The Fiftyfaces Podcast Aoifinn Devitt

Tony Dote, just recently retired from a role of Managing Director at Lazard Asset Management, where he spent over 40 years, focused on business development with a particular focus on large institutional investors including public pension funds. He started his career in insurance and later investment consulting. Our conversation starts with Tony’s upbringing in a large and close Italian family in his native Chicago. We learned about the bonds of family and community that were laid down there and how this later influenced the premium that he places on these features. Tony’s career evolution charts the evolution of the industry – the development of the investment consultant value proposition and the evolution of institutional portfolios beyond stocks and bonds.  Over 40 years a tremendous amount has changed, and this is what Tony considers the only constant in the industry – change. He describes some high points and low points, and the relationships that have been central to his profound success in this area. This episode is supported by PIMCO, a global leader in active fixed income with deep expertise across public and private markets. PIMCO invests their clients’ capital in income and credit opportunities that span the liquidity spectrum, leveraging their decades of experience navigating complex debt markets. Their flexible capital base and deep relationships with issuers have helped them become one of the world’s largest providers of traditional and alternative investment solutions and a valued financing partner. Visit pimco.com to learn more.PIMCO as a general matter provides services to qualified institutions, financial intermediaries and institutional investors. Individual investors should contact their own financial professional to determine the most appropriate investment options for their financial situation. PIMCO is a trademark of Allianz Asset Management of America LLC in the United States and throughout the world.  

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 determination and drive that led her to early internships and a career path with blue chip firms. We move then to what is on her mind as Deputy CIO at a large public pension fund and describe some of the key attributes of that fund and its asset allocation. We discuss the challenges of underfunding and what that means in terms of cash flow focus and asset allocation, and also examine the interplay between the officer and consultant relationships and how they are evolving.We conclude with a discussion of diversity within the profession and the challenges that diverse and emerging managers face and examine the role that public pensions can have in amplifying and assisting these managers grow to their full potential. This episode is supported by PIMCO, a global leader in active fixed income with deep expertise across public and private markets. PIMCO invests their clients’ capital in income and credit opportunities that span the liquidity spectrum, leveraging their decades of experience navigating complex debt markets. Their flexible capital base and deep relationships with issuers have helped them become one of the world’s largest providers of traditional and alternative investment solutions and a valued financing partner. Visit pimco.com to learn more. PIMCO as a general matter provides services to qualified institutions, financial intermediaries and institutional investors. Individual investors should contact their own financial professional to determine the most appropriate investment options for their financial situation. PIMCO is a trademark of Allianz Asset Management of America LLC in the United States and throughout the world.

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 competence.  Some of this came from his original back office experience, and we tie together the skillsets that both front and back office roles require.Pivoting then to discussing the multi-asset approach today, we discuss the individualization of investing – and how imprinting the personality of an institution (or an individual) on their investment portfolio is just a broader societal trend of customizing everything. We discuss the implications of this for portfolio construction, risk and how investment products are delivered. We move then to discuss some of Jai’s many other interests – in particular Jazz, and his musical passion.  We talk about the evolution of this art form, where it sits in society today, and what we can learn from the perfection of a jazz solo. You can read more about the National Jazz Museum in Harlem on their website here: https://jmih.org/This episode is supported by PIMCO, a global leader in active fixed income with deep expertise across public and private markets. PIMCO invests their clients’ capital in income and credit opportunities that span the liquidity spectrum, leveraging their decades of experience navigating complex debt markets. Their flexible capital base and deep relationships with issuers have helped them become one of the world’s largest providers of traditional and alternative investment solutions and a valued financing partner. Visit pimco.com to learn more.PIMCO as a general matter provides services to qualified institutions, financial intermediaries and institutional investors. Individual investors should contact their own financial professional to determine the most appropriate investment options for their financial situation. PIMCO is a trademark of Allianz Asset Management of America LLC in the United States and throughout the world.

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 some setbacks in that for a period she was forced to be less visible and less forward with her own identity and voice. She is now rebuilding this as she moves again into her own practice, and we discuss the book she is writing and publishing soon designed around women and investing and motivated to plug the gap in this area.  This episode is supported by PIMCO, a global leader in active fixed income with deep expertise across public and private markets. PIMCO invests their clients’ capital in income and credit opportunities that span the liquidity spectrum, leveraging their decades of experience navigating complex debt markets. Their flexible capital base and deep relationships with issuers have helped them become one of the world’s largest providers of traditional and alternative investment solutions and a valued financing partner. Visit pimco.com to learn more. PIMCO as a general matter provides services to qualified institutions, financial intermediaries and institutional investors. Individual investors should contact their own financial professional to determine the most appropriate investment options for their financial situation. PIMCO is a trademark of Allianz Asset Management of America LLC in the United States and throughout the world. 

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 role. We share a vignette about the leadership at William Blair – in particular Stephanie Braming – who featured in an earlier podcast in this series in March 2022 - see https://www.fiftyfaceshub.com/129-stephanie-braming-of-william-blair-on-critical-thinking-and-transforming-recruitment/ and the power of engaged and generous leadership and what a gift this can be. We turn then to discussing the challenges of technology today – touching on AI and how this will transform our industry as well as the priorities on her mind in this role.  We end with a reflection on D&I, as well as on the values that have driven Kristina to always be learning and growing throughout her career.  This episode is supported by PIMCO, a global leader in active fixed income with deep expertise across public and private markets. PIMCO invests their clients’ capital in income and credit opportunities that span the liquidity spectrum, leveraging their decades of experience navigating complex debt markets. Their flexible capital base and deep relationships with issuers have helped them become one of the world’s largest providers of traditional and alternative investment solutions and a valued financing partner. Visit pimco.com to learn more.PIMCO as a general matter provides services to qualified institutions, financial intermediaries and institutional investors. Individual investors should contact their own financial professional to determine the most appropriate investment options for their financial situation. PIMCO is a trademark of Allianz Asset Management of America LLC in the United States and throughout the world.

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 Columbia, but thrived once she arrived there and found herself drawn to finance. While her figure skating was replaced by ski racing, she pivoted to finding a career on the shop floor of an investment house. Having started in a sales role that probably was not the best fit, we hear about her retooling and pivot into more investment centric roles and hear about some of the role models who led and inspired her during this time.  She ultimately grew numerous private credit businesses within other hedge funds before developing her own fund, and we discuss this trajectory and some of its ups and downs. Keri is firmly at the coal face in private credit and I ask her about some of the dynamics going on behind the scenes there such as actual defaults and workouts, and we learn a lot that may not make the headlines.Finally we hear about the utmost importance of networking, particularly for women in the profession and we hear about how Keri has personally helped many women to find positions. This episode is supported by PIMCO, a global leader in active fixed income with deep expertise across public and private markets. PIMCO invests their clients’ capital in income and credit opportunities that span the liquidity spectrum, leveraging their decades of experience navigating complex debt markets. Their flexible capital base and deep relationships with issuers have helped them become one of the world’s largest providers of traditional and alternative investment solutions and a valued financing partner. Visit pimco.com to learn more.PIMCO as a general matter provides services to qualified institutions, financial intermediaries and institutional investors. Individual investors should contact their own financial professional to determine the most appropriate investment options for their financial situation. PIMCO is a trademark of Allianz Asset Management of America LLC in the United States and throughout the world.