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