Speaker 1: This is Master's in Business with very Rid Holds on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. This week on the podcast, another extra special guest,
Speaker 1: Robin Grew, President of man Group one hundred and forty
Speaker 1: five billion dollar publicly traded hedge funds in the UK
Speaker 1: and soon to be Man Groups CEO. This is a
Speaker 1: fascinating conversation about business growth and leadership and management, how
Speaker 1: to run a team, how to recruit and retain the
Speaker 1: best people, and how to use technology as a tool
Speaker 1: to give you an edge not just in investing, but
Speaker 1: in the ability to offer clients various solutions improving your efficiency,
Speaker 1: effectiveness and productivity as a company. I found this to
Speaker 1: just be a fascinating masterclass in running a giant financial organization,
Speaker 1: and I think you will also so with no further ado,
Speaker 1: my conversation with Man Groups incoming CEO, Robin Grew.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Barry.
Speaker 1: I've been looking forward to this for a while and
Speaker 1: when we first booked you you were like a junior analyst.
Speaker 1: Then suddenly in the ensuing weeks you can get tagged
Speaker 1: to be CEO. That has to be a little bit
Speaker 1: of a surreal experience.
Speaker 2: It is nothing short of surreal. This is obviously new
Speaker 2: news for this particular podcast, and it is you hear
Speaker 2: the words that people say, you know, it's an honor
Speaker 2: and it's a privilege, and it sounds a little trite,
Speaker 2: and then you find yourself in one of these rare
Speaker 2: positions where somebody is asking you to take on the
Speaker 2: CEO and I have to tell you I'm mean it
Speaker 2: very authentically. It's an honor and it's a privilege, and
Speaker 2: it is slightly surreal and.
Speaker 1: For a little context, maybe for some of the audience
Speaker 1: in America who may not be that familiar with Man Group.
Speaker 1: This isn't like a startup. This traces its roots back
Speaker 1: to eighteenth century sugar trading. Right, how old is Man Group.
Speaker 2: Well, it's two hundred and forty years old. Put it
Speaker 2: that way, seventeen eighty three, and you're right. It traces
Speaker 2: its way back to sugar trading and at one point
Speaker 2: being the monopolistic supplier of rum to the Royal Navy,
Speaker 2: which and in those days that was important because everybody
Speaker 2: had a ration in the Royal Navy and everybody wanted
Speaker 2: to use it. And it's the journey, isn't it. It's
Speaker 2: the journey of organizations to continue to be relevant. So
Speaker 2: two hundred and forty years ago, it's a conversation I
Speaker 2: have with people, which is, if we didn't keep changing,
Speaker 2: we'd still be making barrels on the side of the
Speaker 2: River Thames and trading sugar and hoping that the Royal
Speaker 2: Navy still needed a lot of rum. So that's not
Speaker 2: where we are today. But the routes are deep and
Speaker 2: now we you know, we're just a shive one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty five billion dollars of assets under management across
Speaker 2: the entire credit curve, trading through US and quant through
Speaker 2: discretionary and private markets, reaching investors all over the world.
Speaker 1: So we're going to spend a little more time delving
Speaker 1: deep into man groups practice. Let's start with your background, sure,
Speaker 1: which doesn't quite go back two hundred and seventy four.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Sam.
Speaker 1: You went to law school. Were the plans to become
Speaker 1: a solicitor or a barrister? That that's not the thought
Speaker 1: process of someone who wants to go into find it.
Speaker 2: You're spot on. I actually qualified as a barrister, which
Speaker 2: is the fun words I went to the bar. People
Speaker 2: use that all the time to describe me, and you're
Speaker 2: right I had thought I was going to be an advocate,
Speaker 2: quite frankly, a barrister, you know, the one with the
Speaker 2: wigs and the gowns that you see on TV. My
Speaker 2: roots were very or reasonably humble. My dad was a
Speaker 2: public GP, you know, in the National Health Service in England,
Speaker 2: and my mum was a public school teacher, and quite frankly,
Speaker 2: I know what financial services was. It was this thing
Speaker 2: that existed somewhere else. And so when I went to
Speaker 2: law school and went to the bar, I had every
Speaker 2: thought that I was just going to be a barrister
Speaker 2: and be another vocational professional in my family.
Speaker 1: When did it enter your mind that hey, this finance
Speaker 1: stuff looks kind of interesting.
Speaker 2: It entered my mind when very early on I found
Speaker 2: myself in a position where I was looking at a
Speaker 2: brief that had come to me, and it was yet
Speaker 2: another sort of sketchy criminal defense, a piece where I
Speaker 2: had to go and interview a client who had been
Speaker 2: arrested because he had been out on bail and escaped bail.
Speaker 2: And I went to a very old magistrates court in
Speaker 2: London at Bow Street. It's very close to Covent Garden
Speaker 2: and very old cells and the doors of these cells
Speaker 2: were built for men, and you, Barry, you have the
Speaker 2: you have the benefit of seeing how short I am
Speaker 2: or talk five five foot nothing, And so I couldn't
Speaker 2: see through the little window. I just couldn't reach it, right,
Speaker 2: I just it wasn't apul So the guards and it
Speaker 2: had to actually stay sort of open the door and
Speaker 2: they had to stand either side of me, and they
Speaker 2: were worried about me because my client was so out
Speaker 2: of his head on whatever it was he had taken
Speaker 2: that they were actually worried for my safety. And I
Speaker 2: went home that night and I went, do you know what,
Speaker 2: I might not want to do this forever. This might
Speaker 2: not be this might not be a good idea. And
Speaker 2: I thought, I know what I'll do. I will go
Speaker 2: into commerce. That's what I thought. I will go into commerce,
Speaker 2: or go into business, and then I will go back
Speaker 2: and I will be a commercial barrister where they don't
Speaker 2: have to get lists into cells and see whether and
Speaker 2: be worried about the safety they have to deal with
Speaker 2: people like me. Now, So that's what the plan was.
Speaker 2: And so it was a plan to get into this space,
Speaker 2: get experienced from being an insider in business, and go back.
Speaker 2: And I got hooked. I just never went back.
Speaker 1: What was the first job in commerce?
Speaker 2: In commerce. So there was an advertisement in the newspaper.
Speaker 2: That's a thing, that's how what I am. There was
Speaker 2: an advertisement in a newspaper for Fidelity, and I thought, well,
Speaker 2: that sounds interesting. They wanted they wanted to have new
Speaker 2: kind of graduates, postgraduate type people to come and do
Speaker 2: a round robin. And that's also expression that that gets
Speaker 2: used with me a lot. And so I applied and
Speaker 2: I sent in a letter and I said, yes, it
Speaker 2: sounds terribly interesting. Can you give me a shot at this?
Speaker 2: And I got invited to this interview thing. And it
Speaker 2: was a thing because I turned up and there are
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty people in a room. It was
Speaker 2: a Cata caul and totally new to me, and I
Speaker 2: had no idea that this is what happened. So I
Speaker 2: just chatted to everybody I met.
Speaker 1: I'm just chatting online while you're waiting to go for
Speaker 1: the interview.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're just you don't know when you're being
Speaker 2: interviewed and when you're not being interviewed. Quite frankly, it
Speaker 2: was one of the come and meet these people, and
Speaker 2: it was I had a great time. I'm a chatty
Speaker 2: kind of individual, and off I went round the room,
Speaker 2: chatted for a couple of hours and then left and
Speaker 2: drove home. And I was rung the next day and
Speaker 2: they said, we really, really would would you like to
Speaker 2: come and join us? And I said, yes, for sure,
Speaker 2: let's do that then, and I bounced around. Yes. I
Speaker 2: did some legal staff and reg staff, but I you know,
Speaker 2: I went in on the weekends when we did the
Speaker 2: stock certificate count and counted share certificates. That it was
Speaker 2: that long ago. I did early tech kind of pieces.
Speaker 2: I manned client call phones, I did everything, and it
Speaker 2: was a bit of a blast. It was this kind
Speaker 2: of thing of being in the center of for delicious
Speaker 2: brokerage arm at that point, not its asset management, it's
Speaker 2: brokerage piece.
Speaker 1: And then this is late eighties or early nineties.
Speaker 2: And then I was exactly and then I was called
Speaker 2: into I was called in ninety one, so in that
Speaker 2: nineties period, and then I was called by and by
Speaker 2: a headhunter, by a recruiter who said, listen, there's this.
Speaker 2: I spent a couple of years at Fidelity. By this time,
Speaker 2: there's a role at this thing called life or Liffy, right,
Speaker 2: And they really need somebody who understands a criminal law.
Speaker 2: And they need it because when they conduct interviews, uh,
Speaker 2: it's undertaken under this Police and Criminal eavendon Xact thing.
Speaker 2: In other words, it's done in a way that whatever
Speaker 2: is said in that interview could be brought as evidence
Speaker 2: in a court. And I said, well, I know, I know,
Speaker 2: I know that bit of it. I've done. I've done
Speaker 2: that bit. And so I turned up to Life.
Speaker 1: What was the commerce of Liffy.
Speaker 2: So it's an exchange, it's an open outcry exchange. In fact,
Speaker 2: at that time the biggest open outcry exchange in Europe
Speaker 2: and we had it was a time when Life was
Speaker 2: biggest in the bund contract.
Speaker 1: So I have to ask why the concern about future
Speaker 1: criminal evidence? That seems sort of at odds.
Speaker 2: I know, right. So what happens is when you work
Speaker 2: in an open outcry environment, there are training practices that
Speaker 2: get investigated. And those training practices are quite they're fun,
Speaker 2: they're interesting, and they're complex because it's all about hand signals.
Speaker 1: Right, and everybody's word is their bond or their gesture.
Speaker 2: Right, And so you're looking at at that point very
Speaker 2: forward thinking videotaped evidence. You've got pit observers, and you
Speaker 2: are trying to piece if there are malpractices or going on.
Speaker 2: You need to piece that all together. And so at
Speaker 2: that point you are you are building a case. You
Speaker 2: are running a market investigations team which is looking at
Speaker 2: ensuring proper conduct. From a regulatory perspective, you are the regulator.
Speaker 2: You are managing the efficacy of those markets and across
Speaker 2: futures and options. And so I went to an interview
Speaker 2: and they said how much do you know about futures
Speaker 2: and options? And I said, not a lot. In fact,
Speaker 2: I said, And there's a chat who I'm still in
Speaker 2: touch with who repeats this at regular interviews. To my embarrassment,
Speaker 2: he says, you said, you know a postage stamp and
Speaker 2: you know really large writing. That's how much I know.
Speaker 2: But I'm a super quick learner, right and for good
Speaker 2: and for bad and for my benefit, they hired me.
Speaker 1: How long did you stay with Liffy Life?
Speaker 2: A couple of years? Just over again. And then I
Speaker 2: got another call. I know, this seems to be a process.
Speaker 2: So I got a call, and this one was ultimately
Speaker 2: from a recruiter who was working for Lehman Brothers, an
Speaker 2: investment bank, a bond.
Speaker 1: House, another one that's a few hundred years old.
Speaker 2: And another one that was a few hundred years old,
Speaker 2: again set set up by you know brothers and all
Speaker 2: the rest of it. So and that was another conversation
Speaker 2: where they were looking for somebody, quite frankly, who had
Speaker 2: some sort of futures options style of experience, because they
Speaker 2: wanted somebody to go and sit on a fixed income floor.
Speaker 1: Right. I wanted to say, the criminal background turned out
Speaker 1: not to hurt you.
Speaker 2: No, thanks for that. We'll talk about that later, you know.
Speaker 2: So the sense of again another opportunity just sort of
Speaker 2: thrown in my way. And as I joined Lehman Brothers,
Speaker 2: it was the first time that Russia had had a
Speaker 2: little bit of a crisis. Andy eight correct, correct spot on.
Speaker 2: And I was thrown at a Okay, we now need
Speaker 2: to know what have we got in Russia, what's our exposure,
Speaker 2: what our legal contracts? How does this work? And I
Speaker 2: was one of many, many people, but talk about landing
Speaker 2: and the rubber hitting the road, And at that point
Speaker 2: Lehman share price had its first sort of crumbs moment,
Speaker 2: and that was fascinating to just be in the inner
Speaker 2: working baptisms of fire I sort of enjoy I shouldn't probably.
Speaker 1: Was a phrase that popped into my head as soon
Speaker 1: as you it is right.
Speaker 2: It was a baptism of fire, and it was something
Speaker 2: which was phenomenal to actually be part of. But for
Speaker 2: the fact that you're living it, does that make sense?
Speaker 2: It's as an academic exercise marvelous. When you're in the
Speaker 2: middle of it, you're kind of so caught in it.
Speaker 2: And I ended up on working on the fixed income
Speaker 2: floors until.
Speaker 1: You're working in London, not in New York.
Speaker 2: Correct, working in London, and again the first time i'd
Speaker 2: worked on the cell side, and that's where I sort
Speaker 2: of feel I had my biggest growth and my growing
Speaker 2: up was in that Lehman Brothers phase. But in part
Speaker 2: because I again benefited from being in the mix. When
Speaker 2: we were the second bank that was raided by the
Speaker 2: Japanese regulators after they'd gone into credit Suee and the
Speaker 2: Japanese regulators were having a tough time with cross collatoralization
Speaker 2: and issues about whether there were balance sheet accounting issues.
Speaker 1: Is this how you ended up living in Tokyo? It
Speaker 1: is how long were you there?
Speaker 2: For so well. For the year of that first year
Speaker 2: of the investigation, I flew back and forth to London.
Speaker 2: This is becoming a theme with me flying back to
Speaker 2: Force London and then after that another two and a
Speaker 2: half years where we actually lived in Japan. Fabulous.
Speaker 1: Tokyo was supposed to be an amazing city.
Speaker 2: It's extraordinary and brilliant, And the things you learn when
Speaker 2: you live overseas, I'm not sure I can never really
Speaker 2: put a value on those experiences, being responsible for a
Speaker 2: region in which you are very much alien, in that
Speaker 2: space where you have to learn cultural cues in the
Speaker 2: ways that you've never had to understand them before, where
Speaker 2: you're navigating different countries and different relationships between those countries,
Speaker 2: which are also tricky. Leman had its headquarters for Asia
Speaker 2: Pack unusually in Tokyo. Most others had a kind of
Speaker 2: a Hong Kong piece or a Singapore piece and then
Speaker 2: ex Japan piece of it. That wasn't how Liman did it.
Speaker 2: So being responsible for Asia Pak was from a Tokyo
Speaker 2: base was brilliant.
Speaker 1: Quite fascinating. So you were very successful at Leman. You
Speaker 1: kind of worked your way up the ranks there. What
Speaker 1: else did you focus on outside of putting out fires
Speaker 1: in Japan.
Speaker 2: Well, after running and building up that sort of that team,
Speaker 2: I hired my successor, by the way, fabulous thing to do.
Speaker 2: I suggest everybody does that, actually, I mean genuinely. We
Speaker 2: can talk about it later, but that ability to hire
Speaker 2: tremendously strong quality people around you is I think being
Speaker 2: a an enormous opportunity and provides you with opportunity, one
Speaker 2: with opportunity to move on and do more. So I
Speaker 2: got a call. I got a call from the US
Speaker 2: who said, hey, how'd your fancy coming to the US,
Speaker 2: And that again was to work at Lehman's headquarters. Fabulous opportunity.
Speaker 2: So if we went from Japan to New York, that
Speaker 2: was a cultural change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, say to say the very least, Lehman was very
Speaker 1: much a hyper aggressive, macho culture. Dick Fold's nickname was
Speaker 1: the Gorilla. What was it like working in that sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, very much bro culture.
Speaker 2: And I'm slightly worried I'm going to disappoint you with
Speaker 2: this answer, but it was fabulous. I had the best time,
Speaker 2: and I never encountered that sense of being overwhelmed by
Speaker 2: a masculine, overtly bullying kind of culture. In fact, some
Speaker 2: of the early work that I did on diversity and
Speaker 2: inclusion was that Lehman in New York and was sponsored
Speaker 2: by people like Joe Gregory, who was just a real
Speaker 2: champion of that that content. So maybe maybe I'm maybe
Speaker 2: I'm thick skinned or something, but the truth of the
Speaker 2: matter is I loved it. I enjoyed it, and I
Speaker 2: think Lehman was I owe a lot to my experiences
Speaker 2: of that organization.
Speaker 1: As much as Lehman spectacularly crashed and burned in the
Speaker 1: financial crisis, everybody I know who worked there really liked it.
Speaker 1: It was a pure meritocracy. Absolutely, They didn't care if
Speaker 1: you made money, it didn't matter, right, And yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a little sharp elbowed. It was a tough place
Speaker 1: to work, but people who came through that said it
Speaker 1: was the best experience professionally of their.
Speaker 2: Lives, absolutely right. And you know, they had a phrase
Speaker 2: which I still use. You know, when you get at
Speaker 2: that point in investment banking, you ended up with those
Speaker 2: loose sights with various things that you're supposed to a
Speaker 2: mousematch with the little banking things whatever. And they had
Speaker 2: one phrase, and I still use it, which is be smart,
Speaker 2: be dumb. And it's kind of a piece you're smart,
Speaker 2: be dumb, be smart, be dumb. And what that really
Speaker 2: translated into was, if you don't understand something that's going on,
Speaker 2: if you're in a meeting, you don't get it. If
Speaker 2: you're outside of a meeting, don't get it, say something.
Speaker 2: Actually ask the question, because you'd be surprised how many
Speaker 2: people can't answer the can't answer the question, by the way,
Speaker 2: but also it's it's okay not to know everything. It's
Speaker 2: the only way you learn. And I still use that.
Speaker 2: I might have it quite I don't have it on
Speaker 2: a loose sight anymore, but I absolutely believe that to
Speaker 2: be the case. If you don't get it, ask a question.
Speaker 2: I'm not supposed to know everything in the room, that's
Speaker 2: not the point, but I would like to understand what's
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 1: Huh. Really really intriguing. So let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the history. For those listening who might not be
Speaker 1: familiar with a MAN group, what is its focus and specialties?
Speaker 1: Who are its clients?
Speaker 2: So Man is a as you said, one hundred and
Speaker 2: near one hundred and forty five billion dollar hedge fund.
Speaker 2: It's there too, and long only it's not just a
Speaker 2: hedge fund. It's not just doing longshore. It's doing long only.
Speaker 2: It's got private markets, it's through the credit curve. It
Speaker 2: has core business engines which are driven via style. So
Speaker 2: we have large quant businesses CTA and equity compt businesses.
Speaker 2: We have a discretionary business what some of you might
Speaker 2: have already been familiar with in GLG. We have a
Speaker 2: private markets business just focused really on real estate and
Speaker 2: that the single family real estate ownership piece and community housing.
Speaker 2: And then we have something called solutions, and the solutions
Speaker 2: piece is the piece where we work with, in effect,
Speaker 2: our institutional clients. We're an institutional client business, but those
Speaker 2: institutional clients are pension funds, they're endowments. They are looking
Speaker 2: after the pensions and the savings of real individuals, the
Speaker 2: individuals that my mum and dad right, the doctors, the teachers,
Speaker 2: the metal workers in Holland, wherever they may be. And
Speaker 2: we partner with those institutions to return value. And that's
Speaker 2: our only goal. When we come in in the morning,
Speaker 2: we think about who the real underlying clients are here
Speaker 2: and how we partner and ensure that we're returning alpha.
Speaker 2: We're an active manager, and that solutions piece is how
Speaker 2: we create bespoke solutions. So we'll take elements or particular
Speaker 2: strategies from each part of our discretionary strategy and match
Speaker 2: it with a quant strategy and return it to clients
Speaker 2: because we understand and we work with them on their portfolio,
Speaker 2: their exposure, what they need to achieve, their risk management,
Speaker 2: to create something that is bespoke for them.
Speaker 1: That's very interesting because the typical fund is this is
Speaker 1: our strategy, take it or leave it right, that's pretty
Speaker 1: much it. You sort of have a one foot in
Speaker 1: the financial planning asset management side and another side in
Speaker 1: actual fund management. What are the advantages of marrying those
Speaker 1: two together?
Speaker 2: I think the reality for me is that more and
Speaker 2: more institutional clients need something in a separate managed account.
Speaker 2: They want something that's bespoke to them and the portfolio
Speaker 2: risk or construction that they need answers to. These are
Speaker 2: long strategic relationships where we are investing time and effort
Speaker 2: in partnership within these institutions to understand what their portfolio
Speaker 2: construction needs to look like, what they want to achieve,
Speaker 2: and then we are part of helping them understand that
Speaker 2: and helping them deliver a solution that we can provide
Speaker 2: to them to address certain issues. So maybe it's the
Speaker 2: combination of strategies. Maybe it's a combination of strategies with
Speaker 2: additional transparency or additional liquidity. Maybe it's leverage. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: a tail protection. Maybe it's an overlay hetch. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: any number of these things. The capability that man has
Speaker 2: to do that is what we have spent time and
Speaker 2: energy and money on and technology on. Let's be clear,
Speaker 2: we talk about tech, and I'm sure we'll cover it later.
Speaker 2: We talk about how we deploy tech, and we think
Speaker 2: about tech within that quant space, but we deploy technology
Speaker 2: throughout the organization to give us scale and capability that
Speaker 2: we use to service our clients.
Speaker 1: So let's stay with that before we get to the
Speaker 1: tech side of it. All the entities you referred to,
Speaker 1: various foundations and institutions and pensions, many of them have
Speaker 1: a future liability, meaning they have an obligation to pay
Speaker 1: out a certain amount of money to a certain class
Speaker 1: of beneficiaries at some point in the future. So when
Speaker 1: you're just gribing bespoke strategies, I'm assuming you're targeting those
Speaker 1: future liabilities for each of those entities.
Speaker 2: It can be that it can be anything that they want.
Speaker 2: In reality, we are much more about understanding client needs.
Speaker 2: And remember they have, as you know, vast portfolios trillions
Speaker 2: of dollars that they're putting to work. We're part of that,
Speaker 2: and doing absent understanding what they're trying to achieve is
Speaker 2: less efficient potentially for them. So let me give you
Speaker 2: an example of what I mean by this. I was
Speaker 2: speaking to a couple of clients in the last couple
Speaker 2: of days and they were talking to me and they said, listen,
Speaker 2: what we really would like to do is sit down
Speaker 2: with you, and that there are two or three areas.
Speaker 2: And I was like, terrific, What do you want to
Speaker 2: talk about? And they said, well, first of all, we'd
Speaker 2: like to understand data and how you manage data and
Speaker 2: how you manage your technology in that. I said great.
Speaker 2: And then they said, and then the second thing is,
Speaker 2: we'd really like your help in understanding our portfolio construction
Speaker 2: and whether what we think it's doing is what it's doing,
Speaker 2: or whether we've got correlation where we didn't think we'd
Speaker 2: have correlation, or how we're positioned. And we said, sure,
Speaker 2: we've got tools that can help you do that. And
Speaker 2: then the third thing they said, I really want to
Speaker 2: talk to you about how you're achieving diversity and equity
Speaker 2: and inclusion.
Speaker 1: Realized that comes up.
Speaker 2: And so I was like, Okay, we can talk to
Speaker 2: you about that too. The point is it's not just
Speaker 2: about delivering a fund. Here's a product, let me flog
Speaker 2: it to you. It's about a much deeper relationship for us,
Speaker 2: and it's about delivering all of the firm, not just
Speaker 2: part of the firm. And that is important to us
Speaker 2: because I think we do a better job. And by
Speaker 2: the way, I'll put this in there as well, we
Speaker 2: believe in making our you know, our clients smarter and
Speaker 2: better because they make us smarter and better in return.
Speaker 2: There's a there's an interesting piece. I was on a
Speaker 2: podcast listening to Frandly bol it's actually the other day,
Speaker 2: and she was talking about the massive loss we had
Speaker 2: in the eighties with the aid crisis of artists. But
Speaker 2: she made this really great point, which is it wasn't
Speaker 2: just the artist we lost it. We lost the audience.
Speaker 2: We lost the discerning audience in that process too. And
Speaker 2: it resonated with a bit me about how we think
Speaker 2: about man. We want our clients to be smarter and
Speaker 2: better and equipped with what we can give them because
Speaker 2: they hold us as we hold ourselves accountable. They're the
Speaker 2: better audience that makes the better performance.
Speaker 1: Really really quite interesting. So we'll circle back to diversity
Speaker 1: inclusion ESG a little later. Let's stay with technology for
Speaker 1: a minute. How is man deploying new technologies? What are
Speaker 1: you using in your quant work, your trading and how
Speaker 1: does this infiltrate the entire organization?
Speaker 2: Well, it's a cinema and let me say, you know,
Speaker 2: we view technology and the adoption of AI technology as
Speaker 2: a fundamental part of innovation, and it's useful across our
Speaker 2: entire organization in the investment process but also through trading
Speaker 2: and execution. It's used at every single juncture. We're constantly
Speaker 2: looking to align the latest technology and latest techniques with
Speaker 2: our underlying investment philosophies, not the other way around. Does
Speaker 2: that make sense? So it's one are the tools that
Speaker 2: make us better at delivering what we do. New technologies
Speaker 2: are on a replacement for me, they're rather a compliment
Speaker 2: to what we are trying to achieve, and we're never
Speaker 2: going to be reliant on one technology. This space is
Speaker 2: moving so quickly. It's about adopting the new, finding its application,
Speaker 2: seeing whether we can gain alpha from it, whether it
Speaker 2: makes a smarter whether it allows us to commodifize something
Speaker 2: which reduces costs, whatever it may be, and making that happen.
Speaker 2: I think AI can do much more, for example, than
Speaker 2: just automate. It's innovative, it can increase productivity. We use
Speaker 2: it as part of our processing of data, of large data,
Speaker 2: of looking at our models, at looking portfolio construction. We
Speaker 2: have used it for example for ESG prediction metrics. Let's
Speaker 2: look about whether where we see weather cycles, we look
Speaker 2: at it. And we use it in neuro linguistic programming
Speaker 2: to look to make sense of sentiment in and your
Speaker 2: reporting for example. So so many different applications by nature.
Speaker 2: As you know, Barry, we are an open source space.
Speaker 2: We love it. Our developers love it. I mean, I
Speaker 2: wish I was as smart as a developer, but our
Speaker 2: developers love open source. It makes them better. When you
Speaker 2: look at GitHub, which is one of these mechanisms which
Speaker 2: I'm sure most people know. I think we're number two
Speaker 2: on GitHub. But it's this sense of open source technology
Speaker 2: where we use it as much as we can within
Speaker 2: the organization, but we're always interested in what else is
Speaker 2: out there, so we're not frightened by tech development. We
Speaker 2: want to use it, but we don't depart from philosophically
Speaker 2: where we start and what we need it for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's been a little bit of a backlash against
Speaker 1: things like various AI and chat bots and etc. To me,
Speaker 1: it's always been a tool. All this technology is a
Speaker 1: tool that makes people more productive, more effective, more efficient.
Speaker 1: I've never thought, hey, chat GBT is going to put
Speaker 1: all of us out of business. It's something that can
Speaker 1: be used to the betterment of our work product, and
Speaker 1: it sounds like that's integral to Man's philosophy.
Speaker 2: Kind of agree. Chat GPT is clearly the greatest disruptor
Speaker 2: we've had in the last year. It's been It's been
Speaker 2: given some really quite momentous bylines as well, but it's
Speaker 2: certainly a massive disruptor from my perspective. If you think
Speaker 2: about it negatively, you're missing the mark, right.
Speaker 1: It's it's sure it hallucinates occasionally.
Speaker 2: But but but well, I was going to say something,
Speaker 2: who doesn't, No, that's not true. It's it's but it's
Speaker 2: also not going to be the first or the last
Speaker 2: piece of AI technology. This isn't a well we've got
Speaker 2: chat GPT and now therefore with data that's not going
Speaker 2: to happen. And this this sort of semi hysterical fear
Speaker 2: of it, I think is all wrong. There is there
Speaker 2: are undoubtedly going to be benefits for us being able
Speaker 2: to use technology to capture large data sources. Look at
Speaker 2: what we've done. And you know, I'm talking to a
Speaker 2: man at Bloomberg, so you will know this. But we
Speaker 2: talked about open architecture a minute ago, and look at
Speaker 2: what we've done with this Arctic dB. So this is
Speaker 2: a piece of technology. We've developed a man group which
Speaker 2: in effect is a super charge database. You know, it's
Speaker 2: able to process large chunks of data which we're all
Speaker 2: trying to deal with in a much more fashion and
Speaker 2: effective way. We actually open sourced it back in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: It's first version. But in one of those moments where
Speaker 2: you've got to be carefully or not drinking your own
Speaker 2: cool aid of a bit and we talk about tech
Speaker 2: all the time, we went to Bloomberg and we said, listen,
Speaker 2: we've got this cool piece of kit. Would you like
Speaker 2: to take a look at it? And we came to
Speaker 2: Bloomberg because if there's one place that has a phenomenal
Speaker 2: tech space and a qatrillion developers and all the rest
Speaker 2: of it, it's Bloomberg. So we came here and we
Speaker 2: were testing ourselves back to that audience thing, show me
Speaker 2: how whether we can be better at this, and show
Speaker 2: me whether we've kidded ourselves. Is this really? Is this
Speaker 2: really the thing? And after months and months, it now
Speaker 2: in the hands of Bloomberg and it's been endorsed us
Speaker 2: that as a program that is in the mix and
Speaker 2: is part of the Bloomberg offering in that space. So
Speaker 2: we checked our audience. We worked out with a wind
Speaker 2: drink in the kool aid. But it shows you the
Speaker 2: sort of the way that we think about tech and
Speaker 2: how we think about it as something that makes us
Speaker 2: all better. But I will be super clear, it's only
Speaker 2: part of what we have. We have a million models,
Speaker 2: we have our own technology, we have our own philosophical
Speaker 2: investment ideas within each of our engines, and we use
Speaker 2: tech to make us better at that.
Speaker 1: Huh. That sounds quite fascinating. Let's discuss the major divisions
Speaker 1: that at Man Group. I want to try and wrap
Speaker 1: my arms around. First, what is man AHL.
Speaker 2: Okay, so think of we have two let me do
Speaker 2: it in a slightly different way. We have two cont engines.
Speaker 2: One is Numerican, one is AHL CTA Macro big trading hubin.
Speaker 1: When I hear CTA, I think kamal is that.
Speaker 2: Was where it was originally coming from. But it's much
Speaker 2: more than that. And then equities rus Premia long only
Speaker 2: piece in Numeric which is also quant GELG. Third engine
Speaker 2: discretionary human beings people like you and me. And by
Speaker 2: the way, the way I started at the firm was
Speaker 2: through Georg. That was an acquisition, which is something that
Speaker 2: we know is part and parcel of how Man has
Speaker 2: grown over the years. So Georg discretionary portfolio management. Then
Speaker 2: you have what is FRM MSL. So that's that solutions
Speaker 2: piece we talked about earlier. Although FRM was and you've
Speaker 2: spoken to Luke before, so the fund funds business, which
Speaker 2: was also an acquisition, but that's rolled in solution as well.
Speaker 2: And we have still got a fund of funds business
Speaker 2: where people might have thought in the past that that
Speaker 2: was a dying part, not so much. People need some
Speaker 2: help when it comes to selection. Also of managers. That
Speaker 2: are out there, and that's still something that we are
Speaker 2: part and part love. And then the fifth piece is
Speaker 2: that private market space where we have that real estate
Speaker 2: piece that we talked about earlier, and we within each
Speaker 2: of those engines, we also have credit offerings as part
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 1: Huh really quite fascinating. So let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about your approach to leadership. You've managed to distinguish yourself
Speaker 1: in a very competitive field. Tell us how.
Speaker 2: Here's the answer. Everyone, It's not true, I tell you
Speaker 2: in perhaps this is a way of thinking about it.
Speaker 2: What I have done, perhaps is the better way of
Speaker 2: saying who I and how I distinguish myself. What I've
Speaker 2: done is taken every single opportunity that has come my way.
Speaker 1: And I so no master plan. This just you just
Speaker 1: stumbled blindly from one gig to the next.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the perfect way of summing it up.
Speaker 2: The way of summing it up is this. If you'd
Speaker 2: have asked me twenty five years ago, do you think
Speaker 2: you'll be the CEO of an investment management company? I laughed, right,
Speaker 2: I would have done. I didn't have a grand master plan.
Speaker 2: What I did have was a somewhat insatiable desire to
Speaker 2: learn and have some fun doing so that. I loved
Speaker 2: being a fixer. I loved being put on planes or
Speaker 2: being sent into areas to solve things. I have innately
Speaker 2: hired people around me and built teams of highly credible
Speaker 2: quality people who I have empowered and who I have
Speaker 2: loved to partner in achieving whatever it was that we
Speaker 2: needed to achieve, better, faster, smarter than before. And that
Speaker 2: empowerment piece is huge. The ability to not have to
Speaker 2: be the fact in a different way, if I am
Speaker 2: the smartest person.
Speaker 1: In the room, you've done something wrong.
Speaker 2: I worry. I mean, that's not okay. So on that
Speaker 2: basis leadership style, hire brilliant people, Put great minds around you,
Speaker 2: Put people around you who are willing to disagree with you,
Speaker 2: or better still, stop you careering off a cliff if
Speaker 2: you're heading in the wrong direction way. I can't tell
Speaker 2: you how many times that that is just as important
Speaker 2: of the sort of the rugby tackle to your knees bit,
Speaker 2: if you've suddenly got yourself into a frame of this
Speaker 2: is where we're going. And I have enormously benefited from
Speaker 2: that style of management, which is inclusive. It's about delegation,
Speaker 2: and it's about empowering people to sometimes be really horrible.
Speaker 1: So let's stick with the delegation and the empowerment because
Speaker 1: those are key themes. You don't sound like you're a
Speaker 1: micro manager. You sound like you tell people this is
Speaker 1: what we want you to do, tell us what you
Speaker 1: need to get it done, and now go do it.
Speaker 2: That's our job as great leaders. And I mean that
Speaker 2: sounded arrogant. I don't mean that I'm just anyone any leaders.
Speaker 2: I think any great leader, any capable leader. Maybe that's
Speaker 2: a better way of framing you, any capable leader. That's
Speaker 2: one of the hallmarks. It feels to me high great
Speaker 2: people empower them if they can't deliver. If you've got
Speaker 2: the wrong person, change the person, don't micromanage, don't find
Speaker 2: the fix in making it. You do the job or
Speaker 2: somebody else. Swap swap, that's right, And so that has
Speaker 2: always been away. I also find that really smart people
Speaker 2: want that they want to be given the keys. They
Speaker 2: want to run these things. And the smartest people know
Speaker 2: when they don't know. The most frightening person is the
Speaker 2: person who doesn't know. They don't know. The best person
Speaker 2: who works for you is the one who goes, yet
Speaker 2: don't know the answer this, leave it with me, or
Speaker 2: we've got to find the best solution here, not the
Speaker 2: perfect solution here. You've got to be able to move dynamically.
Speaker 2: You have to be able to think, You have to
Speaker 2: be able to find solutions and be execution driven. If
Speaker 2: you're working with me.
Speaker 1: So you clearly have great insights and leadership skills. But
Speaker 1: you've said you're a surprise that you got named CEO
Speaker 1: of this large financial firm. Why the surprise?
Speaker 2: I was well, And by the way, I'm.
Speaker 1: Calling you out for a little false humility here, defend yourself.
Speaker 2: Defend excellent. Here, I go on, goes the barrass again. Parised,
Speaker 2: we can count Let me say I think there are
Speaker 2: tremendously strong people. We have a great bench of senior
Speaker 2: management at Man Group. It is a bit of a
Speaker 2: privilege and it sounds a bit trite, just happens to
Speaker 2: be true that we have a phenomenal bench of high
Speaker 2: quality people. I don't want to assume, and didn't want
Speaker 2: to assume that I'd be named the CEO. I am thrilled.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you that I am going to be
Speaker 2: the CEO from the first of September, but that there
Speaker 2: are so many capable individuals that it doesn't do you
Speaker 2: any harm to step back and recognize the skills and
Speaker 2: the qualities of those people who you have worked with
Speaker 2: and who you want to work with going forward. So
Speaker 2: that that has been something that I think has held
Speaker 2: me in good stead actually to have perspective and to
Speaker 2: keep my feet very firmly grounded. I think what perhaps
Speaker 2: surprised me in reality, and yet it shouldn't have done,
Speaker 2: was the press coverage that the announcement garnered.
Speaker 1: Meaning I don't want to put words in your mouth,
Speaker 1: but I've read everything you've written. You would genuinely surprised
Speaker 1: people focused on you as a woman taking the CEO.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is still a pretty especially in finance. Look,
Speaker 1: there isn't gender parody in business generally, and finance lags business,
Speaker 1: and hedge funds lag finance. So why so surprised?
Speaker 2: Well, that's the point. I think this is where I
Speaker 2: call myself out and say, why, you know, you kind
Speaker 2: of go, yeah, well, obviously, when you put it like that,
Speaker 2: I think perhaps I was so focused on the job.
Speaker 2: I was so focused on this being something that I
Speaker 2: looked at internally rather than I perhaps focused on the
Speaker 2: external ramification or impact of it, and it's humbling when
Speaker 2: that happens. And it's been heartening and in some ways
Speaker 2: overwhelming and brilliant all at the same time. And of
Speaker 2: course you get one gets a thousand emails and a
Speaker 2: thousand messages and all of those things, and some of
Speaker 2: the most touching are those from people who are really
Speaker 2: just saying, do you know, thanks, thank you, Robin, but
Speaker 2: thank you man for breaking that, for giving us somebody
Speaker 2: who is underrepresented. And it means that we all think
Speaker 2: we now you've got you're one more people, one more person.
Speaker 2: Sorry too. That's broken through that barrier, whatever that barrier
Speaker 2: may look like. And that was that was touching. I
Speaker 2: have to say.
Speaker 1: It's also when you're on the inside, you see the
Speaker 1: changes that others won't see manifest for years or decades,
Speaker 1: so you're aware that things might be a little better
Speaker 1: than they appear from the outside. So maybe there's a
Speaker 1: little surprise there. I have to mention at this point
Speaker 1: that by the time you become CEO on September first,
Speaker 1: the chairman replacing John Cryon will be Anne Wade. You'll
Speaker 1: be not only led by women, the firm will be
Speaker 1: led by two women. There's nothing like that in the
Speaker 1: hedge fund universe at all.
Speaker 2: It's phenomenal and and is a superstar. I'm very, very
Speaker 2: lucky to also work with a board. We're very lucky
Speaker 2: to work with a board at Man that is brilliant
Speaker 2: and engaged and highly qualified, and that with Anne has
Speaker 2: been again the master of transition, the master of how
Speaker 2: we think about succession at Man has been very deep
Speaker 2: in the way that the board has thought about the
Speaker 2: succession of the chair has also been a very very
Speaker 2: in depth assessment and analysis by happenstance. We are in
Speaker 2: this position with Anne and myself. I've got to tell
Speaker 2: you it's going to be brilliant. But it's not because
Speaker 2: we're women. It's because we're the best people to take
Speaker 2: these roles.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the best people. The firm is
Speaker 1: one forty four point seven billion in assets. Let's round
Speaker 1: it up to one forty five. As much as my
Speaker 1: compliance people hate when I do that, how do you
Speaker 1: guys plan on growing the assets? Do you have any
Speaker 1: targets in mind? Do you want to get to two
Speaker 1: hundred billion? Is it a trillion dollar firm? A decade
Speaker 1: from now, what are you thinking about?
Speaker 2: And it's a great question, it's also an early question.
Speaker 2: Let's be clear. So I'm going to phaps not give
Speaker 2: you the satisfactory answer you want. Nevertheless, you'd expect me
Speaker 2: to do exactly what I'm just about to do. The
Speaker 2: firm is brilliant. I mean, it has a cracking core
Speaker 2: business and my number one job, apart from anything, is
Speaker 2: not to break that because that is value and it's
Speaker 2: real and it will continue to grow. We will continue
Speaker 2: to see the value of technology, and we have thirty
Speaker 2: five years, forty years of quant and data and tech
Speaker 2: behind us, and we will continue to invest in that space.
Speaker 2: We will continue to look for opportunities in an M
Speaker 2: and A format. We've made it very clear to the market.
Speaker 2: Can't guess what they're going to be. Couldn't tell you
Speaker 2: if I did know, But I can't guess what that's
Speaker 2: going to be. What I will tell you is it
Speaker 2: will be additive. It will be additive for our clients. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: this is about having deeper and better client offerings. It's
Speaker 2: that piece about the solutions that we talked about earlier.
Speaker 2: How do I ensure that I've got each of the
Speaker 2: components that can provide made a better offering for our
Speaker 2: institutional clients, and we'll grow that us massively important to
Speaker 2: US deep capital market. You'll absolutely see us putting effort
Speaker 2: and time into building our presence here too.
Speaker 1: Looking forward to that, tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: your background in environmental, social and governance based investing.
Speaker 2: It certainly has become a little bit controversial here, but yes,
Speaker 2: let me talk. Let me talk about our background. In
Speaker 2: the early two thousands we had our first sort of
Speaker 2: involvement in creating and thinking about climate and signing up
Speaker 2: to various supplies of information when it came to climate data.
Speaker 2: But really, let's be clear, it's ESG as a concept
Speaker 2: has really hotted up. If I'm allowed to use that
Speaker 2: force with ESG in the last pun intended, maybe a
Speaker 2: tiny pun intended in the last five years or so,
Speaker 2: where you've seen the massive change in the European regulatory environment,
Speaker 2: where you have these Article eight and Article nine funds,
Speaker 2: which are responsible investing funds. You know they have to
Speaker 2: have a certain percentage of responsible investing investments within them.
Speaker 2: That can differ between Article nine and Artical eight. Where
Speaker 2: we've moved away from exclusion this where things are becoming
Speaker 2: more complex and where data points are becoming more interesting
Speaker 2: to drive investment decisions. We have certainly seen an uptick
Speaker 2: of investment interest in ORI in Europe. You know, there's
Speaker 2: almost a point where you can't have a conversation with
Speaker 2: somebody in Europe with a client without there being an
Speaker 2: RI piece.
Speaker 1: To it, meaning responsible investing in.
Speaker 2: My apologies and so ESGRI interchangeable in this space. But
Speaker 2: a comment I would say more generally is since when
Speaker 2: didn't we take into account governance and risk in investment
Speaker 2: decision making? That's the bit that I find quite in
Speaker 2: interesting here. So when I answer your question, I answered
Speaker 2: it in the format of what you're really asking me,
Speaker 2: which is the ESG kind of concept. But actually, when
Speaker 2: you extract governance and you say do we look at
Speaker 2: good governance of issuers? Who doesn't?
Speaker 1: It's a risk screen.
Speaker 2: If anything, it's a risk screen. And so the way
Speaker 2: that we think about ESG at Man is not as
Speaker 2: an evangelical point where I soapbox you into saying what
Speaker 2: is right and wrong. That's not what we're here to do.
Speaker 2: We're here as as product providers, solution providers to our
Speaker 2: clients and So if a client comes to us and says,
Speaker 2: I want to have a portfolio which has which reduces
Speaker 2: its carbon impact, if I want to look at biodiversity,
Speaker 2: if I want to invest in and this has not happened,
Speaker 2: by the way, but you know it only boards which
Speaker 2: I only want to invest in publicly listed companies where
Speaker 2: fifty percent of the boards are made up of diverse
Speaker 2: candidates doesn't happen. But these criters, that's where we are
Speaker 2: placed now. The difference that Man has is that what
Speaker 2: is happening is there is a chunk of data out
Speaker 2: there that is wholly inconsistent, highly complex, multiply sourced, and
Speaker 2: downright contradictory. And what we can do with that is
Speaker 2: apply that thirty five forty years of data science, quant
Speaker 2: and tech capability. I can throw five hundred people at
Speaker 2: that if I want to. We don't need to understand
Speaker 2: what the signals are in that space. But it isn't
Speaker 2: that everything we do at Man Group is now has
Speaker 2: to be ESG. It's what a clients want, and we
Speaker 2: certainly have clients who will only want something that is
Speaker 2: responsibly invested in some format, and we have a lot
Speaker 2: of clients who don't.
Speaker 1: So when you say that data is contradictory, there's been
Speaker 1: some studies that have shown that ESG doesn't generate any
Speaker 1: form of alpha rautperformance very often tied to how well
Speaker 1: oil companies are doing, because if you pull those out,
Speaker 1: it's a major component. And there's others that say, we
Speaker 1: mentioned the risk component. Hey, if you have a lot
Speaker 1: of companies with bad governance, they have a disconcerting tendency
Speaker 1: to blow up and crash. How do you reconcile these
Speaker 1: different data points or is it all in the framing
Speaker 1: and the definition of what ESG is or what diversity
Speaker 1: and inclusions?
Speaker 2: Great question, Barry. I think what you are pulling out
Speaker 2: there is the complexity of the question alone the answer.
Speaker 2: So fundamentally, yes, it has something to do with strategy.
Speaker 2: If you were in a growth strategy last year that
Speaker 2: had DSG, didn't matter, didn't matter if right, So some
Speaker 2: of this is also about extracting the ESG factor, not
Speaker 2: just understand and understanding it as against the strategy that
Speaker 2: DSG was attached to. Absolutely, you're finding if you're in
Speaker 2: a you're a hydroelectric company and where your hydroelectric base
Speaker 2: is now suffering from drought every year. If you are
Speaker 2: a wind company and wind patterns for the last few
Speaker 2: years have been off considerably. These are climate change, but
Speaker 2: they take into account effectively the effectiveness of your business. Now,
Speaker 2: so how do you how do you extract the various
Speaker 2: points of that to make it a decent a decent thesis.
Speaker 2: And the argument is, what is it you want to
Speaker 2: achieve as a client, what are you after? And are
Speaker 2: you willing and some points of this, And this is
Speaker 2: the discussion out there that happens with some clients. Is
Speaker 2: is it all about P and L, is it about
Speaker 2: alpha capture? Or is there a willingness here to actually say, actually,
Speaker 2: I'm more interested in I want P and L, I
Speaker 2: want alpha capture, and I actually want social impact or
Speaker 2: I want climate impact or I want decarbonization. The other
Speaker 2: piece of this is there are absolute strategies which are
Speaker 2: about transition, and transition is about recognizing the journey between
Speaker 2: where we are today in carbon and greenhouse gas versus
Speaker 2: where a company might be going. So you will have
Speaker 2: and we have had clients who so I'm interested in
Speaker 2: I still want to look at oil and gas and
Speaker 2: fossil fuels, but I'm interested in the transition I'm interested
Speaker 2: in who is really putting money to work to transition
Speaker 2: from those fossil fossil fuels into renewables, for example. So
Speaker 2: a complex question which then begets unfortunately a complex answer.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about diversity and inclusion. How
Speaker 1: do you think about that as a manager, and then
Speaker 1: how do you think about that as an investor?
Speaker 2: We turn a mirror on ourselves, Let's be clear. You
Speaker 2: know that's important. We continue to put every effort into
Speaker 2: seeking and having different in our organization, I mean real
Speaker 2: difference as well. I think this piece about I'm not
Speaker 2: really interested in the person who is different on the
Speaker 2: outside but actually went through all the same educational processes
Speaker 2: in the same training. I think we need difference in.
Speaker 1: The right the way. That's it's funny you mentioned that,
Speaker 1: But there was just a study recently, and I don't
Speaker 1: remember if it was the Times or Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg that had the story. The vast majority of
Speaker 1: economists working in finance went to the same six grad schools.
Speaker 1: So what does it matter how they look. It's the
Speaker 1: same widget coming out of the same factory.
Speaker 2: And we've got to get comfortable as well. Let's be
Speaker 2: clear we have to be comfortable with discomfort if you
Speaker 2: want real diversity.
Speaker 1: Again, comfortable with discomfort.
Speaker 2: Comfortable with discomfort. When you're in a room and you
Speaker 2: can connect over your whatever it may be, It doesn't
Speaker 2: really matter what your connection is, your school or your
Speaker 2: experience in life, where you your football teams. By that,
Speaker 2: I meant soccer, soccer anyways, that thing. That's what we
Speaker 2: do as human beings. As human beings, we try to
Speaker 2: connect with each other. That is how we smooth the conversations,
Speaker 2: how we move things forward. Actually, when you have real
Speaker 2: difference in the room, it feels a little kind of uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: It feels a little bit jarring from time. Well, what
Speaker 2: do you mean you don't understand that, you don't get that,
Speaker 2: or that wasn't as easy a conversation. We gravitate as
Speaker 2: human beings towards easier conversations where we find commonality. And
Speaker 2: what we're asking of our organizations is to make it
Speaker 2: a little bit more friction full, not friction less in
Speaker 2: that space. But I am a thousand percent and I
Speaker 2: shouldn't say that. I know it's a bad phrase. I'm
Speaker 2: one hundred percent right.
Speaker 1: I thank you so much for that. By the way,
Speaker 1: because my question has always why why not?
Speaker 2: Two thousand, one hundred percent sure that we need and
Speaker 2: there is a war for the best talent. And if
Speaker 2: we think if the premise that only the best people
Speaker 2: come from certain demographics, your tribe, your tribe, right is,
Speaker 2: when you say it out loud, a nonsense. So how
Speaker 2: we get people into our organizations that feel, look and
Speaker 2: have difference, and how we ensure that we give them
Speaker 2: the space to be that different in our organizations. That's
Speaker 2: the criticality to it, that bit of yeah, yeah, it's okay,
Speaker 2: we'll have you, and then please can you be like us?
Speaker 2: You've got to know how to create an organization which
Speaker 2: actually gives people the space to be different, because that's
Speaker 2: what you're getting them for. It's a bit like an
Speaker 2: acquisition where you understand the commercial reality of it. You
Speaker 2: buy something because of its commercial differentiation, and then you
Speaker 2: bring it in and you're trying to sqush it into
Speaker 2: something that degrades that commercial benefit. It's the same with people.
Speaker 2: You've got to bring people in, you've got to let
Speaker 2: them fly, and you've got to be comfortable, perhaps being
Speaker 2: a little bit more uncomfortable than you work before.
Speaker 1: All the academic studies say, if you want to avoid
Speaker 1: group think, if you want better decisions, the more diverse
Speaker 1: the group, the more likely you are to reach a
Speaker 1: better decision. So even that discomfort, there's some academic research
Speaker 1: that supports it right.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Over and over again, you see the academic research.
Speaker 2: And yet I think there's an arrogance that we've had
Speaker 2: in our industry a little bit, which has been that
Speaker 2: great people will come to us. And then we suddenly
Speaker 2: woke up a little while ago, especially as tech became
Speaker 2: so incredibly important to all of us, that there were
Speaker 2: other options for these very smart people that they didn't
Speaker 2: have to come and work at hedge funds, or maybe
Speaker 2: they weren't interested in finance. What how could that possible?
Speaker 2: How could that be? Barry? You and I, it's shocking, right,
Speaker 2: I'll let you.
Speaker 1: An a secret. I'm a recovering attorney myself, so I
Speaker 1: get it right.
Speaker 2: So that attorney's anonymous, we need to go to anyway
Speaker 2: that aside. So we suddenly found ourselves believing that actually
Speaker 2: we are great, therefore great people will come, and actually
Speaker 2: not so much that those new generations have many more
Speaker 2: choices on how to deploy that expertise, and actually they
Speaker 2: look at us and they say, why would I come
Speaker 2: and work for an organization where you don't look like me,
Speaker 2: you don't feel like me, you don't understand me, and
Speaker 2: you'll make me do stuff I don't want to do.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I've watched billions, and I mean,
Speaker 2: this is the difficulty with podcasts. I just made a
Speaker 2: funny face, but the point being, we have to do
Speaker 2: and we've had to do a much better job. I
Speaker 2: think in joining up the dots for that brilliant talent
Speaker 2: that's coming through about what we do and why we're valuable,
Speaker 2: and why it matters that we do what we do,
Speaker 2: and why they are important part of ensuring financial security
Speaker 2: for millions of people who have worked very, very hard
Speaker 2: their whole lives and deserve a high qual return on
Speaker 2: their pension.
Speaker 1: So I've always imagined the competition for the best talent
Speaker 1: is between financial companies. What you're really saying is finance
Speaker 1: as an entity collectively has to compete against other.
Speaker 2: Absolutely field institution every day of the week, every day
Speaker 2: of the week. And maybe it's startups, maybe it's that piece,
Speaker 2: or maybe it's Testa, or maybe it's Facebook or maybe
Speaker 2: it's Google, or maybe it's any number of these other
Speaker 2: spaces that are tech enabled, and where they're doing this,
Speaker 2: their pr their PR is better, has been smarter than ours.
Speaker 2: And that piece where we used where people you know,
Speaker 2: skateboard in the office bit, you know, And I think
Speaker 2: we've had to be a little bit smarter and a
Speaker 2: little less scathing and a little bit more humble to
Speaker 2: ensure that we really are the employer or the industry
Speaker 2: or version of that choice for the best and the brightest.
Speaker 2: And that includes people who are different and they look
Speaker 2: at financial services and they don't see difference.
Speaker 1: Huh. So let me dredge up a quote of yours
Speaker 1: that I thought was quite fascinating. You told somebody recently,
Speaker 1: and I believe it was after you were named incoming CEO. Quote.
Speaker 1: I've never been in the majority, whether because I was
Speaker 1: a woman and or someone who proudly identifies as part
Speaker 1: of the LGBTQ community, and that can create challenges and
Speaker 1: means that prejudice has been a reality for me at
Speaker 1: different points in my career. How does that affect how
Speaker 1: you run a company, how you engage in recruitment, and
Speaker 1: how you think about diversity and inclusion.
Speaker 2: I think it's given me insight. I think when you
Speaker 2: live it, when it's your lived experience, you know it
Speaker 2: and you feel it. I think also, I am now
Speaker 2: in a position and have been I guess for the
Speaker 2: last few years of being proof positive that people who
Speaker 2: are different can can be in senior positions and can
Speaker 2: now run companies. I think that the prejudice for me
Speaker 2: just kind of made me more punchy and made me
Speaker 2: more determined to succeed. So I think it makes me
Speaker 2: better at understanding what it feels like when you don't belong,
Speaker 2: when you're on the outside of conversation, when the culture
Speaker 2: of an organization genuinely isn't inclusive, and that it's not
Speaker 2: about ticking boxes. It's about investing in your culture and
Speaker 2: your organization in a way that's very, very authentic. I'm
Speaker 2: lucky in many ways. I never struggled with the I
Speaker 2: shouldn't be this, This isn't you know, this isn't what
Speaker 2: society wants. I'm never going to succeed. I kind of
Speaker 2: don't know what happened, but that bypassed me luckily, and
Speaker 2: so I've always been the way I really am today,
Speaker 2: and that has been extraordinarily good for me in large part,
Speaker 2: but it's not been without issue. I just think that
Speaker 2: I've overcome those issues, which makes them something I'm alive
Speaker 2: for other people in my organization, and beyond that, those
Speaker 2: struggles are still real.
Speaker 1: Hum really really quite fascinating. Let's jump to our favorite
Speaker 1: questions that we ask all of our guests, starting with
Speaker 1: what have you been entertaining yourself with? What are you
Speaker 1: listening to or watching or streaming?
Speaker 2: So? What guilty? Guilty? What I'm watching? I have? I
Speaker 2: love ted Lasso?
Speaker 1: What's not to love?
Speaker 2: It's like, it's a delightful show. It's a brilliant show,
Speaker 2: and I think that it seems too. It's the feel
Speaker 2: good thing we kind of all need at the moment.
Speaker 2: It feels to me as well, So Ted Lasso.
Speaker 1: I don't even think that's a guilty guilty. The writing
Speaker 1: is so sharp. People like that are embarrassed, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I like ted Lasso, Why shouldn't you like that?
Speaker 2: I find myself quoting ted Lasso, perhaps not Ted Lasso himself,
Speaker 2: but there are definitely points where I may be channeling
Speaker 2: some of the other characters. Definitely podcasts. I well, obviously
Speaker 2: it would be wrong Barry for me not to say
Speaker 2: you but stop stop. But I do find some of
Speaker 2: the Bloomberg series very useful. I find some of the
Speaker 2: Gold and Stuff very useful. But I also find when
Speaker 2: I dip into you know, talk Easy, or I'll dip
Speaker 2: into Dak Shepherd from time to time, because it's really
Speaker 2: interesting hearing some of that sort of outside arts culture,
Speaker 2: or finding yourself with somebody different, asking people like us
Speaker 2: different questions really intriguing.
Speaker 1: Tell us about your mentors who helped shape your career.
Speaker 2: Goodness. This isn't an Oscar's exception speech, but I've been
Speaker 2: super lucky through every part from my university day through.
Speaker 2: Here's something I'll admit to. There is not one company
Speaker 2: that I've worked for or regulator that I've worked for
Speaker 2: where I'm not still in touch with my old bosses.
Speaker 2: And that is because they took the time to work
Speaker 2: out who I was and then they put me to work.
Speaker 2: And I will forever be grateful for that willingness to
Speaker 2: step back, not tick a box, but invest in me
Speaker 2: as an individual and then work out what I was
Speaker 2: good at and then make it better. And so there's
Speaker 2: not one person through any part, you know, But I
Speaker 2: would say one of the most transformational mentors or allies
Speaker 2: or sponsors or whatever is Luke. I have had enormous
Speaker 2: benefit from having his confidence, and he has pushed me
Speaker 2: like no one else.
Speaker 1: Huh. Really really quite intriguing. I very much enjoyed my
Speaker 1: conversation with him. Also fascinating person. He's really fascinating.
Speaker 2: He's everything and more.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of your favorite books and what
Speaker 1: you're reading lately.
Speaker 2: So living in Japan it gives you a bit of
Speaker 2: an insight of many things. So any Japanese author Murakami,
Speaker 2: minute Murakami puts anything out, I read it, and then
Speaker 2: I read it again.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming you're reading the translated version of English, not
Speaker 1: in the original.
Speaker 2: Do you know, I wish I was that smart. I
Speaker 2: tell you something, actually, bar it's a really good point.
Speaker 2: The translators of these books, aren't they gifted? I mean,
Speaker 2: because it's not just a word. It's not like put
Speaker 2: it into Google and see what you get. It's everything,
Speaker 2: And that is fine. That is just an extraordinary capability.
Speaker 2: So anything in that sort of Murakami space, what's open
Speaker 2: on my bedside table right now is that I can't
Speaker 2: tell you how many times I've read it, but is Orlando,
Speaker 2: and really there is something extraordinary about that transformational through time,
Speaker 2: through gender, through experience. There's something that's really quite fascinating.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it's an easy book to read. I'm
Speaker 2: just saying it just happens to be the one I
Speaker 2: reopened a month ago. I'm still going through.
Speaker 1: Interesting and now we're down to our final two questions.
Speaker 1: What sort of advice would you give to a recent
Speaker 1: college grad who was thinking about a career in finance?
Speaker 2: Do it? Would? I mean, I think if don't expect
Speaker 2: it to be what you think it is, experience it
Speaker 2: without any form of prejudice in some ways or without
Speaker 2: any form of expectation. I would also say go for
Speaker 2: it in a take the opportunities what finance does, which
Speaker 2: is I had not anticipated. But it's why I'm still
Speaker 2: in it is it's fast, it's intellectually demanding, it has
Speaker 2: reached beyond its real estate footprint. It has impact, it
Speaker 2: is topical, it covers geopolitical risk. There isn't a part
Speaker 2: of the world on society it doesn't impact, and if
Speaker 2: you embrace it on that basis, the opportunities are actually endless.
Speaker 2: So be yourself, go for it. Don't think too much
Speaker 2: about ladders and what your next title is or whatever
Speaker 2: of that stuff is. Just immerse yourself in it and
Speaker 2: take every opportunity that's given to you.
Speaker 1: Really interesting advice, and our final question, what do you
Speaker 1: know about the world of investing and finance and hedge
Speaker 1: funds for that matter, that you wish you knew twenty
Speaker 1: five thirty years ago when you were first starting out.
Speaker 2: I don't think I wish i'd known anything. I think
Speaker 2: that my slightly wide eyed, slightly intrigued, slightly uneducated start
Speaker 2: point in finance was almost a gift because my expectations
Speaker 2: weren't there because I didn't need to know, as I
Speaker 2: just was hungry to learn, because I didn't really think
Speaker 2: about corporate structure and where my next job was, and
Speaker 2: it was freeing. And I look back on my career
Speaker 2: and I look back on the experiences, and I look
Speaker 2: back on the people, some of whom now still work
Speaker 2: for me, and I'm not sure i'd changed that, and
Speaker 2: so I'm okay with where I was.
Speaker 1: Quite fascinating. Robin, thank you for being so generous with
Speaker 1: your time. This has been absolutely intriguing. We have been
Speaker 1: speaking with Robin Grew. She is the incoming chief executive
Speaker 1: officer at Man Group. If you enjoy this conversation, well,
Speaker 1: be sure and check out any of the other five
Speaker 1: hundred or so we've done over the past eight years.
Speaker 1: You can find those at Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, or wherever
Speaker 1: you find your favorite podcasts. Be sure and sign up
Speaker 1: for our daily reads at reholts dot com. Follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Ridholts, follow all of the fine family
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Podcasts at Podcasts. I would be remiss if
Speaker 1: I did not thank the crack team that helps put
Speaker 1: these conversations together each week. Bob Bragg is my audio engineer.
Speaker 1: Attika of Albron is our project manager. Paris Wald is
Speaker 1: our producer. Sean Russo is my head of research. I'm
Speaker 1: Barry Ridholts. You've been listening to Masters in Business on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.