company called General
Electric.
Mhmm.
There's a lot more work that people have to do.
People, they don't have the knowledge,background, or the process mindset to be able
to get into that.
When I first walked into that, I had a team of17 people only one working on a $100,000,000.

(49:08):
That doesn't happen in GE.
So, I knew I have to segregate out.
APAR, corporate finance, controllership, andthat's it.
We're not going to have any.
Now that doesn't mean I'm gonna let the peoplego either.
I started putting people in different areas.
People went into operations.
People went to the shop floor.
There were people who wanted to go and workthere.

(49:29):
Move them over.
I had a team.
I come from, you know, GE.
So everybody had a little bit of a polished,basically a lot of education knowledge, college
degrees, CPAs, you know, CFAs, like that.
I walk into a company, Only two people hadcollege degrees.
Nobody had college degrees.
That doesn't mean I'm not gonna help them.

(49:50):
I sent people to class at night.
You know, classes, we will cover your cost.
You know?
Go get the education, finish your college andgrow with the company.
You're always in universe.
Basically, it's a cultural fit.
If it's not there, I wouldn't suggest buyingthe company.
People buy companies for different reasons.

(50:14):
And then you mentioned divesting.
So divesting is essentially just kind of givingup control.
So would they just kind of when a company iskind of in that position where a larger
conglomerate is divesting, I guess, whatusually are the options at that point?
So the way it happened with GE, we realizedthese are the areas that's going get divested.

(50:37):
You know, first, we thought it was going to beonly the real estate portfolio.
Then we got another email saying thateverything is gonna get divested.
Right?
So you look at how they are gonna form.
So there are a few options.
You can help existing managers go and take thatportfolio, help them monetarily, set them up as
a separate company.
They're gonna be better off running that showthemselves.

(51:00):
Mhmm.
That's one.
You can sell to private equity who's gonna do aroll up at some point.
Sure.
Yep.
That's what happened to GE Global ExchangeServices.
They brought three other companies.
They rolled it up in ten ten years later, andit's running very well.
Then there are companies, other big companies,they will come and say, okay.
We're gonna take this portfolio and thisportfolio from you.

(51:22):
You sell them, And the people go with that.
In GE, people were part of the asset base.
So they would go with that.
And there would be two years that they won't beable to come back.
That's how it would work.
Again, the cultural fit is very important.
I've noticed that.
Even when Goldman Sachs and them, they go outand buy, sometimes people leave because the

(51:43):
culture just changed.
It it maybe it was a lot more laid back.
It's a lot more aggressive culture.
Some people like, some people don't.
You know?
Sure.
As you get older, you tend to be able to gothrough that and say, okay, fine.
I'm gonna live with this culture.
Right?
I I faced that when I went to Synchrony.
It used to be a GE company, and it was adifferent real run company.

(52:05):
When I when it became Synchrony, it became afundamentally different cultural company.
And I figured that I was not a very good suitedfor that company.
And I that's something that I had to come tounderstanding, and I had to get up.
You know?
Absolutely.
One more question I have is feel free to sharewhat you're allowed to share.

(52:27):
But I would say when it comes to assetallocation, what advice would you give to
allocators as they're thinking about investingin different fund managers?
And then for fund managers, what is some adviceyou'd give as they're looking to kind of get to
their first institutional check?
Right.
So they've maybe gotten some allocations fromsome smaller fund to funds, maybe some high net

(52:51):
worth individuals, maybe some family offices,but now they wanna graduate, maybe they're on
fund three or fund four.
What should they be thinking about?
Obviously, there's the DDQ and there's a lot ofthose resources that the Institutional Limited
Partners Association offers a lot of thosetemplates, but just what are some other
frameworks that they have to have in their mindas they're graduating to kind of now delivering

(53:15):
an asset product to to a portfolio ofinstitutional large pension plans?
In the pension plan, the way we are looking atit is that we have a goal.
We want to be fully funded.
Goal is to be fully funded so the company doesnot have to put in too much money.
Mhmm.
They don't have to assume the risk.

(53:36):
Okay?
That's our goal.
And our goal, because we are governed by ERISAlaws Mhmm.
We can only do so much.
Sure.
We are really we have the LDI portfolio,liability driven portfolio, and then we have
our growth portfolio.
In the LDI, basically, you're also looking at acost.
Right?

(53:56):
Cost containment because it's a company that'sgonna run.
Right?
So LDI will give it to give you most of thebenchmark that you need to follow.
K?
So it's a matter of where is that segregation?
Where is that line?
How much is LDI and how much is growth?
Mhmm.
Look at companies where the funds are not fullyfunded yet.

(54:19):
Sure.
Because if you're not fully funded, once youget fully funded, you're going to move most to
LDI.
Mhmm.
No risk.
Why would you do?
Why would you take the risk?
Right?
But there are a lot of companies out there.
They're not fully funded.
Look at those and how much growth do they want.
In our case, and this is I can say, we are alittle bit more towards the growth because we

(54:40):
need that return.
Higher growth, higher return.
Right?
So, basically, we want that return.
And in order for me to but I cannot take toomuch undue risk.
Mhmm.
But I have to have some returns because I wannaget to the fully funded level as soon as
possible, but with rationality.
I cannot say I'm gonna be fully fundedtomorrow.
I am looking at a trajectory of, like, two tothree years or five years out through.

(55:03):
That's what you have to find out.
Like, okay.
Talk to the managers.
Talk to the managers that's outside, and eachone of them, they will have their investment
partners outside.
Like, in our case, we have OCIO.
There are if you don't have an OCIO, you willhave a CIO where you can go pitch if you know
they're not fully funded.
And you can also reach out to the CIOs and alsoto the CFOs.

(55:27):
They are also very much in entangled intothose.
Money managers under the CIOs and alsoinvestment partners.
A lot of them, they have investment partners.
Approach them, find on the those are mostlyvery public knowledge, most of the companies.
You go and find them from them that, okay, ifyou're an investment manager, this is my
product.

(55:47):
I believe the company wants to go to a fullyfunded status.
At some point.
That should be the goal and peace of goal.
We can get you there.
This is the kind of return we can get you.
Your Sharpe ratio becomes very important.
Mhmm.
How much you have your reputation becomes veryimportant.
Your returns becomes definitely important.
How you did that.
Okay?

(56:07):
And so those are the things that we pretty muchlook at.
We have a very good cheat sheet like we have ascoring card scorecard, basically.
And we look at that when we look at managers,even though it's done by OCIO, I look at the
scorecards generally and see where they'refalling.
You know?
And there are there are lots of differentvariables in that.
But major ones are the returns, lifetimereturns, five year returns, you know, and then

(56:32):
we're looking at the Sharpey ratios, and we'relooking at the and churning investment churns
in their funds.
Mhmm.
You know, how often they have done, how oftenthey have hold on to, you know, returns
investment that were not good.
You know, you wanna give it some time, twoyears, three years, four years.
But at one point, you're gonna have to draw theline.

(56:53):
And did you draw the line?
If you didn't, why didn't you?
There's always an explanation for that.
So Sure.
You wanna do something like that.
And from that side and from a I mean, that'swhat a money managers would do.
Now as far as I am concerned, I'm an allocator.
Right?
I am actually I'm actually I was talking toBlackRock yesterday, and we went through this
whole thing that we are right now at this is asegregation of the LDI and the growth.

(57:17):
We should stay with them.
We have a certain amount of money that is alsorun by our parent GE Investment Management.
They run our illiquid.
Right?
The illiquid, when I'm talking about, we cannotreally get it.
It's under a trust.
And the way the trust and this is something themoney managers should know also.
The way the trust is going to be set up,because the company got sold out, three parts,

(57:39):
spin off.
The trust is between the three parties.
We are the gen limited partners Mhmm.
With GIM being the general partner.
Now when a structure is like that, I cannot getout of my investment that easily.
Even though I have said no more commitment, newcommitments, right?

(57:59):
But I still have my legacy commitments.
I still have my legacy real estate portfolio.
GE used to hold major investments, majorbuildings, and I was part of that.
You know, I know those times, right?
So you cannot really get out, and that's a longtail.
That's a ten year still.
How much can you go?
But they're a cliff within the ten yearsperiod.
Right?
Sure.
Years, five years, you're gonna get some cashout.

(58:22):
What do you do at that time?
Right?
Mhmm.
What is your projection?
EROA projection, expected rate of return thatwe are looking as a pension managers.
Right?
I have my benefits that I have to pay, and myreturn has to be above that in order for me to
cover my cost and be able to pay that.
Right?
That's what you're looking at.
Am I able to do that with my growth portfolioat the moment?

(58:46):
And even with all the illiquid investments andeverything, and I would like to get out of it,
but I'm getting good returns.
Certain areas are giving me good returns.
Private credit is giving me good returns.
Private equity is giving me good returns.
Mhmm.
So I'm gonna stick with that as long as I cantill the cliff happens.
And once the cliff happens, I get the money.

(59:07):
And at that point, I'm going to think about, doI really want to go into the LDI or do I want
to keep on having some more cash?
Think about what IBM did.
It's it's good for the company to think thatway.
They had pension before.
They closed down pension.
I'm sorry.
We are coming to the ending of the time, butI'll finish this.

(59:29):
Yeah.
So what they had, they they closed down.
No new entrants.
Right?
The existing people are still getting theirpensions, and they are still accruing the
pensions.
So they stopped allocating, and they're justkind of Yeah.
Then drawing from the cash that's developedfrom the assets they've invested in.
In the meantime, something happened.
The last few years, except for a couple ofyears, '22 was a bad year, the returns were

(59:51):
very high in The US markets.
Right?
Sure.
So now they have excess cash sitting on
Well, there's also tax efficiency things toobecause when you're sitting on that cash,
there's tax burden.
So what some allocators do is they'llreallocate and recycle those proceeds so that
they're not
In a different way.
You want to do is open it up.
You're not asking people and you're not givingout extra people any investment, but you're

(01:00:13):
going to in the four zero one ks side.
Company has to pay the money.
Right?
Sure.
It's gonna come.
Use this money.
Make it a hybrid.
Use that money to pay for the four zero one ksbecause you cannot really take the pension
money and use it to the business, but you canreduce your cost elsewhere.
A lot of companies are thinking about this iswhere a lot of opportunities are gonna come up.
Interesting.

(01:00:34):
Yeah.
Because you wanna make full not only you wannahave your pension fund fully funded, you wanna
go above and beyond.
If you have a 106% fully funded
Mhmm.
Then you got that 6% leeway.
Right?
Now you can take the money in your four zeroone k, make it into a hybrid environment,
change it, change the whole structure, make ita hybrid, and then use your four zero one k.

(01:00:57):
Got it.
That's really interesting.
Well, hey.
You know, I know we're up on time, but this wasamazing.
Stosh, I feel like I can go another hourbecause I think you've
Quite some some point.
You've packed you've packed you've unpackedpretty much the allocator ecosystem, how to buy
a company, and really how to navigate yourcareer.
What I really like to always end a lot of myconversations with is just a piece of advice.

(01:01:18):
It could be a piece of life advice from amentor, a family member, could just be a
corporate experience that you had from yourcareer, or it could be both.
So just if you will have some piece of wisdomto leave us, maybe a learning, we would
appreciate that.
My brand that I get known as is I get it done.
Sure.

(01:01:38):
You know, I cut through the bureaucracy.
Mhmm.
You can put any kind of stumble box in front ofme.
I will look past that.
I know my goal.
I will get it done.
This is why people hire me.
Right?
Your character will always precede you.
Remember that.
Okay.
So how you behave, how we talk, how you react,everybody's watching.

(01:02:00):
You're always under the microscope.
So remember that and behave accordingly.
No, I really appreciate that.
I think there's two pieces to that.
So I think what you're saying is, you're goingto get known for something.
So, oh, yeah, you're at a cocktail party orsomething.
I'm like, oh, yeah, that's Sasha.
That's the person that just gets things done.

(01:02:22):
And then there's an on the flip side, therecould be someone that's like, oh, yeah, you
know, that person never gets anything done,know, take them, you know, two months to get,
you know, one task done.
So I think that's really important as you kindajust grow as a professional.
There's there's kind of something that you wantto be known for and what you're striving for.
And then just kind of your your consistency interms of how you're acting, you know, depending

(01:02:46):
on like what you say and how you act.
Yeah.
That just that just represents some type ofhigher level brand of who you are.
And then I think the other piece is one of myfavorite sayings is money loves feet.
So it's just people that just get it done.
People that just show up on time could probablyget an interview versus someone else who just
missed the interview because they were late.

(01:03:06):
So I think just speed is a huge edge.
And, you know, along with speed is, you know,essentially the side effect is just getting it
done.
So Again, honesty, being honest to yourself.
Mhmm.
Be honest to your companies you work for.
They are paying you.
You know?
They don't pay you to be lazy or lax or nottell the truth.
Tell the truth.
It's how you deliver the message.

(01:03:27):
Right?
And then also, like, you know, be positive.
Tomorrow is a better day.
Tomorrow is gonna be much better than today.
With all the stuff going on in the world rightnow, you have to be positive.
You know, keep your head above the water.
Tomorrow's gonna be a better day.
We're gonna get this done.
We're gonna move past this.
Right?
Sure.
And I think this the positivity that comes outwhen people talk to me.
It when I'm in the room or outside the room,you know, people know they can come to me, and

(01:03:51):
I they will not I will not fail them.
People will call me from different parts of g.
Even now, I mean, outside the network, somebodyhad given my name to somebody, and they wanna
know more about cash management.
How do
I Yeah.
Like, okay.
You're gonna go read this book, this book, thisbook, and then you're gonna learn this.
This is your cheat sheet.
Keep that in mind.
You'll be fine.
And I see a brick wall behind you reminds me ofthe saying, some of the best founders, even if

(01:04:16):
you're just a corporate professional, some ofthe best founders, they say the same breaking
through walls.
Right.
So no matter what challenges you have, you gotto just kind of steamroll those challenges and
keep going and get to where you need to be aslong as you know where you need to be.
Yeah.
I think just breaking through walls compliantlyif you have to to just get
But through where you need it's okay.

(01:04:38):
And then, you I mean, you're going to know thatyou what you don't know.
Be honest again, be honest with yourself.
Do a self assessment.
Figure out when you get where is the resource.
Who can you go?
You know, inside the company, outside thecompany.
There's lots more resources now than when I wasgrowing up.
You know, we have an Internet.

(01:04:58):
We have chatty pity.
You're going to ask any question you want.
You get the idea.
You may not know everything, but the otherperson who you're talking to, they will know
that you have the curiosity to know.
Again, that willingness to go the distance,that will go a long ways.
I would say my final comment to an observationwith me, because I was working in corporate
America years ago, too.
And I think two things.

(01:05:20):
If you obviously have an opinion, sometimesit's frowned upon, right?
Especially if you're saying it to your manager.
And then I think the other piece is justsharing that you don't know that you don't
know.
Right.
A lot of times I think previously managementstyles, if you were asked a question on the
spot, you know, there's a lot of pressure tonot sound dumb and not have the answer.

(01:05:44):
But I think, you know, now modern leadership,it's okay to say that you don't know something
as long as you can say that you're going to getit done.
It's like, look, don't have the answer rightnow, but I will get you an answer by the end of
the day, whether it's not from my own mind, ifI can find somebody else that's the expert, you
will get that answer packaged to the rightperson in a timely manner.

(01:06:04):
I have said that in board meetings.
And
then also it's just and then it's like, it'sokay now, I think, to share your opinion.
There's a lot of management styles.
Don't know if I'm not sure and you don't haveto tell me if they do this, but there's a lot
of leadership styles now where they havereviews where you review your manager as well.
That was kind of not a common thing beforebecause you're kind of like breaking the chain

(01:06:26):
of command.
But now they wanna make sure that talent ishappy.
If the issue is maybe from above, you know,mean, if the issue is from exactly.
Every
month.
Yeah.
You man you you rate your managers.
GE does that three sixty.
You have to rate your managers, your peers thatthey will rate you.
And I've been rated several times, generallyfor the best.

(01:06:48):
Yeah.
It's helpful.
Well, anyway, Sasha, thank you for all yourtime, and appreciate it.
It was great, you know, getting to know youand, you know, hope to see you soon in person.
Hopefully, I'll be able to come to the nextevent that you have, and then I get to meet
with the the folks.
Honored to
have you.
And anything I can do to help your network, youlet me know.

(01:07:08):
Be happy
to so much, Sasha.
Really appreciate it.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you, everybody else.
Take care.
Have a great one.