September 8, 2025 • 47 mins
In this enlightening episode of The Leaders Podcast, host Joe Cass engages in a thought-provoking discussion with Robyn Grew, CEO of Man Group, and Dave Ernsberger, co-President of S&P Global Commodity Insights.
Subscribe (Apple Podcasts): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leaders-with-joe-cass/id1515429355
Subscribe (Spotify): https://open.spotify.com/show/5TdWBOagDtFdO6Rr4PtN4W
Watch on our website: https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-insights/podcasts/leaders
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:35):
Hello and welcome.
My name is Joe Cass, seniorDirector at S&P Global, and
this is The Leaders Podcast.
So today I'm joined by RobynGrew, CEO of Man Group, and
Dave Ernsberger, co-President ofS&P Global Commodity Insights.
A quick reminder that the viewsof the external guests are their
views alone and they do notrepresent the views of S&P Global.
(00:57):
Okay, great.
Let's kick off.
Robyn, welcome.
Thanks so much for joining us today.
Thank you for having me.
So starting at the beginning, so youtrained as a barrister, initially.
I did.
I did.
It is true.
You heard it here first.
How did that kind of, I mean, whatpulled you into finance initially and
how did that path really kind of leadyou from a barrister to, you know,
(01:20):
the real, the top job at man group?
It's, it, it is a questionthat I feel from time to time.
The how did you end up here?
Question.
And, and, and it's, it's the onlycareer plan I ever had was this.
I went to the bar.
I was in a common law set and Ithought to myself, do you know what?
(01:40):
I'd really like to moveto the commercial bar.
I will find out what this larkis this commerce thing is.
So I applied for a job in financialservices in, actually at that
point of fidelity, and I neverwent back to the commercial bar.
It's the worst career plan probablyanybody has ever heard one thing
(02:00):
to do, failed miserably at it.
But once you get into this space, once youhave the experience of what it is to be
in the fastest moving, most interestingplace to sit, where you see the world
really operating globally where you are,you are court side for every major event.
(02:25):
That's hard to give up.
So it's in that space that I sort of foundmyself and I have never stopped sort of
enjoying not what I do and where I am.
And that has landed me here.
Dave?
Yes.
Welcome.
Hello.
Thank you.
Looking at your kind of origin story,I've watched too many superhero films.
(02:46):
Your origin story.
So you left university, youstudied politics, and your
first job was for Platts.
That's right.
Now S&P.
So how do you go from graduate reporter?
To co-president and whathappened in between that period.
So, I was actually really relating to whatRobyn said about your, your career, Robyn.
I, very similar for me.
I, I did a degree in philosophy,politics and economics.
(03:09):
PPE as it's known over here, withinthree months I dropped economics.
And that was a terrible mistakebecause I spent the rest of my
life writing about economics.
I wish I'd studied harder on that one.
But, I, I joined as a reporter.
I knew that I wanted to, to be, I wantedto find out about what is this world of
commodities and energy, but like you,with the commercial bar, I think, and that
(03:32):
ended up being incredibly fascinating.
So between joining as a reporterto where I am now as, as
co-president of this division.
There were, you know, threedifferent office locations.
There were, you know, a hundred differentcountries that I spent time in just
visiting people and customers and sources.
I started a family, had three children.
And I've done all of thathere with the business.
(03:52):
And actually, you know, thepersonal journey in my own life.
And then the professional journeyin terms of that front row seat
you were talking about Robynson.
Really history for the last 30 years.
You have an unparalleled view on what'sgoing on and a front row seat to it.
That's incredibly compelling.
So people often ask, well, what takes youfrom a frontline position to co-president?
And, and I would say it's, it'sthe willingness to do things that
(04:15):
people didn't expect me to do.
It was the willingness to respondto things that happened in a way
nobody expected me to respond, andbeing a little bit different, being
atypical and saying yes to things.
Cool.
We'll come back to that later.
But just moving on to markets.
So Robyn, markets arechallenging right now.
I know everyone says that at everypanel in the history of the world,
but it's, it's kind of driven.
(04:36):
It's true at the moment.
They are challenging.
So can you tell us how you arenavigating them and really how
you are looking to find an edge?
Yeah, for sure.
This is a moment, isn't it?
I, it, it's, it's a, a yearof unbelievable change.
Paradigm shift has been used over and overagain as a statement, deglobalization,
(04:58):
but is it really, is it really happening?
Volatility, whipsaw markets.
An extraordinary amount of thissort of industrial revolution.
As we talk about technology, I'm surewe're gonna talk a little bit more about
that and AI and agentic AI and then someother stuff thrown in for good measure.
And, and that, and by good measure,I don't mean in a good way.
(05:21):
You've got wars waging, youhave, issues around the climate.
So this confluence ofdisruption is, is very real.
And so how, how do you positionyourself number one for man group?
It's about making sure welisten to what our clients need.
We work with the largest globalallocators all over the world who are
(05:45):
trying to work out how to positionthemselves, how to manage their
portfolios, how to think about risk,how to think about geopolitics.
How do you do that?
If there was one answer, the, I I would, Iwould, I would love to share it with you.
And of course there isn't.
What there is, is a need to be diversifiedto work out that we're not gonna
(06:11):
be in a benign environment anymore.
We, we lived through that for10 years and kind of got a bit
used to that sense of all assets.
Appreciate, just hold onto 'emand you might wanna hold onto
them in different amounts.
But pretty much all assets appreciated.
We're not there.
We have volatility, we haveinflation, we have dispersion, we
(06:31):
have different markets and differentcountries operating in different ways.
We have different levels of growth.
So building a resilient portfolio,building a diversified portfolio,
diversifying your diversifiers, havingliquidity, being able to think about
the macroeconomic environment, howyou want to position yourself there.
(06:53):
That's how we think youposition yourself at the moment.
In other words, recognize thatnot everything in your portfolio
should be working at the same time.
Think about your left tail risk.
Think about defensive alpha.
Think about the capability to bedynamic and move in a tactical
way as well as a strategic way.
(07:14):
And we sit here to providethat breadth of content.
And as an active and alts managerliquid in large part, we believe
very much in providing content anduncorrelated sources of return that
navigate markets as they move and shift.
This is not straightforward, butif ever there was a time for that
(07:37):
front row seat, we got it right now.
And Man Group's is known forits quant-trading expertise.
How are you guys, you mentionedit previously touched upon it.
How are you utilizing AI as part of thebroader investment process, but also
are you looking at hiring AI agents?
Isn't that a fun thought?
The thought of hiring an agent?
(07:58):
We use AI agents.
I'll talk about that in a second.
So AI is not new.
I think that's the, the mostinteresting part of conversation.
We've been using some version of AI.
It depends who you're asking.
The firm, let's call it 10 to 15years, there's a bit offer in there.
Possibly longer if you talk tosome, and it's become core to our
(08:20):
DNA funny thing to say, right?
AI part of DNA.
But it's absolutely at everypart in the organization.
If you'd have asked me threeyears or so ago who was the most.
The area that was most using robotics,for example, you'd possibly be surprised
to hear that it's our operations area.
(08:41):
So we, we embed machinelearning and execution.
We embed AI and large languagemodels throughout the organization.
So you are right.
We have 35 years of quants, DNA,we have 600 plus people in the
organization who identify, and Imean they self identifiers, you know,
programmers, developers, engineers,quants, literally rocket scientists.
(09:06):
So it is absolutelyintrinsic to who we are.
We're always excited to take on and useand utilize new technologies and AI.
And chat, and agentic is part of that.
We think the opportunity set at every partof the organization is really exciting.
(09:28):
So how do we use it?
We use it in data, in datascience, in signals, in execution
through the organization to makeus more effective and efficient.
We've talked about co-piloting,but it's now going beyond that,
that age agentic agent ai.
We're changing the verbs.
It used to be, you know,tell me about this thing.
(09:52):
As you typed it into your browser, you'renow in build me and that build me mode.
That's gonna take usto the next generation.
So tech is absolutely intrinsicto doing as good a job, the best
job we can be excelling at it.
But I'm very lucky to have a good chunk ofmy organization who also understands its
(10:17):
limitations and it's, we, this technologyneeds to be in the hands of the experts.
And I'm lucky I've got that.
And Dave, sticking to the AI theme, you'veobviously been, you know, entrenched
in the energy markets for decades.
Do you think, oh, I guess thisquestion should be, when do you
think AI will be able to forecastcommodity markets better than humans?
(10:43):
I don't think it's a questionof when it'll happen.
I think there's a genuine questionabout if it will happen, so we
should reflect on that a little bit.
You know, thinking about what Robynwas saying there, I I kind of trace
the origin story of what we call AI in2025, back to the origins around big
data, which is maybe 15, 20 years ago.
That's, that's the, that's right.
Yeah.
And I think, I think when BigData emerged, some listeners
(11:04):
will remember that some won't.
But when big data became a thing, weall realized we didn't have enough
time in the day to process data.
and then we had data science andother tools, and eventually ag.
Type technology like today,that's now around us.
Anyway, so I, I think that the, ifyou look at the history of AI and
where we are today, and try and thinkabout where that could take us in the
future, it tells me really two thingsabout forecasting to, to your question.
(11:28):
The first one is, any forecaststhat are data-driven forecasts are
already being done better by ai.
So in that regard, I kindof agree with your premise.
It's a, it's a when not if question ifforecast or data-driven forecast, right?
There's, you know, um.
We're not actually quite there fullyon data quality based forecast, but
it, it's, it's there and it's moreor less, you know, I would say it's
(11:49):
even been there for five or 10 yearsin a kind of a rudimentary way.
But the second part of my answer is ifthe last 15 years was people running
towards data to handle it better, Ithink the next 15 years will be people
running away from data to find what's new.
And I think, I mean, I justcame back from a trip to Vienna.
(12:10):
So in my job you need tounderstand what OPEC is thinking.
There is no AI in the world that willtell you what, prince Abdulaziz is
thinking he'll do in the oil market.
You still at the moment haveto talk to Prince Abdulaziz,
and the people around him.
Same for, natural gas markets.
Same for, what will Microsoft andAmazon do around the data center
conundrum to fuel the energy for AI?
(12:32):
The only answers to that come fromtalking to the people involved.
So I think the, if part of thatquestion, will, will, AI be able
to generate better forecasts forforecasts that are qualitatively
driven, not quantitatively driven?
That's a long, long way off,and what I'm curious to see is
whether AI can be truly creative.
Or not, and the roots of that will bebased on how they interoperate with
(12:55):
non-data, non-textual, inter interfaces.
Yeah,
I think that's, but if you, if I can.
I'm gonna have this as a chat becauseI think it's the most interesting place
to think about this is where is therichness of data that you combine and
how do you do that better and smarter?
Can you increase your capabilities tobe more thoughtful, more engaged, more
(13:20):
able to interpret what's around you?
But that skillset on thequalitative side is, is still
incredibly valuable and important.
It's back to however.
However, however great we are atcreating tools for neurosurgeons.
And we are, I mean, we are much betterat this than we've ever been before, and
(13:42):
the margins of error are smaller and it's3D enabled in a bunch of different tools.
You still wouldn't want me in charge.
You would not want meoperating on you tomorrow.
That would possibly be a bad outcome.
Just saying.
So that ability to know.
The limitations and how to deploy thecapabilities is incredibly important.
(14:06):
Can it do some thingsbetter than humans today?
Yes.
Faster, smarter.
Yes.
With less error?
Yes.
Can it do everything?
Not yet.
And there's a difference in theability to search effectively data
that exists in the world that we'reliving in, versus the quality of data
that you can use within perhaps yourown organizations, if you've got it.
(14:29):
If I've got 35 years of data, high-qualitydata, that gives me something that
I can teach an agent in a neuralnetwork kind of way that is different
and more reliable than if I justplug something out into the universe.
So, so I think the, these are the nuances,but do I think it's changing at a rate
(14:55):
that we haven't experienced before?
This industrial revolution is?
It is 120 miles an hour for sure.
I do wonder with the, you know,for example, you, you're saying you
can't kind of get in someone's head.
It's difficult, but is there maybean opportunity to, you know, we're
talking about training an LLM,which is probably the equivalent
(15:16):
of, you know, going on an Atari.
what, we'll look back on this, but couldyou train an LLM or something similar to
plug in the decisions that that personhas made in certain situations and then.
Get an output of a probabilistprobabilistic kind of output
of, you know, 40%, 70%?
I'm sure people do that already, actually.
I'm sure.
I'm sure that's alreadypart of the program.
(15:36):
Yes, we do.
Yeah.
Well, there you go.
Yeah.
That, that's exactly, that'sexactly what you're doing, right?
You are teaching effectively theneural network of both your capability
and your researchers all day long.
And the build me command that I talkedabout earlier, the build me, you
give it a parameter in plain English.
And you can, I mean, I'm for those.
(15:58):
This is for me mind blowing.
Maybe that's demonstrative my age,but you can see the plain English
version of text coming down this endpart of the screen and the Python
version of it working the other as itreaches into effectively exactly that.
The thought processes and thedynamic processes that you'll
utilize in your organizations.
(16:19):
That is already part of it.
It's the bit that says in thequalitative space, when, when decisions
are made, not just based on the dataavailable, that things get trickier.
And so let's go back to thatoriginal question, right?
What's going on in the world?
Well, this geopoliticsthing is a real thing.
(16:41):
You're starting to see differentbehaviors, different versions, more
nuanced version of deglobalization.
a more focus on maybe.
Repatriating capital and using it fordomestic capabilities, you're seeing
very specific fiscal intervention.
You can start to use different,subsidies of governments as part of
(17:04):
where you can see growth areas incertain industries or asset classes.
And the opposite, are we gonnasee different trading alliances?
That's a human thing.
So, so it's a very interesting dynamic,but if you can map some of that and to
be smarter and you can put it to work,you can then use the, the capabilities
(17:26):
of your researchers to do more.
It's, it's that, I think, and itit, the other piece of this is, it's
really, really hard to find out for.
Right.
It really, really is.
What you don't wanna do is lose thatthrough some friction in the system.
So it's about deploying thatcapability through an organization
(17:51):
so that you return the alpha tothe people who really deserve it.
And they're, your clients, the peoplewho've trusted you with their capital,
that is who deserve, they're thepeople who deserve the richness of
the return you can get to them, butdon't eat it away in poor execution
or poor process in your organization.
(18:12):
That's where this tech alsobecomes incredibly important
as a commercial differentiator.
So, Dave, sticking onthis topic to some extent.
You know, in a world of electrificationdata centers, what's the next
potential bottleneck commodity thatcould maybe catch people off guard?
(18:33):
Sure.
I think that there, just to speaka little bit about the data centers,
the AI and electricity, we, weknow there's a bottleneck right now
around energy supply to data centersto underpin the work that's going
on around dynamic LLM right now.
At the moment, the, one of the bigquestions that we hear from our
customers and commodity insights is,and I actually had a breakfast about
this this morning with somebody,is does new capacity need to get
(18:56):
built for electricity production andtransmission to fuel all of that or not?
Because there's a history and technologyof, efficiency and rationalization,
and by the time the energy industryinvests, if it does invest in electricity
capacity and transmission to support datacenters, they might not need it anymore.
So one way to answer your question isit's not what's the next bottleneck, it's
(19:17):
what's the next, stranded asset, frankly.
Which is a question people are thinkingabout, but it's an existentially important
question, because we're now conditionedto think of a world of bottlenecks.
Therefore, the appetite is building upin the search for alpha, among other
things to invest in a bottleneck areas.
And yet, as history as the history ofhumanity shows through the cycles of boom
and bust, we might find ourselves in astranded asset situation in three years
(19:38):
from now, or five years from now or more.
I, well, it's a questionto be decided, right?
And it's a question we hear a lot fromour, our customers, but if we wanna be
a little adventurous and think aboutwhat lies beyond this conversation.
I think the two a, the two commodityspaces that will be constrained
will be, water for sure.
we already hear this in the markets,and by the way, water is many things.
(20:00):
It's not just what we're drinking aswe do our podcast here, it's also the
inputs for, you know, cooling, assets.
It's the inputs for running differentprocesses in, in the world around us.
And the other, I'm not sure how todescribe this as a commodity asset,
but it is a kind of a commodity asset.
Is risk, is risk mitigation and weather.
And, you know, weather as a commodityhas confounded and also intrigued,
(20:26):
commodity traders and risk managersfor the better part of a hundred years.
But we can see all around us.
The climate is generating,surprise, effects, perhaps
at an increasing frequency.
You could debate that.
But the need to manage weather andthe need to manage water are the next
ones around the corner, in my opinion.
Robyn.
Shifting gears a bit to talk aboutprivate markets, which is along with
(20:48):
ai, another tick list, which I basicallytalk about all the time on this podcast.
But obviously, I mean, it goes withoutsaying it's exploded within recent years.
Interested to know what you think thatmeans for the future of hedge funds.
So private markets like,like hedge funds by the way.
Two very loosely defined things, right?
I mean, I think that's one of those,
Glad to hear you say that.
(21:09):
It, it's a loosely defined thing and it's,but it, they get banded a around a lot.
Man Group gets called a hedge fund.
Do we have hedge fund, hedge funds?
Yep.
Do I have long only.
Absolutely.
You know, so, so do Ihave private markets?
Yes.
Is it private equity?
No.
So these are things that are different.
There has certainly been a huge,especially in a, by the way, a
(21:32):
zero interest rate environment,huge pickup in private equity.
And over the last couple ofyears we are seeing some of the.
Downsides of being overallocated as some are in private
equity, they lack liquidity.
Private equity when you have zero interestrates look different by way of investments
than when suddenly cash costs something.
(21:54):
We haven't been in creditenvironments really.
We are back in credit environments now,so I'm very positive about the importance
of having great credit products bothin the public and the private side.
By the way, the definition of whatprivate used to be and what it
is now versus what public used tobe and what it is now in credit.
(22:16):
Different entirely when I wasyoung, which was dinosaurs
were roaming the world.
You know, the, the, the, the privatecredit bad, the tricky stuff.
Public credit, good, you know,high yield investment grade.
It's not really the case anymore.
You've got high yield investmentgrade, both public and private assets.
We have much more, movement between publicand private or much more movement between
(22:40):
the curve and down the curving credit.
So very excited about certain typesof assets in the private space.
Think liquidity is incrediblyimportant in the public space.
Back to what I said very muchearlier, and I'm sorry to repeat
myself, but diversification.
Is what's interesting here, whatyou're getting credit, what you're
getting private credit is differentas a, as an uncorrelated return
(23:04):
from that you might get in equities.
So, so again, building a portfoliothat's resilient, where you're
diversifying diversifies important.
Do I think that hedge funds are gonnacontinue to evolve and be relevant?
Yes.
Do I think active investing ismore important than ever before?
(23:25):
Yes.
Do I think liquid active?
Absolutely.
And so actually the lean in here,I think you're gonna see the hedge
fund space in its broadest definitionbeing an incredibly important part
of portfolios in a way that itwas kind of being ignored a bit
in that more passive environmentwhere you had passive equities.
(23:46):
And private equity.
So I'm excited about what hedge funds cando to help clients navigate these markets.
It is interesting you say that aboutthe kind of the brand of private credit,
because we've had, you know, you've hadkind of the guys from Apollo, Blackstone,
Aries on the podcast, and one of the bigkind of stumbling blocks they have is just
the brand in terms of, oh private credit.
(24:07):
You know, it's, it's a bit dark, youknow, it's, it's in the background, it's a
shadow, and half the deal seems to be themtrying to reverse this kind of perception.
I think there's huge interest from clientsin this space as well, both on the public
side and on the private side and inhaving multi-Strat credit, which looks
at, has both public and private underlyinginvestments, it it is interesting.
(24:31):
Shadow banking, really trickyphrase somehow does provide
this slightly unsavory view.
I believe it's there at all.
Credit's an incrediblyimportant part of markets.
People need to be lent to.
People that that's how you grow economies.
That's how you grow businesses.
and the banks have retreated outtathis space in part because of the
(24:55):
regulatory environment, and theirexpertise is sitting in some of
those other houses, including in mangroup now to provide access to funds.
And that can be at the performing endor at the more stressed or distressed
end of that, but that dynamic capabilityof managing credit and credit risk.
A very important part of the world,and I, I, I'm a firm believer that
(25:18):
private credit is part of how wehelp I the underlying investments,
but also find returns for clients.
Dave.
When trying to kind of anticipate thesebig shifts in energy or metals, what data
points do your clients rely on the most?
So, it was actually fascinatingjust thinking about private
(25:42):
markets as Robyn was talking there.
Right.
You know, the, the.
To sort of think about your question alittle bit, the, the commodity markets
have a complicated relationship withboth risk and, and, and finance.
And a lot of commodity, investorshave turned to private markets
as a result, I would say in bothconventional and non-conventional energy.
So the data points thatpeople are looking for, uh.
(26:06):
You would start with anything andeverything they can get their hands on.
Partly because of the amount of,direction that is coming from, arguably
less transparent, less visible fundingsources and, and decision making.
But it really is ultimately about.
In the commodity markets, what are thesupply signals that you're getting?
(26:27):
What are the demand signalsthat you're getting?
What are the inventory signals thatyou're getting and what is that
saying about price current and future?
And, and those, those three corecomponents, supply, demand, and
inventory, are at the heart of everysingle commodity market that we look at.
There is a new overlay.
Which is, this sort of deglobalizationthat may or may not be happening to
Robyn's point earlier, like the, the, thecommodity markets have become inherently
(26:51):
less efficient over the last 20 yearsbecause of the, increasing, application
of trade barriers, and this is not anew thing this year, you know, trade
barriers have been growing in commoditymarkets for a couple of decades now.
because ultimately, you know, energyhas always been in, in some part
(27:11):
about national security and local.
Security for consumers, right?
So that, that, that creates anenvironment of barriers that introduces
noise into your classic analysis.
And that's a new overlaypeople need to think about.
That's not a euphemism forthe tariff conversation.
By the way.
The tariff conversation is awhole other thing, quite frankly.
But, you know, overlaying nationalinterest on top of an already
fairly dynamic supply demand andinventory space is really what
(27:34):
our customers are looking for now.
Robyn, I wanted to talk a bit more aboutyour clients client base at MAN Group.
So you mentioned, you know, they're thelargest asset allocators globally for
the people kind of watching and listing.
This will be pension funds, sovereignwealth funds, maybe insurance firms.
You can correct me if that's wrong.
All of that, right.
Plus endowments, those sorts of,yeah, those sorts of investors.
(27:56):
Thinking about those kind of investors,has their expectation changed of you
versus, say, five years ago to today?
I think has it changed?
I think it's been on a journey, andI think the needs are different.
Today.
What we are seeing is that allocators,those big organizations want to face
(28:18):
fewer partners to help them navigate.
Their needs over the next, andthis is, this is the point, right?
If you're a pension fund, you, you'renot trading today, you're trading and
investing and thinking about portfolio.
That's gotta be resilient for thenext 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 plus years.
(28:39):
You know, hopefully somebody'sgonna do a great job for my son
and he's barely started to work.
You know, that type of stuff.
When they're sitting down withus, what we're seeing is a far.
Greater desire for partnershipand strategic, enablement.
This is, nobody's gota blank piece of paper.
Where are they today and how do they move?
(29:00):
These decisions take five years,10 years to rebalance portfolios.
They're looking for differentcontent, not just one thing.
They're looking for the value add.
It's the how do I help them on theirjourney with agentic AI, how do I
help them with their risk modeling?
How do I help them move potentiallyfrom the SAA type model, that
(29:23):
strategic asset allocation modelinto a total portfolio model.
And, and that looks differentfor every single investor.
How do I give them access to the,the, the cutting edge education
research capabilities like Man'spartnership with Oxford University
(29:45):
or the work we do with Columbia?
It's more than you are delivering.
More than, here's a fund,would you like to invest in it?
It's more than a conversationabout a fee for a particular piece.
It's creating solutions and puttingthe component parts of the ingredients
you have in a format that works for,that particular allocator, their
(30:09):
problems aren't the same shape.
They don't look like the same thing, andthe more dynamic and capable you are to
say, you know what, let's sit with you.
Let's work out what you need.
Let's go on this journey with you.
Let's create a product.
For you that actually solves theproblem that you might be facing.
That gives you more ability to be dynamicin what you can dial up and down in
(30:31):
the allocation, which maybe gives yousome flex in the overlays you may have.
That's the conversation we'rehaving and we have to be better
and better at that every day.
So is the conversation different?
Yes.
It's on this journey and to berelevant and to be a strategic partner
requires something slightly differentin the way that you approach that
(30:53):
client and engage in with them.
So giving yourself like adifferentiation beyond his our fees.
Here's, here's how ourperformance, here's our fees.
What do you think?
Every day and, and especially when you'rethinking about creating something which
is about resilience, not perfection.
(31:14):
And they're two very different things.
And so you are there to fill and tobe part of that journey to be useful.
We do pieces of work now withclients to, with the actual,
question, the conundrum itself.
And they're like, we don't knowthe answer to this conundrum.
And we'll, we'll take that away andwork on it with the best minds, with
(31:35):
the smartest people within the firm.
And without the firm, Mangets better because we have,
access to some of thesmartest clients in the world.
We use all of the resources availableto us to be better at what we do, and
you cannot, for one moment, sit still.
So how do you use the smartest minds?
(31:57):
From all over the world to be better atwhat you do so that you can be relevant
to those clients as they move forward.
That's what it's about.
It's less about, here's aproduct, here are the fees.
Trust me, that comes into it atsome point or other, but, but
actually it's more than that.
So Robyn.
You've been two-ish years inthe role as CEO of that group.
(32:20):
Yeah.
So what's been say the mostimportant leadership lesson you've
learned thus far on the job?
I think it's a lesson that weall know, really, which is.
You gotta continue to question and ask.
You've got to continue to know what youdon't know, and to challenge yourself.
(32:41):
Put put yourself in positions whereyou are constantly asking for feedback,
and that's from your own peoplethroughout your organization to sit in
the room with everybody to say, listen,don't wait for me to get this wrong.
Tell me, talk to me.
How many people have been at the, the,the, I've never been to the water cooler,
(33:03):
but whatever, you know, been by the sideof the water cooler where we've kind
of all sort of, and, and, and done the,well, I wouldn't be doing it that way.
I wanna hear about that.
And I actively go out to people withinmy own organization, but to clients
and to others to say, listen, Idon't have the answers to everything.
(33:23):
I can make good decisions, butI can make the better decisions
if I have more information.
Dave.
Can you recall a moment in your careerthroughout any point in your career
where you saw a shift in the datathat you had access to maybe before
the rest of the world or before therest of the market actually caught on?
(33:45):
Sure.
So.
There have been a, quite a fewtimes where that's happened.
When you look back on it, you go,yeah, of course that data was relevant.
Right?
But I I, I, I remember a lot of timeswhen in the moment, a piece of data
was out there that was, sort of, a, a,a for, forward indicator of what was
going to happen, but it maybe hadn'tbeen quite noticed or picked up on.
(34:05):
And the one that I learned fromthe most was, demand for jet fuel.
So the fuel that we use in our airplanes,and what that was doing in certain parts
of the world, particularly the MiddleEast, ahead of, war breaking out, and
then war breaking out inevitably putsa strain on energy prices, particularly
(34:28):
oil prices, not just oil prices.
And so, I remember we were noticing'cause of our jobs in our division
that the folks who supply aviationfuel, were suddenly running out.
They just didn't have anyaviation fuel to sell anybody.
And when you asked the reason why,nobody really wanted to say, but it
(34:48):
became clear they were supplying, if youthought very carefully about where it
was going, they were flying military.
So looking, I think, a level beyond,you know, we were talking earlier
about supply demand and inventory.
If that was all it took to understandwhat the price is gonna do, everybody
would be either million millionaires orwe'd all cancel each other out, right?
So, you know, looking beyond goingdeeper, asking the next question,
(35:09):
figuring out what's really behind thedata, that, that was my learning there.
And, and it was all there in front of you.
When you look back on it,go, oh yeah, of course.
Right?
That was before the, the, the, thewar broke out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And that set markets intoa, a big turmoil afterwards.
Remember everybody was saying.
Will there one therebe an invasion of Iraq?
Well, Jet Fuel suppliers knew sixmonths before everybody else did.
So that was a big one.
(35:31):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The, the other one I would saythat was astonishing to me.
In, in 2008, I was sitting inSingapore in July, Bear Stearns
collapsed, Lehman Brothers collapsed.
And we were all in thecommodity market area going well
that's interesting.
And then within 24 hours,commodity markets collapsed.
And what became very clearwas the interplay between
finance and commodity markets.
(35:53):
Something that's been.
Hugely debated in commodity marketsever since, you know, the Dodd-Frank
Act and a few things that followed arereally in part a reaction to all of that.
But when, when Bear Stearns and Lehmanwent down, oil markets, here's the
thing, the flat price moved dramatically.
But the spreads between theprices moved historically, so
(36:13):
location spreads, time spreads.
The markets were unrecognizable within24 hours, and everything that we
thought was impossible had then beenexceeded three times over within a week.
And that's exactly right.
GFC was one of those moments.
So you look at the credit spreadscoming into the GFC, at which
point regulators went and stopped.
Everybody shorting, if youremember actually the shorts.
(36:37):
Were an incredibly good indicator ofwhat was actually really happening.
Yeah.
And where the position sat, I mean,so, so you can see these points.
We've seen it most recently,in data points around the
Russia invasion of Ukraine.
Yeah.
And where the positioningof, the troops were.
(36:58):
We have more data.
Than ever before.
But we also have moreability to misuse data.
That's right.
And that's the interesting points.
The data isn't always clean.
And, and I think the human biasand therefore the risk of the
AI bias towards status quo issomething to be thoughtful about.
You know, the biggest mistakes thathad ever been made in my experience
(37:19):
looking back were people who justassumed status quo would carry on.
And that's a question for AI as well.
If it's built on, everything hasbeen done up until that moment
in time, how can it possiblyanticipate what's around the corner?
Yeah, that's a great point.
Absolutely.
Right.
It isn't that this is wherethere's such paradigm shift.
How do you think about, Yeah, butlet's, that's an interesting point.
(37:40):
Look at the data we've got at the moment.
We have the markets reactingreally kind of favorably today.
Well, that's because there's been a, a,
trade deals struckbetween the US and Europe.
Let's be clear.
You know, we had a prevailingtariff kind of pricing of about
1.2%, and we've got the markets favfavorably responding to a 15% tariff.
(38:03):
Now, what does thattell you about markets?
Michael likes certainty.
They like it.
Than potentially some of theunderlying data points, which
are yet to flow into the system.
So how's that gonna look?
It's a bit of some of thosebiases that sit in US systems and
predicting the for forward is, isis to be done with trepidation.
(38:24):
And it's, it's kind of interesting withthis example, the EU, the trade deal.
It's again, probably, I mean youguys would know about this kind of
psychological element of framing.
If you give someone, ifyou anchor something here.
And then you deliver it kind of here,it's like, oh, that's a great result.
Or markets love certainty.
They like predictability and they'llvalue that over an unpredictable space.
(38:50):
So would I rather know as a CFOthat I've got a 15% tariff or not
know what the tariff is I'm facing?
You can make plans.
We all do it.
Yeah, we do it in our own, youknow, in our own private lives.
You make plans once youknow the parameters.
You can make the plans and theadjustments, not knowing the parameters.
Yeah, that's the unsettling bit, but thedownward flow of how this is going to
(39:16):
impact how people will consume, whetherthis will be a problem, whether this
will be inflationary, whether consumerdemand will reduce, whether those
things are yet to play properly out.
And the question, as you rightlysay, is, where was the market priced?
Was the market pricedat 15 or priced at 25?
(39:38):
Priced at 10.
Look at the way themarket's reacting today.
I think you have the answer.
So, Robyn?
Yes.
Very short question.
What do people assume about yourcareer That just isn't true.
Good grief.
You have to ask them, I suppose.
But, I think the thing that probablypeople assume is that I ha I was
(40:04):
very focused on becoming the CEO.
And actually I wasn't.
So my career has been, as we startedoff on this question, one of.
Enjoying and finding myself in placeswhere I could learn more, do more,
and I was kind of excited by that.
So you, if you plot my career backwardswith that nice 2020 hindsight, you see me
(40:29):
jumping and doing things that I thoughtwere interesting and where I was, I didn't
have probably, maybe all the informationI needed to, to go and do the next thing.
Living in Tokyo or living inthe US or whatever it may be.
And I think people assume that Ihad this North star of becoming
(40:50):
a CEO and actually I never did.
It's, it's a phenomenal honor to be in theposition I'm in, but it wasn't my destiny
in the way that people might think it was.
And did you have any mentors?
Along the way?
All the time.
And I still do.
I, and, and it's a very, it's, I,I look for, throughout my career,
(41:12):
I've collected people who have beenavailable to me, who've helped me,
who've guided me, and I still use them.
And they're at the senior level.
They're at my my, my own level.
They're at people who have been junior tome in the theoretical, whatever that is.
All the time I, I. I think it's incrediblyimportant to have people around you who
(41:37):
can guide you, ground you, inspire you,support you, pick you up, sometimes
brush you off and put you back on track.
I think those people areincredibly valuable to me.
Dave, did you have any mentors along theway going from like a reporter background?
Did you kind of have, youknow, senior reporters, were
(41:57):
there anyone in individuals whoreally made an impact on you?
Yeah.
So like Robyn and I've had many, manymentors, and it's actually inspiring
to hear how you think about this.
I think about it similarly.
Some of my mentors were, you know,formally declared to be mentors by
some kind of mentoring program andI always got a lot out of those.
Plus people were very generous.
(42:17):
I still stay in touchwith a lot of them now.
A lot of my mentors don't knowthey're my mentors 'cause I
just talk to them and ask them.
And to your point about,
Exactly.
What does it mean about structureand that question, like a lot
of the people I get the best.
Input from are deep in the business,they're in other businesses, you
know, and they don't realize when I'mtalking to them and asking 'em lots of
questions, they're actually mentoringme, in, in, in, in the most important
(42:40):
way that that word means something.
and I think, you know, one of my biggestlearnings during the pandemic was, we
introduced what was called a reversementoring program, where like a dual
mentorship program where you kind ofgot away with this idea that somebody
is a mentor and someone's a menteeand you just mentored each other.
And the guy that I was doing dualmentoring with was based in the
US doing something very different.
(43:00):
And I learned a lot, like explicitlysaying, look, I will, I'm here.
I, Dave, I'm here to mentoryou on some things, but you are
here to mentor me on others.
Right.
That sort of explicitly creating a dualityof a relationship became really important,
so I always look to give and get.
Great.
Yeah.
And you, you touched on this before,but what's the most unusual place?
(43:23):
That you've been taken during your career,kind of in from the commodity world?
Yeah.
Definitely It was, Baghdad in Iraq.
You know, yeah.
Yeah.
I can imagine that being, interesting.
I, I went there in 2016.
Things were still pretty unstable.
Yeah and it was, it was.
So I grew up in Boston, in Massachusetts,which is about as far away from
(43:43):
Baghdad and Iraq as you can possiblyimagine, existentially, geographically.
I mean, you could find places that arefurther afield than Baghdad, but I never
saw myself going to Baghdad, including upuntil the, the week before I went there.
And it was surprising becauseI never saw myself going into
something akin to a war zone.
but it was also surprising becauseI didn't realize the people who
(44:06):
were there that were our customers.
Needed to have that conversation.
Now they needed me to go there tohave a face-to-face discussion about
something that was going on, and itmattered to them so much that they
made it incredibly clear that if Ididn't go, it wasn't gonna be good.
So as leaders do, I goton a plane, I went there.
Not in a personal way,more in a business way.
Right.
So I, I, we made things happen withour security team to get me over there.
(44:29):
And the conversation that we had inBaghdad was, completely different to
everything I had anticipated going in.
So it was, it was a surprising placegeographically in a moment in time, in
history, but also from an experienceand a conversation point of view.
What, what surprised youabout the conversation?
(44:49):
Well, some of it I haveto keep off the record.
Given what we were talking about, Ihad not appreciated, that not every
political system operates in linewith a globally recognized norm.
You know, I grew up in a worldof capitalism and communism, and
now we have Russia and China andIndia, the BRICS, if you will.
(45:11):
Right?
And then sort of, you know, eu,there are some political systems
that defy characterization.
And people have to successfullyconduct business within those two.
And when I actually learned how thatworked in Iraq, it, first of all, I,
you can't learn that in one sitting.
But it made me think twiceabout making assumptions.
Cool.
Yeah.
Thanks for sharing.
(45:31):
Sure.
Robyn, last question.
What's the best piece of advice you'veever received and who gave it to you?
Um.
So I think the bestpiece of advice, it's it.
Well, gosh, I had so manygreat pieces of advice.
One that comes to mind in thecontext of this conversation.
(45:52):
Was one from the General Councilof Europe for Lehman Brothers, and
I was working there who said tome, Robyn, don't ever not be you.
I was quite junior at the time, and Iwas probably fretting about something or
I just worried about, wandered into hisoffice wholly, inappropriately and said,
(46:14):
can I have you five minutes on this?
And, and, and the reason he said that was,he was in the conversation again about
decision making is, you make decisions,make them, don't not make a decision.
Don't just wait for something to happen.
And then he said, and always beyou bring what you are doing.
Now that curiosity, bringit, bring it every year.
(46:35):
Don't forget to be curious.
And that stuck with me.
Those two pieces make a decision, be you,continue to be curious, has stuck with me.
But I've had great advicefrom lots of different people.
But that one in the contextof this conversation, that's
the one that came to mind.
Great.
(46:55):
Well.
Robyn, Dave, that's it.
Thank you so much.
That was really, really interesting foreveryone watching everyone listening.
See you next time on The Leaders Podcast.
Hello and welcome.
My name is Joe Cass, seniorDirector at S&P Global, and
this is The Leaders Podcast.
So today I'm joined by RobynGrew, CEO of Man Group, and
Dave Ernsberger, co-President ofS&P Global Commodity Insights.
A quick reminder that the viewsof the external guests are their
views alone and they do notrepresent the views of S&P Global.
(00:57):
Okay, great.
Let's kick off.
Robyn, welcome.
Thanks so much for joining us today.
Thank you for having me.
So starting at the beginning, so youtrained as a barrister, initially.
I did.
I did.
It is true.
You heard it here first.
How did that kind of, I mean, whatpulled you into finance initially and
how did that path really kind of leadyou from a barrister to, you know,
(01:20):
the real, the top job at man group?
It's, it, it is a questionthat I feel from time to time.
The how did you end up here?
Question.
And, and, and it's, it's the onlycareer plan I ever had was this.
I went to the bar.
I was in a common law set and Ithought to myself, do you know what?
(01:40):
I'd really like to moveto the commercial bar.
I will find out what this larkis this commerce thing is.
So I applied for a job in financialservices in, actually at that
point of fidelity, and I neverwent back to the commercial bar.
It's the worst career plan probablyanybody has ever heard one thing
(02:00):
to do, failed miserably at it.
But once you get into this space, once youhave the experience of what it is to be
in the fastest moving, most interestingplace to sit, where you see the world
really operating globally where you are,you are court side for every major event.
(02:25):
That's hard to give up.
So it's in that space that I sort of foundmyself and I have never stopped sort of
enjoying not what I do and where I am.
And that has landed me here.
Dave?
Yes.
Welcome.
Hello.
Thank you.
Looking at your kind of origin story,I've watched too many superhero films.
(02:46):
Your origin story.
So you left university, youstudied politics, and your
first job was for Platts.
That's right.
Now S&P.
So how do you go from graduate reporter?
To co-president and whathappened in between that period.
So, I was actually really relating to whatRobyn said about your, your career, Robyn.
I, very similar for me.
I, I did a degree in philosophy,politics and economics.
(03:09):
PPE as it's known over here, withinthree months I dropped economics.
And that was a terrible mistakebecause I spent the rest of my
life writing about economics.
I wish I'd studied harder on that one.
But, I, I joined as a reporter.
I knew that I wanted to, to be, I wantedto find out about what is this world of
commodities and energy, but like you,with the commercial bar, I think, and that
(03:32):
ended up being incredibly fascinating.
So between joining as a reporterto where I am now as, as
co-president of this division.
There were, you know, threedifferent office locations.
There were, you know, a hundred differentcountries that I spent time in just
visiting people and customers and sources.
I started a family, had three children.
And I've done all of thathere with the business.
(03:52):
And actually, you know, thepersonal journey in my own life.
And then the professional journeyin terms of that front row seat
you were talking about Robynson.
Really history for the last 30 years.
You have an unparalleled view on what'sgoing on and a front row seat to it.
That's incredibly compelling.
So people often ask, well, what takes youfrom a frontline position to co-president?
And, and I would say it's, it'sthe willingness to do things that
(04:15):
people didn't expect me to do.
It was the willingness to respondto things that happened in a way
nobody expected me to respond, andbeing a little bit different, being
atypical and saying yes to things.
Cool.
We'll come back to that later.
But just moving on to markets.
So Robyn, markets arechallenging right now.
I know everyone says that at everypanel in the history of the world,
but it's, it's kind of driven.
(04:36):
It's true at the moment.
They are challenging.
So can you tell us how you arenavigating them and really how
you are looking to find an edge?
Yeah, for sure.
This is a moment, isn't it?
I, it, it's, it's a, a yearof unbelievable change.
Paradigm shift has been used over and overagain as a statement, deglobalization,
(04:58):
but is it really, is it really happening?
Volatility, whipsaw markets.
An extraordinary amount of thissort of industrial revolution.
As we talk about technology, I'm surewe're gonna talk a little bit more about
that and AI and agentic AI and then someother stuff thrown in for good measure.
And, and that, and by good measure,I don't mean in a good way.
(05:21):
You've got wars waging, youhave, issues around the climate.
So this confluence ofdisruption is, is very real.
And so how, how do you positionyourself number one for man group?
It's about making sure welisten to what our clients need.
We work with the largest globalallocators all over the world who are
(05:45):
trying to work out how to positionthemselves, how to manage their
portfolios, how to think about risk,how to think about geopolitics.
How do you do that?
If there was one answer, the, I I would, Iwould, I would love to share it with you.
And of course there isn't.
What there is, is a need to be diversifiedto work out that we're not gonna
(06:11):
be in a benign environment anymore.
We, we lived through that for10 years and kind of got a bit
used to that sense of all assets.
Appreciate, just hold onto 'emand you might wanna hold onto
them in different amounts.
But pretty much all assets appreciated.
We're not there.
We have volatility, we haveinflation, we have dispersion, we
(06:31):
have different markets and differentcountries operating in different ways.
We have different levels of growth.
So building a resilient portfolio,building a diversified portfolio,
diversifying your diversifiers, havingliquidity, being able to think about
the macroeconomic environment, howyou want to position yourself there.
(06:53):
That's how we think youposition yourself at the moment.
In other words, recognize thatnot everything in your portfolio
should be working at the same time.
Think about your left tail risk.
Think about defensive alpha.
Think about the capability to bedynamic and move in a tactical
way as well as a strategic way.
(07:14):
And we sit here to providethat breadth of content.
And as an active and alts managerliquid in large part, we believe
very much in providing content anduncorrelated sources of return that
navigate markets as they move and shift.
This is not straightforward, butif ever there was a time for that
(07:37):
front row seat, we got it right now.
And Man Group's is known forits quant-trading expertise.
How are you guys, you mentionedit previously touched upon it.
How are you utilizing AI as part of thebroader investment process, but also
are you looking at hiring AI agents?
Isn't that a fun thought?
The thought of hiring an agent?
(07:58):
We use AI agents.
I'll talk about that in a second.
So AI is not new.
I think that's the, the mostinteresting part of conversation.
We've been using some version of AI.
It depends who you're asking.
The firm, let's call it 10 to 15years, there's a bit offer in there.
Possibly longer if you talk tosome, and it's become core to our
(08:20):
DNA funny thing to say, right?
AI part of DNA.
But it's absolutely at everypart in the organization.
If you'd have asked me threeyears or so ago who was the most.
The area that was most using robotics,for example, you'd possibly be surprised
to hear that it's our operations area.
(08:41):
So we, we embed machinelearning and execution.
We embed AI and large languagemodels throughout the organization.
So you are right.
We have 35 years of quants, DNA,we have 600 plus people in the
organization who identify, and Imean they self identifiers, you know,
programmers, developers, engineers,quants, literally rocket scientists.
(09:06):
So it is absolutelyintrinsic to who we are.
We're always excited to take on and useand utilize new technologies and AI.
And chat, and agentic is part of that.
We think the opportunity set at every partof the organization is really exciting.
(09:28):
So how do we use it?
We use it in data, in datascience, in signals, in execution
through the organization to makeus more effective and efficient.
We've talked about co-piloting,but it's now going beyond that,
that age agentic agent ai.
We're changing the verbs.
It used to be, you know,tell me about this thing.
(09:52):
As you typed it into your browser, you'renow in build me and that build me mode.
That's gonna take usto the next generation.
So tech is absolutely intrinsicto doing as good a job, the best
job we can be excelling at it.
But I'm very lucky to have a good chunk ofmy organization who also understands its
(10:17):
limitations and it's, we, this technologyneeds to be in the hands of the experts.
And I'm lucky I've got that.
And Dave, sticking to the AI theme, you'veobviously been, you know, entrenched
in the energy markets for decades.
Do you think, oh, I guess thisquestion should be, when do you
think AI will be able to forecastcommodity markets better than humans?
(10:43):
I don't think it's a questionof when it'll happen.
I think there's a genuine questionabout if it will happen, so we
should reflect on that a little bit.
You know, thinking about what Robynwas saying there, I I kind of trace
the origin story of what we call AI in2025, back to the origins around big
data, which is maybe 15, 20 years ago.
That's, that's the, that's right.
Yeah.
And I think, I think when BigData emerged, some listeners
(11:04):
will remember that some won't.
But when big data became a thing, weall realized we didn't have enough
time in the day to process data.
and then we had data science andother tools, and eventually ag.
Type technology like today,that's now around us.
Anyway, so I, I think that the, ifyou look at the history of AI and
where we are today, and try and thinkabout where that could take us in the
future, it tells me really two thingsabout forecasting to, to your question.
(11:28):
The first one is, any forecaststhat are data-driven forecasts are
already being done better by ai.
So in that regard, I kindof agree with your premise.
It's a, it's a when not if question ifforecast or data-driven forecast, right?
There's, you know, um.
We're not actually quite there fullyon data quality based forecast, but
it, it's, it's there and it's moreor less, you know, I would say it's
(11:49):
even been there for five or 10 yearsin a kind of a rudimentary way.
But the second part of my answer is ifthe last 15 years was people running
towards data to handle it better, Ithink the next 15 years will be people
running away from data to find what's new.
And I think, I mean, I justcame back from a trip to Vienna.
(12:10):
So in my job you need tounderstand what OPEC is thinking.
There is no AI in the world that willtell you what, prince Abdulaziz is
thinking he'll do in the oil market.
You still at the moment haveto talk to Prince Abdulaziz,
and the people around him.
Same for, natural gas markets.
Same for, what will Microsoft andAmazon do around the data center
conundrum to fuel the energy for AI?
(12:32):
The only answers to that come fromtalking to the people involved.
So I think the, if part of thatquestion, will, will, AI be able
to generate better forecasts forforecasts that are qualitatively
driven, not quantitatively driven?
That's a long, long way off,and what I'm curious to see is
whether AI can be truly creative.
Or not, and the roots of that will bebased on how they interoperate with
(12:55):
non-data, non-textual, inter interfaces.
Yeah,
I think that's, but if you, if I can.
I'm gonna have this as a chat becauseI think it's the most interesting place
to think about this is where is therichness of data that you combine and
how do you do that better and smarter?
Can you increase your capabilities tobe more thoughtful, more engaged, more
(13:20):
able to interpret what's around you?
But that skillset on thequalitative side is, is still
incredibly valuable and important.
It's back to however.
However, however great we are atcreating tools for neurosurgeons.
And we are, I mean, we are much betterat this than we've ever been before, and
(13:42):
the margins of error are smaller and it's3D enabled in a bunch of different tools.
You still wouldn't want me in charge.
You would not want meoperating on you tomorrow.
That would possibly be a bad outcome.
Just saying.
So that ability to know.
The limitations and how to deploy thecapabilities is incredibly important.
(14:06):
Can it do some thingsbetter than humans today?
Yes.
Faster, smarter.
Yes.
With less error?
Yes.
Can it do everything?
Not yet.
And there's a difference in theability to search effectively data
that exists in the world that we'reliving in, versus the quality of data
that you can use within perhaps yourown organizations, if you've got it.
(14:29):
If I've got 35 years of data, high-qualitydata, that gives me something that
I can teach an agent in a neuralnetwork kind of way that is different
and more reliable than if I justplug something out into the universe.
So, so I think the, these are the nuances,but do I think it's changing at a rate
(14:55):
that we haven't experienced before?
This industrial revolution is?
It is 120 miles an hour for sure.
I do wonder with the, you know,for example, you, you're saying you
can't kind of get in someone's head.
It's difficult, but is there maybean opportunity to, you know, we're
talking about training an LLM,which is probably the equivalent
(15:16):
of, you know, going on an Atari.
what, we'll look back on this, but couldyou train an LLM or something similar to
plug in the decisions that that personhas made in certain situations and then.
Get an output of a probabilistprobabilistic kind of output
of, you know, 40%, 70%?
I'm sure people do that already, actually.
I'm sure.
I'm sure that's alreadypart of the program.
(15:36):
Yes, we do.
Yeah.
Well, there you go.
Yeah.
That, that's exactly, that'sexactly what you're doing, right?
You are teaching effectively theneural network of both your capability
and your researchers all day long.
And the build me command that I talkedabout earlier, the build me, you
give it a parameter in plain English.
And you can, I mean, I'm for those.
(15:58):
This is for me mind blowing.
Maybe that's demonstrative my age,but you can see the plain English
version of text coming down this endpart of the screen and the Python
version of it working the other as itreaches into effectively exactly that.
The thought processes and thedynamic processes that you'll
utilize in your organizations.
(16:19):
That is already part of it.
It's the bit that says in thequalitative space, when, when decisions
are made, not just based on the dataavailable, that things get trickier.
And so let's go back to thatoriginal question, right?
What's going on in the world?
Well, this geopoliticsthing is a real thing.
(16:41):
You're starting to see differentbehaviors, different versions, more
nuanced version of deglobalization.
a more focus on maybe.
Repatriating capital and using it fordomestic capabilities, you're seeing
very specific fiscal intervention.
You can start to use different,subsidies of governments as part of
(17:04):
where you can see growth areas incertain industries or asset classes.
And the opposite, are we gonnasee different trading alliances?
That's a human thing.
So, so it's a very interesting dynamic,but if you can map some of that and to
be smarter and you can put it to work,you can then use the, the capabilities
(17:26):
of your researchers to do more.
It's, it's that, I think, and itit, the other piece of this is, it's
really, really hard to find out for.
Right.
It really, really is.
What you don't wanna do is lose thatthrough some friction in the system.
So it's about deploying thatcapability through an organization
(17:51):
so that you return the alpha tothe people who really deserve it.
And they're, your clients, the peoplewho've trusted you with their capital,
that is who deserve, they're thepeople who deserve the richness of
the return you can get to them, butdon't eat it away in poor execution
or poor process in your organization.
(18:12):
That's where this tech alsobecomes incredibly important
as a commercial differentiator.
So, Dave, sticking onthis topic to some extent.
You know, in a world of electrificationdata centers, what's the next
potential bottleneck commodity thatcould maybe catch people off guard?
(18:33):
Sure.
I think that there, just to speaka little bit about the data centers,
the AI and electricity, we, weknow there's a bottleneck right now
around energy supply to data centersto underpin the work that's going
on around dynamic LLM right now.
At the moment, the, one of the bigquestions that we hear from our
customers and commodity insights is,and I actually had a breakfast about
this this morning with somebody,is does new capacity need to get
(18:56):
built for electricity production andtransmission to fuel all of that or not?
Because there's a history and technologyof, efficiency and rationalization,
and by the time the energy industryinvests, if it does invest in electricity
capacity and transmission to support datacenters, they might not need it anymore.
So one way to answer your question isit's not what's the next bottleneck, it's
(19:17):
what's the next, stranded asset, frankly.
Which is a question people are thinkingabout, but it's an existentially important
question, because we're now conditionedto think of a world of bottlenecks.
Therefore, the appetite is building upin the search for alpha, among other
things to invest in a bottleneck areas.
And yet, as history as the history ofhumanity shows through the cycles of boom
and bust, we might find ourselves in astranded asset situation in three years
(19:38):
from now, or five years from now or more.
I, well, it's a questionto be decided, right?
And it's a question we hear a lot fromour, our customers, but if we wanna be
a little adventurous and think aboutwhat lies beyond this conversation.
I think the two a, the two commodityspaces that will be constrained
will be, water for sure.
we already hear this in the markets,and by the way, water is many things.
(20:00):
It's not just what we're drinking aswe do our podcast here, it's also the
inputs for, you know, cooling, assets.
It's the inputs for running differentprocesses in, in the world around us.
And the other, I'm not sure how todescribe this as a commodity asset,
but it is a kind of a commodity asset.
Is risk, is risk mitigation and weather.
And, you know, weather as a commodityhas confounded and also intrigued,
(20:26):
commodity traders and risk managersfor the better part of a hundred years.
But we can see all around us.
The climate is generating,surprise, effects, perhaps
at an increasing frequency.
You could debate that.
But the need to manage weather andthe need to manage water are the next
ones around the corner, in my opinion.
Robyn.
Shifting gears a bit to talk aboutprivate markets, which is along with
(20:48):
ai, another tick list, which I basicallytalk about all the time on this podcast.
But obviously, I mean, it goes withoutsaying it's exploded within recent years.
Interested to know what you think thatmeans for the future of hedge funds.
So private markets like,like hedge funds by the way.
Two very loosely defined things, right?
I mean, I think that's one of those,
Glad to hear you say that.
(21:09):
It, it's a loosely defined thing and it's,but it, they get banded a around a lot.
Man Group gets called a hedge fund.
Do we have hedge fund, hedge funds?
Yep.
Do I have long only.
Absolutely.
You know, so, so do Ihave private markets?
Yes.
Is it private equity?
No.
So these are things that are different.
There has certainly been a huge,especially in a, by the way, a
(21:32):
zero interest rate environment,huge pickup in private equity.
And over the last couple ofyears we are seeing some of the.
Downsides of being overallocated as some are in private
equity, they lack liquidity.
Private equity when you have zero interestrates look different by way of investments
than when suddenly cash costs something.
(21:54):
We haven't been in creditenvironments really.
We are back in credit environments now,so I'm very positive about the importance
of having great credit products bothin the public and the private side.
By the way, the definition of whatprivate used to be and what it
is now versus what public used tobe and what it is now in credit.
(22:16):
Different entirely when I wasyoung, which was dinosaurs
were roaming the world.
You know, the, the, the, the privatecredit bad, the tricky stuff.
Public credit, good, you know,high yield investment grade.
It's not really the case anymore.
You've got high yield investmentgrade, both public and private assets.
We have much more, movement between publicand private or much more movement between
(22:40):
the curve and down the curving credit.
So very excited about certain typesof assets in the private space.
Think liquidity is incrediblyimportant in the public space.
Back to what I said very muchearlier, and I'm sorry to repeat
myself, but diversification.
Is what's interesting here, whatyou're getting credit, what you're
getting private credit is differentas a, as an uncorrelated return
(23:04):
from that you might get in equities.
So, so again, building a portfoliothat's resilient, where you're
diversifying diversifies important.
Do I think that hedge funds are gonnacontinue to evolve and be relevant?
Yes.
Do I think active investing ismore important than ever before?
(23:25):
Yes.
Do I think liquid active?
Absolutely.
And so actually the lean in here,I think you're gonna see the hedge
fund space in its broadest definitionbeing an incredibly important part
of portfolios in a way that itwas kind of being ignored a bit
in that more passive environmentwhere you had passive equities.
(23:46):
And private equity.
So I'm excited about what hedge funds cando to help clients navigate these markets.
It is interesting you say that aboutthe kind of the brand of private credit,
because we've had, you know, you've hadkind of the guys from Apollo, Blackstone,
Aries on the podcast, and one of the bigkind of stumbling blocks they have is just
the brand in terms of, oh private credit.
(24:07):
You know, it's, it's a bit dark, youknow, it's, it's in the background, it's a
shadow, and half the deal seems to be themtrying to reverse this kind of perception.
I think there's huge interest from clientsin this space as well, both on the public
side and on the private side and inhaving multi-Strat credit, which looks
at, has both public and private underlyinginvestments, it it is interesting.
(24:31):
Shadow banking, really trickyphrase somehow does provide
this slightly unsavory view.
I believe it's there at all.
Credit's an incrediblyimportant part of markets.
People need to be lent to.
People that that's how you grow economies.
That's how you grow businesses.
and the banks have retreated outtathis space in part because of the
(24:55):
regulatory environment, and theirexpertise is sitting in some of
those other houses, including in mangroup now to provide access to funds.
And that can be at the performing endor at the more stressed or distressed
end of that, but that dynamic capabilityof managing credit and credit risk.
A very important part of the world,and I, I, I'm a firm believer that
(25:18):
private credit is part of how wehelp I the underlying investments,
but also find returns for clients.
Dave.
When trying to kind of anticipate thesebig shifts in energy or metals, what data
points do your clients rely on the most?
So, it was actually fascinatingjust thinking about private
(25:42):
markets as Robyn was talking there.
Right.
You know, the, the.
To sort of think about your question alittle bit, the, the commodity markets
have a complicated relationship withboth risk and, and, and finance.
And a lot of commodity, investorshave turned to private markets
as a result, I would say in bothconventional and non-conventional energy.
So the data points thatpeople are looking for, uh.
(26:06):
You would start with anything andeverything they can get their hands on.
Partly because of the amount of,direction that is coming from, arguably
less transparent, less visible fundingsources and, and decision making.
But it really is ultimately about.
In the commodity markets, what are thesupply signals that you're getting?
(26:27):
What are the demand signalsthat you're getting?
What are the inventory signals thatyou're getting and what is that
saying about price current and future?
And, and those, those three corecomponents, supply, demand, and
inventory, are at the heart of everysingle commodity market that we look at.
There is a new overlay.
Which is, this sort of deglobalizationthat may or may not be happening to
Robyn's point earlier, like the, the, thecommodity markets have become inherently
(26:51):
less efficient over the last 20 yearsbecause of the, increasing, application
of trade barriers, and this is not anew thing this year, you know, trade
barriers have been growing in commoditymarkets for a couple of decades now.
because ultimately, you know, energyhas always been in, in some part
(27:11):
about national security and local.
Security for consumers, right?
So that, that, that creates anenvironment of barriers that introduces
noise into your classic analysis.
And that's a new overlaypeople need to think about.
That's not a euphemism forthe tariff conversation.
By the way.
The tariff conversation is awhole other thing, quite frankly.
But, you know, overlaying nationalinterest on top of an already
fairly dynamic supply demand andinventory space is really what
(27:34):
our customers are looking for now.
Robyn, I wanted to talk a bit more aboutyour clients client base at MAN Group.
So you mentioned, you know, they're thelargest asset allocators globally for
the people kind of watching and listing.
This will be pension funds, sovereignwealth funds, maybe insurance firms.
You can correct me if that's wrong.
All of that, right.
Plus endowments, those sorts of,yeah, those sorts of investors.
(27:56):
Thinking about those kind of investors,has their expectation changed of you
versus, say, five years ago to today?
I think has it changed?
I think it's been on a journey, andI think the needs are different.
Today.
What we are seeing is that allocators,those big organizations want to face
(28:18):
fewer partners to help them navigate.
Their needs over the next, andthis is, this is the point, right?
If you're a pension fund, you, you'renot trading today, you're trading and
investing and thinking about portfolio.
That's gotta be resilient for thenext 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 plus years.
(28:39):
You know, hopefully somebody'sgonna do a great job for my son
and he's barely started to work.
You know, that type of stuff.
When they're sitting down withus, what we're seeing is a far.
Greater desire for partnershipand strategic, enablement.
This is, nobody's gota blank piece of paper.
Where are they today and how do they move?
(29:00):
These decisions take five years,10 years to rebalance portfolios.
They're looking for differentcontent, not just one thing.
They're looking for the value add.
It's the how do I help them on theirjourney with agentic AI, how do I
help them with their risk modeling?
How do I help them move potentiallyfrom the SAA type model, that
(29:23):
strategic asset allocation modelinto a total portfolio model.
And, and that looks differentfor every single investor.
How do I give them access to the,the, the cutting edge education
research capabilities like Man'spartnership with Oxford University
(29:45):
or the work we do with Columbia?
It's more than you are delivering.
More than, here's a fund,would you like to invest in it?
It's more than a conversationabout a fee for a particular piece.
It's creating solutions and puttingthe component parts of the ingredients
you have in a format that works for,that particular allocator, their
(30:09):
problems aren't the same shape.
They don't look like the same thing, andthe more dynamic and capable you are to
say, you know what, let's sit with you.
Let's work out what you need.
Let's go on this journey with you.
Let's create a product.
For you that actually solves theproblem that you might be facing.
That gives you more ability to be dynamicin what you can dial up and down in
(30:31):
the allocation, which maybe gives yousome flex in the overlays you may have.
That's the conversation we'rehaving and we have to be better
and better at that every day.
So is the conversation different?
Yes.
It's on this journey and to berelevant and to be a strategic partner
requires something slightly differentin the way that you approach that
(30:53):
client and engage in with them.
So giving yourself like adifferentiation beyond his our fees.
Here's, here's how ourperformance, here's our fees.
What do you think?
Every day and, and especially when you'rethinking about creating something which
is about resilience, not perfection.
(31:14):
And they're two very different things.
And so you are there to fill and tobe part of that journey to be useful.
We do pieces of work now withclients to, with the actual,
question, the conundrum itself.
And they're like, we don't knowthe answer to this conundrum.
And we'll, we'll take that away andwork on it with the best minds, with
(31:35):
the smartest people within the firm.
And without the firm, Mangets better because we have,
access to some of thesmartest clients in the world.
We use all of the resources availableto us to be better at what we do, and
you cannot, for one moment, sit still.
So how do you use the smartest minds?
(31:57):
From all over the world to be better atwhat you do so that you can be relevant
to those clients as they move forward.
That's what it's about.
It's less about, here's aproduct, here are the fees.
Trust me, that comes into it atsome point or other, but, but
actually it's more than that.
So Robyn.
You've been two-ish years inthe role as CEO of that group.
(32:20):
Yeah.
So what's been say the mostimportant leadership lesson you've
learned thus far on the job?
I think it's a lesson that weall know, really, which is.
You gotta continue to question and ask.
You've got to continue to know what youdon't know, and to challenge yourself.
(32:41):
Put put yourself in positions whereyou are constantly asking for feedback,
and that's from your own peoplethroughout your organization to sit in
the room with everybody to say, listen,don't wait for me to get this wrong.
Tell me, talk to me.
How many people have been at the, the,the, I've never been to the water cooler,
(33:03):
but whatever, you know, been by the sideof the water cooler where we've kind
of all sort of, and, and, and done the,well, I wouldn't be doing it that way.
I wanna hear about that.
And I actively go out to people withinmy own organization, but to clients
and to others to say, listen, Idon't have the answers to everything.
(33:23):
I can make good decisions, butI can make the better decisions
if I have more information.
Dave.
Can you recall a moment in your careerthroughout any point in your career
where you saw a shift in the datathat you had access to maybe before
the rest of the world or before therest of the market actually caught on?
(33:45):
Sure.
So.
There have been a, quite a fewtimes where that's happened.
When you look back on it, you go,yeah, of course that data was relevant.
Right?
But I I, I, I remember a lot of timeswhen in the moment, a piece of data
was out there that was, sort of, a, a,a for, forward indicator of what was
going to happen, but it maybe hadn'tbeen quite noticed or picked up on.
(34:05):
And the one that I learned fromthe most was, demand for jet fuel.
So the fuel that we use in our airplanes,and what that was doing in certain parts
of the world, particularly the MiddleEast, ahead of, war breaking out, and
then war breaking out inevitably putsa strain on energy prices, particularly
(34:28):
oil prices, not just oil prices.
And so, I remember we were noticing'cause of our jobs in our division
that the folks who supply aviationfuel, were suddenly running out.
They just didn't have anyaviation fuel to sell anybody.
And when you asked the reason why,nobody really wanted to say, but it
(34:48):
became clear they were supplying, if youthought very carefully about where it
was going, they were flying military.
So looking, I think, a level beyond,you know, we were talking earlier
about supply demand and inventory.
If that was all it took to understandwhat the price is gonna do, everybody
would be either million millionaires orwe'd all cancel each other out, right?
So, you know, looking beyond goingdeeper, asking the next question,
(35:09):
figuring out what's really behind thedata, that, that was my learning there.
And, and it was all there in front of you.
When you look back on it,go, oh yeah, of course.
Right?
That was before the, the, the, thewar broke out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And that set markets intoa, a big turmoil afterwards.
Remember everybody was saying.
Will there one therebe an invasion of Iraq?
Well, Jet Fuel suppliers knew sixmonths before everybody else did.
So that was a big one.
(35:31):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The, the other one I would saythat was astonishing to me.
In, in 2008, I was sitting inSingapore in July, Bear Stearns
collapsed, Lehman Brothers collapsed.
And we were all in thecommodity market area going well
that's interesting.
And then within 24 hours,commodity markets collapsed.
And what became very clearwas the interplay between
finance and commodity markets.
(35:53):
Something that's been.
Hugely debated in commodity marketsever since, you know, the Dodd-Frank
Act and a few things that followed arereally in part a reaction to all of that.
But when, when Bear Stearns and Lehmanwent down, oil markets, here's the
thing, the flat price moved dramatically.
But the spreads between theprices moved historically, so
(36:13):
location spreads, time spreads.
The markets were unrecognizable within24 hours, and everything that we
thought was impossible had then beenexceeded three times over within a week.
And that's exactly right.
GFC was one of those moments.
So you look at the credit spreadscoming into the GFC, at which
point regulators went and stopped.
Everybody shorting, if youremember actually the shorts.
(36:37):
Were an incredibly good indicator ofwhat was actually really happening.
Yeah.
And where the position sat, I mean,so, so you can see these points.
We've seen it most recently,in data points around the
Russia invasion of Ukraine.
Yeah.
And where the positioningof, the troops were.
(36:58):
We have more data.
Than ever before.
But we also have moreability to misuse data.
That's right.
And that's the interesting points.
The data isn't always clean.
And, and I think the human biasand therefore the risk of the
AI bias towards status quo issomething to be thoughtful about.
You know, the biggest mistakes thathad ever been made in my experience
(37:19):
looking back were people who justassumed status quo would carry on.
And that's a question for AI as well.
If it's built on, everything hasbeen done up until that moment
in time, how can it possiblyanticipate what's around the corner?
Yeah, that's a great point.
Absolutely.
Right.
It isn't that this is wherethere's such paradigm shift.
How do you think about, Yeah, butlet's, that's an interesting point.
(37:40):
Look at the data we've got at the moment.
We have the markets reactingreally kind of favorably today.
Well, that's because there's been a, a,
trade deals struckbetween the US and Europe.
Let's be clear.
You know, we had a prevailingtariff kind of pricing of about
1.2%, and we've got the markets favfavorably responding to a 15% tariff.
(38:03):
Now, what does thattell you about markets?
Michael likes certainty.
They like it.
Than potentially some of theunderlying data points, which
are yet to flow into the system.
So how's that gonna look?
It's a bit of some of thosebiases that sit in US systems and
predicting the for forward is, isis to be done with trepidation.
(38:24):
And it's, it's kind of interesting withthis example, the EU, the trade deal.
It's again, probably, I mean youguys would know about this kind of
psychological element of framing.
If you give someone, ifyou anchor something here.
And then you deliver it kind of here,it's like, oh, that's a great result.
Or markets love certainty.
They like predictability and they'llvalue that over an unpredictable space.
(38:50):
So would I rather know as a CFOthat I've got a 15% tariff or not
know what the tariff is I'm facing?
You can make plans.
We all do it.
Yeah, we do it in our own, youknow, in our own private lives.
You make plans once youknow the parameters.
You can make the plans and theadjustments, not knowing the parameters.
Yeah, that's the unsettling bit, but thedownward flow of how this is going to
(39:16):
impact how people will consume, whetherthis will be a problem, whether this
will be inflationary, whether consumerdemand will reduce, whether those
things are yet to play properly out.
And the question, as you rightlysay, is, where was the market priced?
Was the market pricedat 15 or priced at 25?
(39:38):
Priced at 10.
Look at the way themarket's reacting today.
I think you have the answer.
So, Robyn?
Yes.
Very short question.
What do people assume about yourcareer That just isn't true.
Good grief.
You have to ask them, I suppose.
But, I think the thing that probablypeople assume is that I ha I was
(40:04):
very focused on becoming the CEO.
And actually I wasn't.
So my career has been, as we startedoff on this question, one of.
Enjoying and finding myself in placeswhere I could learn more, do more,
and I was kind of excited by that.
So you, if you plot my career backwardswith that nice 2020 hindsight, you see me
(40:29):
jumping and doing things that I thoughtwere interesting and where I was, I didn't
have probably, maybe all the informationI needed to, to go and do the next thing.
Living in Tokyo or living inthe US or whatever it may be.
And I think people assume that Ihad this North star of becoming
(40:50):
a CEO and actually I never did.
It's, it's a phenomenal honor to be in theposition I'm in, but it wasn't my destiny
in the way that people might think it was.
And did you have any mentors?
Along the way?
All the time.
And I still do.
I, and, and it's a very, it's, I,I look for, throughout my career,
(41:12):
I've collected people who have beenavailable to me, who've helped me,
who've guided me, and I still use them.
And they're at the senior level.
They're at my my, my own level.
They're at people who have been junior tome in the theoretical, whatever that is.
All the time I, I. I think it's incrediblyimportant to have people around you who
(41:37):
can guide you, ground you, inspire you,support you, pick you up, sometimes
brush you off and put you back on track.
I think those people areincredibly valuable to me.
Dave, did you have any mentors along theway going from like a reporter background?
Did you kind of have, youknow, senior reporters, were
(41:57):
there anyone in individuals whoreally made an impact on you?
Yeah.
So like Robyn and I've had many, manymentors, and it's actually inspiring
to hear how you think about this.
I think about it similarly.
Some of my mentors were, you know,formally declared to be mentors by
some kind of mentoring program andI always got a lot out of those.
Plus people were very generous.
(42:17):
I still stay in touchwith a lot of them now.
A lot of my mentors don't knowthey're my mentors 'cause I
just talk to them and ask them.
And to your point about,
Exactly.
What does it mean about structureand that question, like a lot
of the people I get the best.
Input from are deep in the business,they're in other businesses, you
know, and they don't realize when I'mtalking to them and asking 'em lots of
questions, they're actually mentoringme, in, in, in, in the most important
(42:40):
way that that word means something.
and I think, you know, one of my biggestlearnings during the pandemic was, we
introduced what was called a reversementoring program, where like a dual
mentorship program where you kind ofgot away with this idea that somebody
is a mentor and someone's a menteeand you just mentored each other.
And the guy that I was doing dualmentoring with was based in the
US doing something very different.
(43:00):
And I learned a lot, like explicitlysaying, look, I will, I'm here.
I, Dave, I'm here to mentoryou on some things, but you are
here to mentor me on others.
Right.
That sort of explicitly creating a dualityof a relationship became really important,
so I always look to give and get.
Great.
Yeah.
And you, you touched on this before,but what's the most unusual place?
(43:23):
That you've been taken during your career,kind of in from the commodity world?
Yeah.
Definitely It was, Baghdad in Iraq.
You know, yeah.
Yeah.
I can imagine that being, interesting.
I, I went there in 2016.
Things were still pretty unstable.
Yeah and it was, it was.
So I grew up in Boston, in Massachusetts,which is about as far away from
(43:43):
Baghdad and Iraq as you can possiblyimagine, existentially, geographically.
I mean, you could find places that arefurther afield than Baghdad, but I never
saw myself going to Baghdad, including upuntil the, the week before I went there.
And it was surprising becauseI never saw myself going into
something akin to a war zone.
but it was also surprising becauseI didn't realize the people who
(44:06):
were there that were our customers.
Needed to have that conversation.
Now they needed me to go there tohave a face-to-face discussion about
something that was going on, and itmattered to them so much that they
made it incredibly clear that if Ididn't go, it wasn't gonna be good.
So as leaders do, I goton a plane, I went there.
Not in a personal way,more in a business way.
Right.
So I, I, we made things happen withour security team to get me over there.
(44:29):
And the conversation that we had inBaghdad was, completely different to
everything I had anticipated going in.
So it was, it was a surprising placegeographically in a moment in time, in
history, but also from an experienceand a conversation point of view.
What, what surprised youabout the conversation?
(44:49):
Well, some of it I haveto keep off the record.
Given what we were talking about, Ihad not appreciated, that not every
political system operates in linewith a globally recognized norm.
You know, I grew up in a worldof capitalism and communism, and
now we have Russia and China andIndia, the BRICS, if you will.
(45:11):
Right?
And then sort of, you know, eu,there are some political systems
that defy characterization.
And people have to successfullyconduct business within those two.
And when I actually learned how thatworked in Iraq, it, first of all, I,
you can't learn that in one sitting.
But it made me think twiceabout making assumptions.
Cool.
Yeah.
Thanks for sharing.
(45:31):
Sure.
Robyn, last question.
What's the best piece of advice you'veever received and who gave it to you?
Um.
So I think the bestpiece of advice, it's it.
Well, gosh, I had so manygreat pieces of advice.
One that comes to mind in thecontext of this conversation.
(45:52):
Was one from the General Councilof Europe for Lehman Brothers, and
I was working there who said tome, Robyn, don't ever not be you.
I was quite junior at the time, and Iwas probably fretting about something or
I just worried about, wandered into hisoffice wholly, inappropriately and said,
(46:14):
can I have you five minutes on this?
And, and, and the reason he said that was,he was in the conversation again about
decision making is, you make decisions,make them, don't not make a decision.
Don't just wait for something to happen.
And then he said, and always beyou bring what you are doing.
Now that curiosity, bringit, bring it every year.
(46:35):
Don't forget to be curious.
And that stuck with me.
Those two pieces make a decision, be you,continue to be curious, has stuck with me.
But I've had great advicefrom lots of different people.
But that one in the contextof this conversation, that's
the one that came to mind.
Great.
(46:55):
Well.
Robyn, Dave, that's it.
Thank you so much.
That was really, really interesting foreveryone watching everyone listening.
See you next time on The Leaders Podcast.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd is a thought-provoking, opinionated, and topic-driven journey through the top sports stories of the day.