The Fiftyfaces Podcast

Kevin Leonard is Partner and Practice Group Director – Public Funds and Taft Hartley at NEPC. He has had a long career in consulting and started his career as an accountant.

Kevin has had a career of over 30 years in investment consulting, and it had a somewhat “accidental” start – being driven more by location and convenience than a calling.  Things quickly shifted however, and Kevin found that working with public ...

David Golub is President at Golub Capital, a direct lender and credit manager established in 1994, and celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. As the son of a psychiatrist and psychologist, a path into finance was originally a divergent path, and a somewhat non-linear one at that.

As we chart the course of David’s career we chart the arc of Golub Capital’s at the same time – discussing the origins of the concept...

Derek Walker, is Head of Portfolio Design & Construction, total Fund Management and a member of the Global Leadership Team at CPP Investments, based in Toronto. He previously worked in MSCI in Geneva. We start by discussing what Derek describes as a “non linear” career path, and his road from technology and machine translation to CPP Investments. 

We turn then to unpacking Total Fund Investing at CPP Investments...

Anna McDonald has a dual role at Moneta, a St. Louis based RIA with over $32 billion in assets under management. She supports athletes in all aspects of their financial lives, preparing them for sustained success beyond their athletic careers. She knows this segment well as she previously spent six years as an ESPN reporter, covering Major League Baseball and the National Football League. During this time she was a spokesp...

Nicci Take featured in our first Pride series in 2021 and shared her story as a prominent transgender advocate, inspirational speaker and coach.  We have watched Nicci’s presence grow and thrive over the past 3 years, she posts frequent inspirational content on Linked IN and we we wanted to ask her back onto the podcast to share some of that wisdom  - particularly as we get ready to launch our pride series of 2024 in comin...

Varun Laijawalla is a Portfolio Manager at Ninety One, where he manages long only EM and EM ex-China portfolios.  He started his career as a consultant and moved into stockpicking via Asia focused sales.

Our conversation starts with his international background, which saw his family move from India to Holland when Varun was only 4 years old, and the imprint that that multi-cultural yet well-integrated backdrop provi...

In this bonus episode we meet with fellow INSEAD alumna Avivah Wittenberg-Cox advocates for new thinking in generational and gender balance. She is a consultant, coach and speaker on the rising impact of longevity on the people and on the workplace and provides advice to help businesses thrive. She is the author of seven books on gender, leadership and longevity and the host of the podcast 4-Quarter lives, where she applau...

Jim McNamee, is President of the National Public Pension Fund Association.  He is director of Stonegate Insurance, Unique Insurance Company and Resolute Global Partners as well as the Illinois Public Pension Fund Association which he founded in 1985. He was formerly a police officer.

Our conversation starts with the school of hard knocks – a strict Catholic schooling outside Chicago, and we trace Jim’s early years, ...

Stephanie Drescher is Chief Client and Product Development Officer at Apollo.  She started her career in the Alternative Investment Group at JP Morgan and is a Board Member at ADT.  

We start our discussion with a tribute to Stephanie’s grandmother who taught her about stocks and the markets, sowing the seeds of an interest in finance that has been lifelong. We trace her education in a women’s college, through to he...

Ciara Hurley is an investment committee member at the Trinity College Dublin Endowment. Ciara recently retired from Quilter Cheviot, where she was a financial advisor for over 20 years.  She has worked as a portfolio manager, as well as serving in various director and Board roles. 

Our conversation charts both Ciara’s career and the evolution of wealth management in Ireland over that 30 year period. We discuss how s...

Marcie Frost is the Chief Executive Officer of CalPERS, the largest pension fund in the US with over $400 billion in assets under management and serving over 2 million members in its retirement system. She was recently elected to the board of the Toigo Foundation.

Our conversation starts with her very early days in public service, and how typing and softball were an unusual combination that led to an opening opportunity...

Summer is coming, and so is Series 3 of the 2024 Fiftyfaces Podcast, and this series is filled with themes that we have not touched in as much depth before. The notion of service, and in particular serving public funds – whether in an officer, trustee or consultant capacity is explored in depth – we look at the mindset required, the rewards that accrue, and how to attract new talent into this segment.

We move then t...

Carina Diamond is a wealth management leader with particular experience in growing and building businesses. Late last year, she founded Stella Secunda Partners, a consulting firm that helps financial services locate and retain next generation talent and guide business owners through succession planning. She is a motivational speaker and coach, as well as the founder of Diversitas, a national education program at The Univer...

Rick Weissinger is Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Moneta and a veteran of financial services marketing. He previously held roles at Brightworth and Craneware. 

Our conversation starts with Rick’s passion for marketing – how it developed and why the connection with the consumer is so critical. We refer to the Star Wars analogy of hero and guide or mentor and translate this into marketing financial serv...

Hallie Label, is the founder of Expect Equity, based in Baltimore.  She was previously Chief Operating Officer at Rock Springs Capital, and prior to that was a principal at Makena Capital and held numerous financial industry roles. 

We start by tracing that career evolution – and Hallie’s early days playing competitive sport. We look at lessons from that and how she developed an interest in finance and investing.

Given her...

Brent Mattis is a Principal at the Cleveland Clinic Investment Office. He specializes in idea generation, manager selection and financial modeling for the investment portfolio and likes to look “off the beaten path” for opportunity. Prior to joining the Cleveland Clinic in 2017 he worked for 6 years in a family office in NYC with a particular focus on alternative assets, direct private investments and public equities. 
...

Aditi Javeri Gokhale is Chief Strategy Officer, President of Retail Investments and Head of Institutional Investments at Northwestern Mutual, based in Milwaukee.  In her role she leads teams that manage more than $627 bn in company and client assets, including nearly $310  bn in institutional investment portfolio and over $280 billion in retail client assets  She is also accountable for the Northwestern Mutual Future Ventu...

Grace Reyes, is the CEO and Founder of TIDE – The Investment Diversity Exchange, which she founded in January 2020 as a way to connect key industry players to promote diversity and inclusion in the investment industry. She has recently extended TIDE’s reach beyond the US and has a base in both the US and the UK.  TIDE as a partner to the largest US public pension plans, their emerging and diverse manager efforts.

Our conve...

Randy Cohen, is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business school. His main research focus is the interface between the actions of institutional investors and price levels in the stock market and has helped to start and grow a number of investment management firms. He is a partner at Exsight Capital, a venture capital firm specializing in early-stage impact investments in innovative ophthalmic diagnostic and treatment solutions...