Ghiané Jones, is Deputy CIO at the Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois, where she is based in their Chicago office. She previously was Managing Principal at Meketa Investment Group, a role she held for over 6 years, and prior to that worked in a range of financial services roles including in institutional ETF Sales at Invesco and Northern Trust, and as a Regional Consultant at Goldman Sachs.   We start our discussion with Ghiané, describing her path into finance and her...

Jai Jacob has had a 25+ year career at Lazard Asset Management where he headed up the Quantitative, Alternatives and Multi-Asset Investment Group which oversaw c. $35 bn in AUM.  He is a member of the Board of Trustees of The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, New York, and plays the electric guitar.  We hear about his upbringing in Montreal, how he changed his major in college and ended up somewhat accidentally in finance and the serendipitous twists and turns that saw him develop a multi-asset...

Cary Carbonaro, is an award-winning financial advisor, a women and wealth expert and a CFP board ambassador. She is currently senior vice president of Advisors Capital, where she was noted in the 2024 NASDAQ Advisor Council and as a Top Advisor in 2023 Investopedia. In this first of two dynamic podcasts featuring leading female voices in financial planning today – the other is Marguerita Cheng - to be released later in the series -  we discuss the various stages of Cary’s career, which had...

Kristina Blaschek, is Director of Business and Technology within the Investment Management division of William Blair, based in Chicago. She started her career in investment banking, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Auditorium Theatre.  Kristina starts our conversation describing her education and what drew her to the world of finance. We hear about her early career pivots and how she was handpicked to lead the Business and Technology function and how she grew in to this new...

Keri Findley is Chief Executive Officer of Tacora Capital, which focuses on Asset-Based Private Credit Opportunities in Specialty Finance and Insurance.  She was previously a partner at Third PointOur conversation starts with her childhood and in particular her high school years, when Keri spent up to 40 hours per week practicing figure skating alongside academic commitments.  With a strong aptitude for math but not some of the other subjects she was not an obvious candidate for attending...

As we enter high summer here we come with some summer bounty here at Fiftyfaces Podcast as we launch Series 4 that is bursting with wisdom and insights. Because life is not linear, these stories are not linear either – and they stress the power of the individual. Hear from an introvert who found her calling in connecting with people in private wealth, a pensions expert whose entire career has been driven my members first, a legendary business builder and a private credit expert forging her...

Kurt Summers is a Senior Managing Director and Head of Public-Private Partnerships inBlackstone’s Infrastructure Group. In this capacity, Mr. Summers is responsible forinvestment strategies in partnership with governments, public entities, civic and labororganizations, and broader stakeholders to help advance local infrastructure prioritiesand he also advances Blackstone Infrastructure’s ESG efforts. Mr. Summers waselected and served as Chicago’s 70th City Treasurer until 2019. Mr. Summers...

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 funds where the possibility to add value and have impact was high and the...

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 of a private lending firm and how it had its roots in private equity. ...

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, and learn how it prioritizes best overall portfolio construction for...

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 spokesperson around health and safety concerns of the NFL.  In addition to her...

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 coming weeks. Now global head coach at MMC Marsh McLennan, Nicci works with...

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 provided. We hear then about his career journey, which saw him move from management...

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 applauds podcasts as a way to create “real conversations in a very noisy...

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, which weren’t always easy within the school system. After dropping out of high...

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 her entry into finance and her progression through the ranks of an investment...

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 she developed her own identity and risk tolerance as a financial advisor, and...

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.  She recalls how she rose through the ranks in Washington State,...

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 to private wealth to discuss the unique ways to serve clients such as athetesOur...

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 University of Akron designed to expand diversity in wealth management.Our...

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 services, asking who the true hero of that story should be?This lyrical...

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 experience in OCIO firms, we speak about the development of that...

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. We chart Brent’s path to finance and hear early on about his interest in...

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 Ventures -the company’s venture investing arm and the consumer digital...

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 conversation starts with a story about a father, a daughter and a starfish –...