Capital Allocator‪s‬ Ted Seides

Alex Shahidi and Damien Bisserier are the Co-CIOs and of Evoke Wealth and ARIS Consulting, a $19 billion registered investment advisor they co-founded in 2014.  Alex came at the business from a long tenure advising portfolios at Merrill Lynch, and Damien joined after nine years at Bridgewater.
 
Our conversation covers their respective backgrounds, shared investment philosophy, and strategy of searching for uncorrelated returns across public markets, alpha strategies, and private markets. We discuss the risk parity approach to public markets, incorporating human behavior when calibrating risk, the sweet spot in hedge funds, uncorrelated private equity return streams, and investment process.
 
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Rostin Behnam is the Acting Chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. He was nominated and approved by the prior administration in 2017 to serve as one of five Commissioners of the CFTC and in January, accepted the role as Acting Chairman.
The CFTC has a mission to promote the integrity, resilience, and vibrancy of the U.S. derivatives markets, working towards effective price discovery and risk management in fair and transparent markets. As a part of his role, Russ sponsors the CFTC’s Market Risk Advisory Committee.
Our conversation covers the history, function and process of the CFTC and the Acting Chair’s path to the seat. We then discuss his perspective on crypto assets and dive into an exhaustive policy piece published last fall by his Market Risk Advisory Committee entitled “Managing Climate Risk in the Financial System.” The document is positioned to become the leading regulatory policy manual on financial climate risk for the new administration.
Our conversation took place shortly before Russ rose to Acting Chairman and before the wild market volatility in recent weeks. We touched base about his perspective, but the situation is too fluid for a public response. Acting Chairman Behnam released brief statement about the silver markets that said, “The CFTC is closely monitoring recent activity in the silver markets. The Commission is communicating with fellow regulators, the exchanges, and stakeholders to address any potential threats to the integrity of the derivatives markets for silver, and remains vigilant in surveilling these markets for fraud and manipulation.” Stay tuned, as the subject may well be fodder for another conversation down the road.
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Jennifer Prosek is the founder and CEO of Prosek Partners, a leading international public relations and financial communications consultancy and a popular past guest on the show.  In our first conversation, we discussed branding an asset management firm and many of Jen’s leadership nuggets of wisdom.  That conversation follows on the feed.
 
Our second conversation discusses the evolution of marketing and brand development in asset management and how the pandemic has accelerated trends already in place.  We discuss business development in a virtual world, including building a digital profile, developing a presentation style, handling significant world events, differentiating from others, and nailing the narrative. We end by turning to lessons Jen learned on internal communication and leadership through the health crisis.
 
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Jennifer Prosek is the founder and CEO of Prosek Partners, a leading international public relations and financial communications consultancy with offices in New York, London, Los Angeles and Connecticut. Prosek Partners ranks among the top 10 independent public relations firms in the U.S., and among the top financial communications consultancies.  The firm has been listed as an Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company for nine years running.  Jen is also a two-time author. 
Our conversation covers the foibles of professional marketing in asset management, building a brand, measuring a successful branding effort, managing the story of weak performance, and describing the differences in hedge fund and private equity branding.  We then turn to some of Jen’s fascinating observations learned from her experience, including raising entrepreneurial children, working with millennials and Gen Z staffers, and implementing the principals of ‘Just Ask’, behave with humanity, and not thinking in black and white.
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David Baran and Kazuhiko Shibata are the co-founders of Symphony Financial Partners, a twenty-year old Asia-based manager of $1.3 billion in assets. Symphony focuses on deeply undervalued companies in Japan, with a long-bias, constructive engagement strategy to work closely alongside willing management teams to see intrinsic value reflected in the share price.
 
Our conversation covers their early careers in Japan, the country’s employee first, shareholder last culture, the resulting disconnect of corporate activity and share price, and the formation of Symphony to invest in the few companies willing to close the gap over time. We then walk through their investment process, including the challenges of taking advantage of what appears incredible value on paper, offering friendly advice as a key component of due diligence, conducting research, and structuring portfolios. We close with a discussion of corporate governance and the necessity of a long-term perspective to thrive in Japan.
 
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I am excited to share the first episode of a new podcast called The Decision Education Podcast.  It’s the brainchild of the Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit on whose Advisory Board I serve, whose mission is founded on the belief that better decisions lead to better lives and a better society.
In the first season of the podcast, Dr. Joe Sweeney talks to experts and shares tips on all things related to decision making.  Today’s special episode is Joe’s interview with Michael Mauboussin, entitled Base Rates and Bees.
Please enjoy this introduction to The Decision Education podcast, which you can subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.