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Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · Masters in Business

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: This is Master's in Business with Barry rid Holds on
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: This week on the podcast, I have yet another extra
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: special guest, Linda Gibson, CEO of Pigium Quantitative Solutions. She
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: has a really fascinating background, very clectic, a combination of
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: math and law. She has run a number of firms
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: and a number of divisions at large firms and traced
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  Speaker 2: a career arc that's just very unusual compared to the
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: typical person in finance, eventually leading her to a point
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: where she's managing quants running about one hundred billion dollars
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: in assets. Really a fascinating background, and it just goes
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  Speaker 2: to show you how broad and flexible the world of
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  Speaker 2: finance is. That there are so many different ways you
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: can find yourself in a senior management position in this industry.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: If you had to guess someone would run through this path,
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  Speaker 2: you would never assume, well, you're going to come out
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: of law school and eventually you're going to be general counsel.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: How does that lead to running a group of quants?
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  Speaker 2: But that was Linda's Korea path. There are a few
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: people in the world who are more knowledgeable about the
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: management of asset managers and what it's like to actually
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: run a global organization and interact with lots of aspects
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: of the business of finance, whether that's acquisitions or compliance
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: or dealing with all the legalities of multi jurisdictional regulations.
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  Speaker 2: She really has been the person who's lived this and
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  Speaker 2: walk the walk. And I found this conversation to be
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  Speaker 2: quite fascinating, and I think you will also, with no
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: further ado, my conversation with Linda Gibson, CEO of Pigum
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Quantitative Solutions. So let's get into your background, which is
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: really kind of interesting. You get a BS in mathematics
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: and a jd from Boston University. Math and law. Yep,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: not the usual combination, not at.
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  Speaker 1: All, Barry. It is something Math has always come easy
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  Speaker 1: to me since a child. So I was a math
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: major pretty much because it was an easy a for me.
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  Speaker 2: Math is truth, It's absolutely it is.
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  Speaker 1: I loved the fact that my grades weren't subject to
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the subjectivity of my professors, and that there was always
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: a right and wrong answer and the one that's.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Until you get to applied mathematics, where it all goes off.
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  Speaker 1: The rails, which, if you notice, that is where I stopped.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I didn't get an advanced degree in math.
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  Speaker 2: But you do get the JD. And you said you
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: weren't a math nerd. You were not looking for a
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: job in finance. What happened?
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I was not. I was waitressing one summer, my final
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: summer after my senior year, and a friend called and said,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I just interviewed with a financial services company. I'm not
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: interested in the job, but you might want to reach out.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And I literally reached out. It was Mass Financial Services.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I reached out, I got the interview, and I got
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the job, and I started the next week. Didn't really
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: think about going into financial services. I thought it was
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: going to be, honestly a math teacher. I was thinking
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: about teaching in boarding school.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Wait, so you go to MFS MFI and was this
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: between college and law school or after you graduated law school?
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: It was between college and law school. So first job
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: out of college.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: And you discover, hey, this finance stuff is kind of interesting.
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  Speaker 2: What then led you to go to law school instead
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  Speaker 2: of business school?
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  Speaker 1: I worked with a bunch of lawyers, So I worked
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  Speaker 1: at the third party administrator distribution arm of mutual fund
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: family at Mass Financial. So it's called the Banking Services
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: group when banks couldn't offer and distribute mutual funds. So
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: we had clients like Chase and City Bank and JP
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Morgan and all of those, And so I worked with
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of lawyers and our company was going through
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: transition at the time, and I thought I always wanted
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to get an advanced degree. My
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: father is still a practicing lawyer at eighty five, and
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: my grandfather was a lawyer.
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  Speaker 2: So you come from a long family of attorneys.
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  Speaker 1: I do. But my father advised me not to go
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  Speaker 1: into law. He always wanted to be a stockbroker, even
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: though he's in trusts in estates, yes, So he was
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: never really interested in pushing me to go into the law.
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  Speaker 1: And even though he worked for his father's law practice
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  Speaker 1: with the name on the door, literally, that was not
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  Speaker 1: an option for me.
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  Speaker 2: That's so amusing because I immediately imagined getting pushed back
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  Speaker 2: from the family. Hey, everybody here is a lawyer, our
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: name is on the door. You're turning your back on
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  Speaker 2: the family business. No, such, Nope.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: They were at a point where they anti nepitism or
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: nepotism was an issue, and they said, nope, you will
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: not be coming to work for this firm, so don't
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: even think about it.
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  Speaker 2: Huh.
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  Speaker 1: So I was literally sitting on the roof deck one night,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: and I was balancing law business school, which one made
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  Speaker 1: more sense for me, and didn't really know that much
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  Speaker 1: about either. But I was very logical by nature, and
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  Speaker 1: I was working with a bunch of lawyers at the time.
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  Speaker 1: And I also loved the fact that, well, it took
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: one more a year to get through school, three years
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: versus two. But when you come out you are something,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: You're a lawyer, you have something, and so off I
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: went to law school.
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  Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say indebted, but it
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  Speaker 2: really had too It really doesn't matter when you come
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: out of business school. You're an MBA wouldn't come out
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: of law school assuming you passed the bar, you're JD
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: and your license to practice. How soon after law school
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: did you realize I don't want to practice law?
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Pretty soon?
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  Speaker 2: I went in year third year law school.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: It was pretty much the third year of law school.
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  Speaker 1: I was in a immersive mock trial program where you
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: spend the whole year and you work for the DA's
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: office in the prosecutor's office. I thought I wanted to
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: be a lawyer. LA law was what it.
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  Speaker 2: Was all about, exactly.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: It was so cool, and so I thought, that's what
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: I want to do. I got into it. I wanted
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: every single one of my cases to settle. I did
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: not like law, especially trial work, at all. And I
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: was walking on the street and I ran into somebody
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I had worked with at this banking services group of
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  Speaker 1: MFS which had spun off and become Signature Financial Group,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and the woman said to me, you might want to
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: come back and work for us. Have you thought about it?
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: And I said absolutely, I'm in what do I need
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  Speaker 1: to do? And I started working for them part time
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: during my third year of law school, and then worked
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: for them ten years after.
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  Speaker 2: That's interesting. When did the Harvard Advanced Management Program come along?
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: That came along much later. So I spent the first
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: decade of my career as a mutual fund attorney, which
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: was really in.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: The house for not for a law firm, but for
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: a mutual fund related company.
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  Speaker 1: Right this was the Signature Financial Group. And that was
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: a great opportunity to learn, frankly, because not only was
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I writing offering documents, I was reading I mean, how
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: many people do you know that have read the forty
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Act and read the various Use its Directives, which is
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the basically the UK equivalent to the forty Act.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: I saw a lot of people keep it on the
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: nightstand in case they.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Case I tired, Yeah, put right out right. So that
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: was just a really good foundation for me. I also sat,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: as I said, we were the third party distributor for
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: all of these major companies, so I was on twelve
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: different boards, not on them, but I was the officer,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: so I was taking minutes. So I was learning just
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  Speaker 1: a ton about the mutual fund industry and working with
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: these big global companies. But then this company, I'm getting
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: off topic of the Advanced Management degree, but this company
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: launched a new investment fund structure called Global Hub and
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Spoke or master Feeder you might have heard of it.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: And I was chosen by the CEO to go travel
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: globally with him to not only get big firms the
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  Speaker 1: likes of HSBC, Julius Beher those types to adopt this
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  Speaker 1: fund structure, but also to get regulatory approval. So I
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: was traveling all around the globe. This is I was
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: in my twenties at Chris.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: It had a lot of fun on the company dime.
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  Speaker 1: It was very, very fun, weird runt of the bus
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  Speaker 1: front of the US. Yeah. Well, we actually had a
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: flat in London, so I was going to Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: the UK trying to get regulatory approval of this mutual
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: fund structure. So it was really really a great foundation
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: for me and I did that for about ten years,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: and this is where I moved over to UAM at
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  Speaker 1: the time, which is the first multi boutique investment business,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: and I moved over there into their third party mutual
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  Speaker 1: fund business as general counsel.
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  Speaker 2: So that's the real interesting question is why general counsel
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  Speaker 2: in house when given your background, you could have gone
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  Speaker 2: to any of the big firms Scadden elsewhere and made
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  Speaker 2: a ton of money working as an attorney working for
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  Speaker 2: these big fun companies.
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  Speaker 1: It's ironic that you said that you said Scadden.
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  Speaker 2: Because not ironic at all.
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  Speaker 1: When I was thinking about going to Old Mutual, I
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  Speaker 1: was offered a job at Scadden that same day for
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: the same amount of money, and I knew UAM was
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: potentially going to be acquired, and I knew it was
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: a riskier business, but I thought I can go work
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: for a law firm and then eventually become a general
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  Speaker 1: counsel or. I can just skip the law firm step,
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  Speaker 1: especially working at a firm like Scadden, and go directly
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: to the general council job, which I thought was much
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: more interesting to me. So even though Scadden had such
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: a big name, I decided to go to UAM.
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  Speaker 2: And it's a really challenging life work balance. At my
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  Speaker 2: my friends who all went to big firms like you
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: hear stories and all they do is wine. Why don't
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: you quit? I can't leave. I'm making so much money,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: but you're miserable. I'm just going to do this for
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: another five years. I've heard every ten twenty years it
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: keeps going. So you skip that went in house, never
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: looked back.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Never looked back, and the firm got acquired pretty much
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: a year later. I was told to shut down my
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: division or my business unit, which I did, and more interestingly,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: given my us its background, in the fact that I
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: had traveled globally. This was a South African based firm,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: so Old Mutual, but it was listed in London, so
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the head office was in London. They were very interested
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: in my global experience and my regulatory experience, so they said, hey,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: you want to become general counsel of the holding company.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you? So I then put all of my
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: forty act work aside, and that's when I really learned
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the art of negotiation. They had forty four affiliates at
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the time. We had to convert them from revenue share
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: to profit sharing. We had to put equity in the
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: hands of the founders and their management teams. We were
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: doing M and A work. We were disposing of firms
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that weren't strategic, we were acquiring firms. So I ended
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: up negotiating with so many CEOs CIOs and founders. That
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: was really eye opening. When people have self interest and
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: it affects their wallets, they are very interesting people. So
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I had to.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Pivot and very phrase interesting people. Yeah, are you New
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: York based, London based or Nylon back and forth.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I was Boston based. We were Boston based, but we
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: had our parent company was in London, and then the
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: ultimate insurance company was in South Africa, so I was
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: in London quarterly. And then we had affiliates. We had
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: forty four affiliates and they were all over the US,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: but they were also in the UK and Tokyo.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: At the time, so you were really on a plane
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: a lot global. I think. I think the flight from
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Vancouver to Tokyo is fast than the flight from New
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: York to South Africa. That's a bear of a flight,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: isn't it?
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: It is? But South Africa is really amazing. And it
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: was interesting going into Cape Town and looking around. The
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: brand Old Mutual was like Coca Cola here. It was
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: on every building everywhere. It was really interesting. They had
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: offices in Cape Town, and Joe Burke I preferred Cape
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Town of course.
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  Speaker 2: But so the obvious question, given this background in law
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: and working on mutual funds and eventually becoming general counsel,
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: how does this prep you for the role you have
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: today essentially hurting cats and managing a whole bunch of quants.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Again, the learning the negotiation skills really helped a lot
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: in dealing with managing investment professionals as well as managing quants.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: As you know, quants have extremely high IQs. I mean
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: our firm pgum quant we have twenty nine PhDs. Our
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: CIO is literally an x rocket scientists to use to
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: work at NASA, and then we have an advisor to
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK as a CIO,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: so these are very very smart people. Managing them you
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: definitely have to adapt your style a bit, so you
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: have to learn how to deal with smart people as
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: well as introverts. We have a lot of introverts at
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: are firm. They sometimes have trouble talking to clients. Sometimes
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: they have trouble talking to me, so I need to
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: adjust my management style. But what I learned really early
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: in my career is that it's not about IQ, it's
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: about well, it is about IQ. We need very smart people,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: but EQ is equally important. So what I have to
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: do for them is I have to lead them, direct them,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: manage them and then sort of push them, but then
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: just leave them alone. I want to make sure I've
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: give them the resources that they need, but also give
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: them the direction that they need. And having this legal background,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: what was really great about it is when you're a lawyer,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: you're at every important meeting. You're in all the board meetings,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: midting everything, You're in the board meetings, you're in the
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: compensation meetings, you're in the internal audit meetings. So you
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: really learned everything about a business, everything that goes right
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: and everything that goes wrong. So that really helped me
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: understand what it was like or what it would be
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: like to manage a company. And then I had this
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: strange seven year stint of heading global distribution, which is
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: that was very interesting. I didn't want that job at all.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: The CEO of our firm came to me and said,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I don't really need a chief operating officer, but what
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I do need is a global head of distribution. Can
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: you build a centralized global sales team? And oh, by
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the way, your compensation is going to be tied to
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: assets raised, which is the first time that ever happened
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: in my life.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Right, interesting perspective change, eating what you kill.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, I had never sold anything either, So again, what
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I had to do there was be comfortable with hiring
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: really smart people. So I analyzed the landscape, figured out
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: where there was demand for our products, made sure we
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: had the right products to sell, made sure that the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: regulatory and the expense hurdles were too high to go in.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: And then I had to build a lean team of
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: very smart salespeople that could sell our products in these
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: various jurisdictions. But also, when you think you're managing people
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: so far away from you, the distance is so vast
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: that you have to trust them. We had people in Dubai.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I need to make sure those people are doing what
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: they say they're doing and that I can trust them,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and never mind also people in China, Hong Kong, Tokyo.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we had language barriers, so again I had to
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: make sure that I hired the best people that I
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: could really trust to do what they needed to do,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and then again let them go. I also needed to
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: learn fast that when somebody is not right or not
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: a good cultural fit, that you need to make a
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: change very very quickly.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not to say the very least. So let's talk
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: a little bit about your work with Pigium. They are
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: one of the world's top twenty asset managers well over
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: a trillion dollars. What was it like settling in to
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: such a giant firm coming from more reasonable both size
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: firms in the early part of your career.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Well, I came from a more reasonably sized firm. It
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: was a very very easy transition for me because I
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: spent seventeen years at an insurance owned multi boutique at
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: the head office in various executive positions, So it was
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: a surprisingly easy transition for me.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Close of the insurance background, or because of.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Just the multi boutique background. So I wasn't on the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: insurance side. So I was at the asset management arm
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: of the Old Mutual insurance enterprise, and I worked at
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the head office. I was after I was general counsel,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I was chief operating officer and head of affiliate management.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: So I oversaw nineteen different investment boutiques that frankly spanned
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the gamut of offerings. We had timber, we had real estate,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: we had global fixed income, quant equity, fundamental equity, managed futures,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: everything you name it had it. And Old Mutual was ODDO,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: South Africa, London, New York, Boston.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Boston, Okay. So you're used to working cross timelines and.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Regions, absolutely, and having worked in that environment for so
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: long made moving over to pGEM and pGEM Quant Solutions
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: a pretty easy transition for me. I was really excited
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: about it. I had been watching PGIM, I had been
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: watching their reputation and their brand grow exponentially under David
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Hunt's leadership, and then I had also known a lot
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: about pGEM. Quant at the time was called QMA, and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: we had a firm at Old Mutual two firms Acadian
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and Analytic, who are both quant firms, and I sat
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: on both of their boards for years, and as head
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: of affiliate management, you're responsible for their p and ls,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: so you're in their shorts with respect to their strategy,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: their product development, any liftouts they would do, making sure
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: they had appropriate distribution resources and funding, made sure their
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: succession plans were set and were executed seamlessly. So I
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: spent a lot of time with quantitative firms and I
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: really really liked it. Coming from a math science background,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I very much liked the systematic nature of a quant firm,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: but I also liked it pagem quant. We like to
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: call it the fusion of art and science, so you
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: have the fundamental insights plus the systematic And while I
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: am a math science person, I am very very artsy
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: and creative. I love a good craft. My daughter got
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: married two weeks ago and I spent my winter learning
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: how to day coupage oyster shells with maps of the
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: cape and gold gilding along the edges. So I spent
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know how many weekends doing two hundred of
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: these over the winter last year. So that is a
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: little snapshot into my life. But to take it back.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: So I very much like sort of the art and
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: science of quant investing. So it was a natural fit
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: for me to come to PGM, but also to come
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: to pagemqu and it's been it was remarkably easy to
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: transition to the firm and more interesting to me. When
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I became COO, I expected, frankly, organ rejection because I
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: didn't come from the investment management side of the business,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and often you think that investment professionals want CEOs who
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: are investment professionals. And I was shocked and delighted frankly
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: when I was appointed a Chief operating officer of PGAM.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Kwant that the investment group embraced it. They loved the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: fact that I would support them and lean into them
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: and really let them do what they do and not
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: micromanage them.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: So CIO and CEO are very very different skill sets. CIO,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: you're essentially dealing with a probabilistic process trying to make
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: assessments about an unknown outcome in the future. CEOs have
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: to manage people, they have to manage budgets. It's much
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: more blocking and tackling and less probabilistic than the investment side.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: So the fact that you're now CEO of this group
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: of quants but don't have a background as a CIO,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: that I don't think that at all would work to
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: your disadvantage.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I saw it in real life when being
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: part of a multi boutique and being on the boards
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: of nineteen investment managers. I saw the difference between the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: CEOs that had been investment professionals or CIOs and the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: ones that were heads of distribution or were in operations.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: It is interesting, though the majority are either in distribution
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: or CIOs, they don't tend to be lawyers. So but regardless,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: I do think that CIOs tend, if I'm going to stereotype,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: they tend to do better managing money.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Than people I know. That's absolutely I don't think that
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: that's over generalizing at all. What's kind of interesting is
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: I thought the ease going from Old Mutual to pGEM,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: given both of their insurance backgrounds, might have been that,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: but you're suggesting it was less had to do with
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: that and more had to do with just running a
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: broad assortment of different groups, departments, division strategies, et cetera.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, both pGEM and All Mutual are similar with respect
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: to their investment management businesses tend to be pretty separate
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and distinct from their insurance businesses. So they report in
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and they have quarterly business reviews and all of that stuff,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and they dovetail nicely, but they really are run separately.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: So you were general counsel and how to manage a
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: large group of attorneys, and now you're managing a large
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: group of quants. Any similarities or differences that are noteworthy
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: between hurting each herd of cats over there?
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: There are similarities in that they both tend to be meticulars,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: so they're both type A. They're both very very smart,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and they tend to get into the weeds and the details.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: So you have to constantly take them up. So at
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: our firm, putting portfolio managers in front of prospects and clients,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: we constantly have to train them, give them presentation training.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: We need to often bring in CPMs to help translate
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: their knowledge into Layman's terms. It cpmbing being client portfolio managers.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: So these are the people that explain what we do
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: in Layman's terms.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: To prospects client facing.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, and many of our as I said before, many
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of our investment professionals or introverts. They do not want
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: to be in front of clients or prospects. Lawyers can
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: be the same, and you often have to get lawyers
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: to think like business people. You do the same thing
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: with investment professionals. They don't have to think like business
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: professional as much as lawyers do, but they still need
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: to adjust their thinking a little bit. And I often
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: need to change my leadership style. And I learned early on.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: I took a personality profiling test. I don't know if
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: you've ever heard of it. It's called Insights Discovery, and
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: they put you into a color bracket and I'm red,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: which means I tend to like people to be be bright,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: be brief, and be gone. That's how I like people
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to interact with me. But there are a lot of
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: people that want a lot of data. They want a
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: lot of information. You need to spend time with them.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: You need to ask them how their kids are. Some
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: are extroverts, they don't care about the topic. They just
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: want to have fun, you know. Others care more about socializing.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of different ways people like to take
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: in information. So when you're managing lawyers and you're managing quants,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: there is something similar there. Managing distribution people is a
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: whole different ball of wax, though that was fascinating when
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I managed distribution group.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Salespeople respond to financial incentives.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: They do. They also can be very needy and they
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: can require a lot of your time. And they also
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: want to be praised a bit, huh, which is interesting
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: although everybody, I think everyone likes praise.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: I guess. But if you're on a variable com system,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: depending on how successfully you raise assets, it's there in
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: black and white on the sales log you've raised X. Hey,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: do I really need to tell you this is fantastic?
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: You did a great job this quarter.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: You do. Actually, what I did learn is you do
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: and the more you do it, the better they perform. Now,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I think again, that works everywhere. What do they say
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: you have to say something positive X number of times
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the sandwich?
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're gonna say something negative. You've got to put
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: something positive on either side.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Either side of it.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Criticism sandwich I find not amusing. So let's drill down
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: a little bit to the various quant strategies that pGEM utilizes.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Is a different asset classes, different geographies, different strategies. What
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: is the full spectrum of offerings pGEM has for their
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Quant group.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Short answer is all of the above. So pagem Quant
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: is divided into three platforms. We have our quant Equity platform,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: which manages risk control equity portfolios that were quants, so
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: they're model and factor driven. They cover core value, opportunistic equity,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and indexing. Then we have a multi asset platform. The
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: multi asset platform manages things like offerings that give you
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: inflation hedging against inflation, so we use publicly traded real
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: assets and commodities. We do defensive equity strategies. We also
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: do asset allocation and overlays. And then we have a
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: third platform which pGEM Quant acquired right before I joined,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: which was another interest of mine was integrating a new
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: firm into the fold, and this is Pgemwouldwanti. It's our
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: London based liquid alternatives firm. It offers global macro trend following.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: It also has inflation hedging products as well as macrotail
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: risk products, so we kind of cover and we go
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: up and down the market spectrum from microcap all the
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: way up to large cap and then we go across geography,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: so we'll do US, International, EMX, China, you name it.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: We offer most of it in quant form. The one
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: thing we don't offer is privates. Our sister company does that.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: What's the name of the sister Hume.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: We have well Page in private capital. We have pGEM
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: real Estate. We actually have six sisters. We have pGEM
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Fixed Income, Jennison PGE and Portfolio Advisory and pGEM Investments.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Those all wrapped together make up that one point two
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: trillion dollars.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: That is PGIM really interesting. So let's talk a little
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: bit about multi asset opportunities. Starting with you have a
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: year like last year twenty twenty two. Stocks are down,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: bonds are down, all these asset classes are under pressure.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: How does that affect all the various strategies that you
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: guys are running.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Well, Clearly the markets affect our strategies. But that's one
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: of the reasons that we feel strongly that quants excel
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: in volatile times, mostly because they have a long term approach.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: They're data driven, they're disciplined, they're diversified. So we have
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: three hundred plus stocks in our portfolios. We look at
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: hundreds of pieces of data on ten thousand companies every day,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: so we're very, very diversified. But the other thing about
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: being a quant which is nice is it removes the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: emotional bias from picking socks, so you don't get caught
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: up in what's going on in the market and freaking
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: out in essence and making bad decisions. You have your
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: models to ground you. Sure there's fundamental insights on top,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: and there are people here back to that fusion of
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: art and science, but we have the models as our bedrock.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: So, given what twenty twenty two is like and obviously
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: very challenging, what's it like when the calendar flips really
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: was last October twenty twenty two, where market's bottomed and
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: took off. How does that change in market regime effects
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: how you're going about your business or is it still
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: the same thing, just whether market's going up and down,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: you're still applying the same strategies.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: We're applying the same strategies. But having said that, and
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: again we offer so many different strategies, but what we
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: do have and people have been very very interested in them,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: are sort of that in the inflation hedging strategies that
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: we offer the custom mandates. We're all about solving our clients'
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: needs not only today but tomorrow. So how do we
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: work with those clients to figure out what they're trying
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: to solve for some downside protection, so we've been recently
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: putting together portfolios that have downside protection. They might limit
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: the upside a little bit. We can adjust that depending
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: on our client's preference and needs and wants. The macro
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: tail risk products, the inflation hedging products, all of these
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: different things that are helping clients right now move away
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: from the sixty to forty portfolio is just not working
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: for clients right now. And sure they want to put
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: money into privates. Privates are big right now, and pGEM
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: is leaning into our privates and our alts, meaning pGEM
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: at our head office. But at the same time, people
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: need liquid investments, and so what we provide for them
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: is liquid solutions to help them navigate through these turbulent times.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Huh really interesting. So the bulk of what you're doing
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: is liquid. You don't need a gate to get out.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: These are all stocks, bonds, other assets that are readily
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: tradable any given day.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Yep. All liquid, including publicly traded real assets and commodities.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Clearly liquidity is a little tougher with sort of the
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: microcap and the small all. So what we do what
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: our models do there is they assess the trading costs
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: of getting in and out of companies, because we want
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: to make sure, of course that you don't pay more
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: in trading costs to get out than your alpha, so
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: we have to pay attention to that. We also have
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: people that use us for overlay strategies and they often
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: have to get out on a dime, so we need
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: to make sure that everything is very, very liquid.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: That's really interesting. How bespoke are the portfolios and the
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: solutions that you come up with for clients. Are they
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: really customized for individual institutions or how do you think
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: about that approach?
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: They're extremely customizable across all of our platforms. So even
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I'll give you an example, our quant equity platform, we
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: have an ESG solutions offering. We had a very very
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: large E andF endowment and foundation come to us and
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: say we need to get we need to solve for
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: our ESG needs, and we want to do that. We
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: want to track a certain index, but we want to
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: take energy out of the portfolio. So what we've been
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: able to do is we've been able to help investors
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: solve for their ESG needs wherever they are in their journey,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: and I get that it's different for different people. But
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: that's what's really unique about our offerings is that we're
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: able to sit there and talk to you and say, Berry,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: what's important to you? Do you care about water usage?
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Do you care about women on boards? You care about energy?
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Do you care about carbon footprint? How much do you
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: want it to impact your returns? Or maybe you don't
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: want it to impact your returns at all? So how
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: do we work with you to create a portfolio that
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: does what you wish? So that's been really interesting and
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: we've gotten a lot of traction there.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Huh, really super intriguing. So you mentioned some people are
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: looking for inflation hedging. I would imagine that would have
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: been really useful last year. Are you still getting demand
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: for that? Given how far ce is fallen from the peak?
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: When was that June twenty twenty two something like that?
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Is there still a demand for inflation hatching?
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: There still is? It may not be as in demand
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: as it's been, but if you think about where we are,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: the macro environment is so uncertain. People still don't know
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: whether we're going to have a recession. People don't know
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: people are assuming there's going to be a recession in Europe,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: so people just don't know. So I think they're really
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: trying to pardon the use of the word hedge, but
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: hedge their bets and make sure that they have downside protection.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: And people get a bit scared in this type of
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: environment and they want to diversify their portfolio. So we
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: just what we want to do is we want to
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: partner with our clients. And they might have any number
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: of needs. They might have, you know, risk parameters, they
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: might have liquidity needs, they might want to track a benchmark,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: they might want to just absolute return, they might want
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: real return. Whatever they need, we will solve for.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: So about half of your clients Bullpark are large institutions.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: You mentioned endowments and foundations, and given the background of
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: pGEM with insurance, I think about future liabilities. Is there
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of matching? Hey, in twenty thirty five, we
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: have this sort of expected demand on our capital. How
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: important is future liability matching to custom solutions?
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: It's not. We don't do as much of that at
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: pGEM quant So we do manage money for the prudential
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: general account, but it tends to be in equities, and
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: we do manage some money for them through our pagem
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: would WANTI. But as you know, insurance companies have various
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: constraints and that they need to solve for these things,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: and they have much smaller buckets of risk assets. So
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: should insurance companies invest in equities? We very much want
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: to be a part of that, and we do manage
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: equities on behalf of our parent company. But lucky for
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: us is we don't We don't have to think about
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: paying claims. We just have to think about managing the
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: money in the best way that we can.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: What about since people are talking about hedging, how do
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: you think about risk management? Are you looking at a
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: series of small wins or is there sometimes hey, we're
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: going to take a big bet because we have a
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: lot of conviction here.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: So risk management is very much embedded in our process.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: So it's not an afterthought. It is something that we
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: pay attention to. And clearly, you have to take risk
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: if you're going to get gained. So but what our
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: models try to do is take that the risks, the
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: risks that are going to benefit us, and then manage
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the risks that are not. We tend to take a
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: lot of singles and be consistent, but It depends on
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: what our clients are looking for. So I say that
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: with respect to our equity book, but then we have
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: also we take much you know, larger bets with our
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Pigeono with war platform as well as if you're thinking
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: about maybe a small cap investment versus a large cap investment.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: So it really goes up and down the gamut depending
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: on what our clients are looking for, what their risk
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: tolerances are. We try to solve for their risk needs.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: And again quants can do that pretty effectively because of
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: their process.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: So how big a differentiator is pgeum quantitative solutions to pgeum. Again,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: given the insurance background, I don't know of a lot
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: of other large insurers whose financial arms are leaning this
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: heavily into the quant side.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's a big differentiator for pgeum one. I
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: just pGEM has one of, as you mentioned, one of
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the broadest asset management offerings out there, and I feel
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: like quant is a very important component to the offering,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: especially how if you think about how technology is advancing
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: and it's becoming more and more a part of our lives.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: AI is evolving, and we've been doing that for a
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: long long time, So I think it's just natural to
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: have a quant manager as part of your stable of offerings.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: But yes, I do believe that it's a differentiator for pechim.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Really really intriguing. So there's a couple of quotes of
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: yours that I have to ask about because they're kind
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: of fascinating. Quote. Softer skills are more valuable than ever.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: They are what clients want. So first I have to ask,
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: what do you mean by softer skills? Tell us about that.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: I often refer to softer skills when I'm talking about
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: women in management. Actually, when you think about the ability
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: to connect with people, to really listen to understand what
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: their wants and needs are, that many people don't do that,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: and I feel like I feel as though softer skills,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: especially in this tech enabled environment, so in a hybrid environment,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: when you're streaming and dealing with people by zoom and
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: teams and you're not seeing people in the hallway, these
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: softer skills really really differentiate you. And one of the
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: things that I've been doing as CEO during CODE or
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: what I did during COVID and I've continued to do now,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: is you lack that ability to run into people in
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the kitchen and to connect with them and really build
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: a relationship, because I do believe that building relationships is
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: important to building trust. Building trust is essential to building
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: working relationships with your business partners. And so what I
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: started doing was I started doing a video series. If
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: you think carpool karaoke. I would drive my dog to
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: the dog park in the mornings, and it was about
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: a forty minute drive, and I would do a lot
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: of reflecting and thinking about strategy, people, whatever I was
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: doing at work, and instead of thinking about it, I
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: thought I'm going to do some little video segments too minutes.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Didn't really think about what I was going to say,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: just got on the and talked to the employees of
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: our company. And I did that regularly, so they would
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: know what I'm up to, what I'm thinking about. They
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: knew a little about me personally, but they also knew
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: what I was thinking about, what the management team was
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: thinking about, and what we were up to. And that's
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: an example of a softer skill that it's that ability
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: to connect with people and to think about how you
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: can connect with people in different ways to build their
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: trust and get to know you better.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: You mentioned the various hybrid work options that, especially what
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: took place during the pandemic. Are you guys still operating
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: on a hybrid basis and what does that do for you?
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: We are, we're working in a hybrid three days in
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: the office, two days work from home, and I believe
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: that it's the best of both worlds because we have
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: those three days to collaborate, to continue to get to
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: know each other, to brains dorm and then we have
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: two days that we can do heads down work, meaning
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: the work from home days. And I also feel that
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: we get a lot of credit for doing that with
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: our employees, our employment. Our employees are happier in this environment.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: It's what they want, it's what they're getting used to.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: And I was just listening to actually Bloomberg this morning
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: where they were talking about how the trains are getting
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: busier and workplaces are going are changing their hybrid schedules.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: So I'll be interested to see what happens in the
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: next year or so with respect to hybrid, but I
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: think right now it's a pretty good balance.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Does it help with employee retention and even new hires?
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: It does. We've actually had certain people that wanted full
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: work from home, which we don't do so it is
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: something that I believe companies need to do, they need
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: to pay attention to that. I think our offices are
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: in Newark, newt so hybrid is pretty appealing and I
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: do think it's a differentiator, or maybe it's not even
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: a differentiator. It might just be table stakes.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Right Amongst the big banks, a lot of them have
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: been gone back to JP Morgan, Chase, Goldman, Sachs, mongst On.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: A lot of these have gone back to five days
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: in the office, and there's been some pushback, not so
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: much from the young twenty somethings who really need to
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: be immersed, but the slightly older generation late twenties, early thirties,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: who really know how to work remote right.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: I believe it's important for the younger generation because you
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: want that mentoring. You want to be able to again
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: run into people in the halls, get to know them,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: get to understand what they do, and I do think
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: that's important. I think flexibility is also important to many
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Many have either young kids at home, or they have
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: ailing parents, or they have hobbies, or they just have
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: wellness goals. So getting that balance right can be tricky.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: But this is again why I think the three days
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: is a good balance. It's a nice way to solve
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: for our employees' needs but also get the work done
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and build a culture. Building a culture. We haven't talked
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: much about that, but one of the first things that
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: I did when I took over as CEO was work
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: with the employees to reset our values and then not
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: only reset them, but then drive them home and live
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: by them and make changes based on them. And I
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: think that building that culture it's very, very difficult to
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: do if you're in a fully worked from home environment.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: You know that makes that makes a lot of sense.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Last quote of yours. You've talked a lot about leadership
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: and diversity, especially when it comes to women in finance.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about your thoughts about the
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: best strategies for leading an industry that's spent so many
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: decades as a male dominated bastion.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Again, it's lean into those softer skills. I think it's
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: a trifecta of opportunity right now for women. So you
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: have companies and boards that are trying to increase their
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: diversity stats, so they're more open to women in senior
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: leadership positions. The hybrid work environment makes it easier for
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: women that are balancing multiple, multiple different chores and responsibilities,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: and then you have the benefit of women having these
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: softer skills that work in this new tech, tech enabled environment.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: So I think it's a great opportunity for women going forward.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I think the issue really is the pipeline. And one
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: of the things that I'm passionate about, and we're doing
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: a lot with at pGEM quant is we're going out
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: and doing community work. We're reaching out into the newer community,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: and we're working with kids as young as elementary school kids,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: so we're getting them interested in asset management. We're doing
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: things like shark Tank and job fares and things like
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: that that are kind of mock job fares, and it's
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: just been really rewarding for us because we have to
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: start at such a young age. So these women and
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: other diverse populations will continue to have an interest in
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: asset management.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: You're playing a long game. You're planning seeds ten fifteen
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: years in advance. Because none of this is going to
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: pay off for a long time.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: We need to be patient as we invest for the
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: long term. We need to be patient, but not complacent.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Not complacent. So let's jump to our favorite questions that
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: we ask all of our guests starting with Hey, what
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: kept you entertained during the lockdown? What are you streaming
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: these days?
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Gosh meaning streaming on television?
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Sure, television, podcast doesn't matter what whatever audio video is
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: entertaining you.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: So like documentaries, So what I was looking or watching
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: this weekend was fantastic Fungi, which I highly recommend. This
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: is all about the medicinal and healing properties of mushrooms.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: If one has ailing parents or is having health issues,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: I highly encourage you to tune in. But it is
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: also a beautifully beautifully filmed documentary. I also live on
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: the Cape, so I had to you know, the shark
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: population is booming, so I had to watch After the Bite,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: which is all about the shark population on Cape Cod.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: But other than that, as far as sort of more mainstream,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I did like Ted Lasso very much. It was entertaining.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: You always got a good tidbit of knowledge, Like being
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: an authentic leader, you know, lean into your insecurities. I
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: never turned that off about picking up some little tidbit
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: of information. As far as podcasts, I get most of
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: my new use by email feeds, so I tend to
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: do that more as a hobby so I do. I'm
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: very interested right now in longevity and health. So I
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: listened to something called the Cabral Concept by doctor Stephen Cabral,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: which talks about all sorts of things. One of the
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: things I was looking into was an infrared sana and
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: a cold plunge. So my husband and I just recently
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: purchased both of those things.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: I have a buddy who is crazy into the cold
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: plunge and whatever that breathing technique is that you need
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: to do, and I committed to doing a cold plunge
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: next summer, so we'll see how that goes. I'm in
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: the ocean every Memorial Day weekend. Wow, that's my cold
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: plunge because that's like, you know, sixty degrees, but what
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: these guys are talking about is high thirties, low forties,
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: really really cool.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, ours is forty nine degrees and it's cold. It
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: takes about a minute and thirty seconds to numb up.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: So that's an interesting podcast. Asked for me, I do
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: tune into this other podcast. It's called Your CEO Mentor.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: It's by the author of no book Leadership, and this
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: individual's name's Martin Moore, and I totally skipped your conversation,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: your question about the AMP program, which is an advanced
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: management program. It's an elite executive education program. But he
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: was a buddy of mine at the a MP and
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: he wrote a book on leadership. He was the CEO
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: of a company and he wrote a book called No
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Book Leadership, and I of course read it out of
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: courtesy because I don't normally get a lot, frankly out
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: of leadership books. It's very intuitive to me. But I
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: got quite a few nuggets of information from this book.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: And he's just very entertaining and so I tuned into
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: his podcasts frequently and I get little tidbits like it's
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: about respect not popularity, it's about excellence not perfection, different
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: things like that. It's just interesting and he's Australian, so
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: he's really interesting to listen to.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned mentors, that's my next question. Who are
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: your mentors who helped guide your career.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: I have one mentor. She was the lawyer that hired
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: me for that job out of college. Her name is
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Molly Muggler and she worked with me my entire career,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: her entire career. She's now retired, so she hired me.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: I then became general counsel, I moved to old mutual,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: I brought her with me. And what was amazing about
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: her is she believed in me before I did. She
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: had such confidence and vision for me and my future,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: and she kept referring to herself as my sticky asset
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: that she'd stay with me, but wasn't. What was inspiring
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: about her is she's so intelligent, and she's such an
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: accomplished lawyer. But at the same time she was militant
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: about balancing her personal life and her professional life. She
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: prioritized watercolor, painting and tennis equally with her job as
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: a general counsel of a big firm. So to this day,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: I am still connected with her, and I'm still constantly
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: inspired by her.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: That's interesting. Let's talk about books. What are some of
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: your favorites. What are you reading right now?
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: My nightstand is a bit eclectic right now. So I
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: have again another book on longevity called out Living, which
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: has again to do with health and longevity. I have
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: the rain Barrel Effect, which is again about what you
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: put into your body and how it affects again your
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: health and longevity. But the real chakra on there is
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: I believe it's called the Modern Textbook of Astrology. During COVID,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: I started thinking a lot about astrological charts and I
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: found them fascinating and they are tied a lot to
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: math and science, and they're very, very technical. And I
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: had my chart read and I said, you know, i'd
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: be interested in learning how to read charts. That doesn't
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: see that hard? He said, oh, trust me, it's hard.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: He gave me the name of three books. He said,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: start reading and then get back to me. I might
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: have to postpone that to retire because it is quite technical.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: It's very math forward, but it's uh, it's still interesting
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: for fun. Recently, I've read The Lincoln Highway. I really liked.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: I loved. I think it's called beneath a Scarlets guy.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: What I like to do? Back when I was a lawyer,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: everybody would say, oh, have you read the most recent,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: you know, fiction book on law, you know Tom Clancy
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And I just don't want to read
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: things that I'm living. So I don't want to read
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: books on investing. I don't want to read books on
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: the law. I want to read books that transport me
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: to another place in time where I can just learn
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: about memoirs of a Geisha. Was you know interesting things
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: like that. Just get out of my own head and
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: think about something different. We do enough as a lawyer.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Think about how much you have to read when you
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: When I read, I want to for fun or for
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: gaining knowledge of something different.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: Huh? Really interesting. Down to our final two questions, what
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: sort of advice would you give to a recent college
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: grad interested in a career in either investment, finance management
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: or law.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: As we've been going through this podcast, I've realized the
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: benefit that my legal profession has had on my management abilities.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: I never quite tied those two things together so much.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: The broad knowledge that you get from being a business
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: lawyer is quite extreme. So depending on what that person's
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: interest in interests are, I would say network, network, Network,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: It's all about talking to people and understanding what they
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: do and understanding what's out there and really building relationships.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: That's really what it's about. That's what it's about in business,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: that's what it's about in dealing with clients, building relationships.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: It's just what it is about life. But it's very
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: hard to make that decision. Again, I fell into my
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: career and I'm pretty fortunate that I've had a lot
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: of opportunities come my way. But I'm not somebody who
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: says you need a goal and you need to follow it,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: because I think if you have blinders on for that
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: one goal, that you're going to miss all of these
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: other opportunities that can lead you in a direction that
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: might be much more fruitful for you.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: Huh. Interesting. And our final question, what do you know
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: about the world of investing today you wish you knew
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: twenty five years or so ago when you were first
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: getting started.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Gosh, that one's more tricky for me. I feel like
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: I was pretty informed back then. But if I can
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: flip it on its head a little bit, maybe I'll
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: answer it as to what advice would I give to
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: those twenty somethings out there now, And I would say,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: understand the benefits of compounding, make sure you invest early,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: make sure you're diverse, and make sure you invest in
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: your four to one K plan, because as much as
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: it feels as though you can't afford that extra hundred
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: dollars or ten dollars or one thousand dollars, it's just
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: so important to start investing early.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not to say the very least that decade twenties
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: to thirties makes a huge difference over forty years.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: Hey Tiz for sure.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Linda, thank you for being so generous with your time.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: We have been speaking with Linda Gibson, CEO of Pigium
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: Quantitative Solutions. If you enjoy this conversation, well, be sure
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: and check out any of the previous five hundred or
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: so we've done over the past nine years. You can
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: find those at iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you find your
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: favorite podcasts. Sign up for my daily reading list at
• 52:46
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• 52:50
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• 52:55
  Speaker 2: I would be remiss if I did not thank the
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: correct team that helps put these conversations together each week.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: Sarah Livesey is my audio engineer. Attika Valbron is my
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: project manager. Anna Luke is my producer. Sean Russo is
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: my researcher. I'm Barry Riddolts. You've been listening to Master's
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: Business on Bloomberg Radio.