The Institutional Edge: Real allocators. Real alpha.
Welcome to The Institutional Edge: Real allocators. Real alpha! Dr. Angelo Calvello hosts this exciting new podcast partnership with Pensions & Investments, designed to cut through the noise in institutional investing. Unlike other investment podcasts filled with vendor pitches and rambling biographical stories, this series delivers focused 30-minute episodes featuring real asset owners who actually deploy capital. Get ready for authentic insights that challenge conventional thinking and help you make smarter investment decisions. About the Host: Dr. Angelo Calvello is a serial innovator and co-founder of multiple investment firms, including Rosetta Analytics and Blue Diamond Asset Management. He leverages his extensive professional network and reputation for authentic thought leadership to curate conversations with genuinely innovative allocators. As the "Dissident" columnist for Institutional Investor and former "Doctor Is In" columnist for Chief Investment Officer (winner of the 2016 Jesse H. Neal Award), Calvello has become a leading voice challenging conventional investment wisdom. Beyond his professional pursuits, Calvello serves as Chairman of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System's Climate Advisory Panel, Chairman of the Board of Outreach with Lacrosse and Schools (OWLS Lacrosse), a nonprofit organization creating opportunities for at-risk youths in Chicago, and trustee for a Chicago-area police pension fund. His career-long focus on leveraging innovation to deliver superior client outcomes makes him the ideal host for cutting-edge institutional investing conversations.
Episodes
Natural capital is the oldest asset class on earth — and one of the least understood by institutional investors. Richard Kelly, Managing Director and Co-Lead of Foresight Natural Capital at Foresight Group, makes the investment case from first principles: compelling risk-adjusted returns, a strong inflation hedge through commodity-linked cash flows, and genuine portfolio diversification ...
How does a pension fund walk away from a global market crisis with $400 million in fresh liquidity?
In this episode of Institutional Edge, host Angelo Calvello speaks with Zhuoying (Joy) Xu, CFA, Senior Investment Director at Verizon Investment Management Corp (VIMCO). Joy shares how VIMCO built a systematic, derivatives-based GTAA overlay program that has generated over $1.2 billion in p...
Quantum computing may already be in your portfolio — do you know what you actually own?
In this episode of The Institutional Edge, host Angelo Calvello is joined by Dr. Daniel Volz — deep-tech entrepreneur, quantum computing expert, and founder and former CEO of KIPU QUANTUM — and Dr. Elisabetta Basilico, financial professional, institutional allocator, and author of Smarter Investing. Qu...
When does the Total Portfolio Approach stop being innovation and start looking exactly like a hedge fund? Monte Tarbox has a sharp answer that might surprise you.
Host Angelo Calvello of Institutional Edge welcomes Monte Tarbox, Interim Chief Investment Officer of the New York City Bureau of Asset Management, for a sweeping look at three decades of institutional investing. Monte traces th...
What if you could price geopolitical risk in real time — before it moves markets — using a publicly visible order book anyone can read right now?
In this episode of Institutional Edge, host Angelo Calvello is joined by Will Owens, Research Analyst at Galaxy Digital, and Zack Pokorny, Data Associate at Galaxy Digital, to discuss the current state and future trajectory of prediction markets...
How do you transform a $130 billion pension fund? Start by making it safe to fail.
Angelo Calvello, host of Institutional Edge, interviews Paul Greff, Chief Investment Officer of Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) since 2018, about his comprehensive transformation of the $130 billion pension fund. Greff describes building a "failure-tolerant" culture of open innovation that ...
Your data is only as good as its source. What if the source is broken by design?
In this episode of Institutional Edge, host Angelo Calvello is joined by Renee DiResta, Associate Research Professor at Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy and former technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, to discuss how AI-generated content and algorithmic manipulation are ...
Are you ready for an information source that tells the truth—whether you want to hear it or not?
Angelo Calvello interviews Professor Robin Hanson, a pioneer in prediction markets since 1988, about how these markets work and their applications for institutional investors. Prof. Hanson, an Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University, explains that prediction markets aggrega...
Can AI pass the "coffee test"—problem-solving when things break?
In Part II of this Institutional Edge episode, host Angelo Calvello and Betina Kitzler, MIT Sloan Fellow and AI advisor, explore AGI timelines and quantum computing commercialization. Kitzler introduces the "coffee test" for AGI—whether AI can problem-solve when systems break—and argues that investors should focus on high-va...
Why do 95% of GenAI projects fail, and what are the 5% doing differently?
In Part I of this Institutional Edge episode, host Angelo Calvello interviews Betina Kitzler, MIT Sloan Fellow and early GenAI advisor, about AI's practical applications for institutional investors in 2026. Kitzler explains why 95% of GenAI projects fail, emphasizing the critical need to define specific problems bef...
Angelo Calvello sits down with longtime colleague Greg Williamson, former CIO at BP America pension fund and American Red Cross, about portable alpha and institutional innovation. Greg's team at Amoco pioneered portable alpha in 1989, separating alpha from beta to build diversified portfolios of alpha generators while managing beta through derivatives. Their first manager, Jacobs Levy, d...
What if transparency (not secrecy) is actually your competitive advantage when pitching AI strategies?
In this solo episode of The Institutional Edge, host Angelo Calvello, PhD, co-founder of Rosetta Analytics, shares critical lessons from nine years of pitching AI-based investment strategies to institutional allocators. Angelo breaks down four essential lessons for managers: defining AI ...
How did LACERA stay positive in fiscal 2022 when most pension funds were down—and what does their "functional framework" have to do with it?
Some nvestment consultants are promoting Total Portfolio Approach (TPA) as the next evolution in institutional investing. But what if sophisticated asset owners have been doing this work all along—without the capital letters?
Jon Grabel, CIO of Los A...
Why does IPERS say NO to 95% of co-investment deals? Their CIO reveals the disciplined approach that attracts top practitioners to public service.
In Episode 13 of “The Institutional EDge,” host Angelo Calvello explores an innovative co-investment approach with IPERS' CIO Sriram Lakshminarayanan and Senior Investment Officer Craig Payne. Managing $47 billion with a nine-person team, IPE...
Can "onerous disclosure" actually protect 401(k) participants from alternative investment losses?
In Episode 4 of the Private Markets Series, Angelo Calvello, host of Institutional Edge, interviews Gerald Alain Chen-Young, Chief Investment Officer of the National Public Pension Funds Association and Principal at GCY Associates LLC. They examine President Trump's August 2025 executive orde...
Is Total Portfolio Approach the next Portable Alpha—brilliant innovation or overhyped rebranding?
Justina Lee, senior reporter at Bloomberg News covering global markets and quant strategies, joins the show to dissect the Total Portfolio Approach phenomenon sweeping through institutional investing. Fresh off covering CalPERS's historic shift from 11 asset class benchmarks to a single 75/25...
How do you mitigate the J-curve while getting your capital back 2 years faster than traditional funds?
Andy Greene, CIO of the $10 billion Toronto Transit Commission Pension Plan, discusses how his team has successfully increased its private markets allocation from 20% to 41% since 2017, with a notable focus on using secondaries as a strategic tool. Andy outlines the key benefits of secon...
"We don't have to invest in privates"—When does a CIO managing $11 billion say no to alternative investments?
In our 16th episode of our Private Markets Series, Joe Eppers (CIO) and Vaib Kalia (Head of Fixed Income) from Selective Insurance explain how P&C insurance companies benefit from private market investing. The key advantages include diversification, the ability to capture liqu...
What if enterprise software as we know it is dead in five years? A family office insider explains why AI might make traditional SaaS obsolete.
In the 8th installment of our Private Markets Series, host Angelo Calvello interviews Brad Bryndal, Sen...
How does a $20B+ pension fund generate $1 billion in gains from rebalancing alone?
In Episode 14 of “The Institutional Edge,” host Angelo Calvello sits down with Don Pierce, Chief Investment Officer at San Bernardino County Employees' Retirement ...
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