Jim La Creta, CTO – Brandeis University (EP.36)

Mike Peltier is the COO of VCU Investment Management Company, supporting Virginia Commonwealth University and its related entities in Richmond, Virginia. Virginia Commonwealth University is pioneering what it means to be a public research university while remaining focused on innovation, diversity, and access in the Commonwealth and beyond. Mike shares lessons learned from his audit and tax background helped him lead the operations of the investment office. We discuss the key pillars of the tech stack and some unique ways to leverage common technology to create efficiency. Mike discusses AI use cases you can use today that reduces the friction with investment and operations teams of all sizes. We then turn to outsourcing service providers and the importance of building personal networks to stay on top of an ever-changing industry. Take Capital Allocator’s Audience Engagement Survey Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access transcript with Premium Membership

Ron Lanen is a Partner, Chief Administrative Officer, and General Counsel at HighVista Strategies, an alternative asset manager with approximately $11 billion in assets.    Given the uptick in M&A activity, I was interested in getting Ron’s input following their acquisition of abrdn’s US private markets business.       Ron’s background makes him uniquely positioned to share best practices with acquiring another investment firm. He shares how the organization effectively doubled in headcount and assets and the implications on legal, IR and operations.      We also talk about the importance of culture, integration, hiring for range and the “knock on” effects of managing new service providers.  Take Capital Allocator’s Audience Engagement Survey   Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access transcript with Premium Membership

This Sponsored Insight features Troy Pospisil, CEO of Ontra, a legaltech firm created for the private markets industry.    It was great sitting down with Troy to talk about the evolution of how legal and compliance workflows are going digital.   We cover his career from management consulting to the investment team at H.I.G. Capital where he saw a glaring need for better solutions with doing deals and raising funds.   We discuss product development opportunities and challenges, multi-stakeholder engagements and how digital-native leaders are embracing software to speed up fund closings at a lower cost and compliance risk. Take Capital Allocator’s Audience Engagement Survey   Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access transcript with Premium Membership

Richey Reneberg is the Global Co-Head of Investor Relations and Marketing at Taconic Capital, a global event driven alternatives manager founded in 1999 by former Goldman Sachs Partners, Frank Brosens and Ken Brody.      Richey’s career path into the industry is atypical so I was excited to share his story.     Prior to joining Taconic in 2000, Richey spent thirteen years competing on the professional tennis circuit reaching a career high of #20 in the world in singles and #1 in the world in doubles. He was a five-time member of the US Davis Cup Team and represented the United States in the 1996 Olympics.   Richey shares how personal connections created an opportunity into the investment industry and how skills learned on the court transferred to the business world.   We then uncover some best practices through the lens of an IR person. Whether you are engaging with a GP on ODD or monitoring a manager in your portfolio, Richey provides some insights from his 20 years in the business on how to create strong GP and LP relationships. Take Capital Allocator’s Audience Engagement Survey Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access transcript with Premium Membership

This Sponsored Insight features Neal Pawar, the COO of Enfusion, a SaaS platform that combines front, middle and back office in a unified trading system.     We cover Neal’s time at some of the world’s top hedge funds and how it informed his decision to build technology for the industry.   We talk about the tradeoffs of working for both big and small firms and how decisions on your tech stack changes as your firm grows.      We then discuss the evolution of trade order management systems and how the golden copy of data is crucial for building end to end collaboration platforms bringing together portfolio management, operations and client service      Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access transcript with Premium Membership

Kevin Moran is the COO of AlTi Tiedemann Global, a publicly traded multi-family office and alternatives firm with over $72B in assets.   Kevin shares his insights on how AlTi has grown over time creating a UHNW service offering to meet the growing and evolving needs of its clients.   He shares his thoughts on M&A as a function of organic growth, unique investment strategies, and strategic succession planning.   We also cover the sales process for the UHNW space and how to apply client service on a global basis with a local touch. Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access transcript with Premium Membership

Dan Ricci is the Head of Information Systems at Prime Buchholz, an independent investment consultant and OCIO founded in 1988.   If you are building or buying software, this is the episode. Dan shares how they built Prime Plus, an investment analytics tool that is used by their investment consultants and their clients.     Dan shares his thoughts on a wide range of topics with regard to fintech. We cover going digital with investment committee reporting and when to leverage channel partners to bolt on third party SaaS to your native applications.   We then discuss the future of investment statistics and why he likes being an early adopter of SaaS but also sees good use cases with later stage and mature technology solutions.  Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access transcript with Premium Membership

Hal Liebes is the COO of Alger, an investment firm known for its bottom-up fundamental research process that was founded in 1964. Hal joined Alger in 2005 as they were rebuilding the firm after losing 35 of its 55 employees on 9/11. Hal shares how curiosity and knowing how you work is crucial for finding the right type of role for career happiness. We talk about the role of the COO and the myriad of issues he faces on a daily basis: how to build consensus, selecting new service providers, and best practices on the common challenges with merging and managing people-based businesses. We then turn to how Alger has evolved over time with a number of strategic efforts across products, acquisitions and a global eye towards distribution. Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access transcript with Premium Membership

Jim La Creta is the Chief Technology and Information Officer for Brandeis University. Jim shares a fascinating and different perspective on technology for an investment office and university broadly. We discuss his career path at Brandeis which started at the help desk 21 years ago to the CTO seat. He shares how he partners with the investment committee and the CIO to assess risk with new technology and information security for its investment office.  We also discussed common challenges and how to partner with technology teams for better outcomes when selecting technology. In addition to being a CTO, Jim is an adjunct professor in organizational leadership at Brandeis. I found this interesting because there is no playbook for leadership, but Jim shares his lessons learned about leading teams today, the impact of going hybrid and creating teams built for flexibility. Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access transcript with Premium Membership

Adam Weinstein is a Managing Director, COO, and CFO of New Mountain Capital, a $50 billion private equity firm focused on middle market buyout, credit, and net lease strategies.   I really enjoyed this conversation because we focused on two critical elements of building investment firms: people and process.   Adam discusses their investment committee governance process that seeks to foster broad input from the team to mitigate errors and promote consistency. We also uncover some of the challenges in group decision making and why New Mountain is opposed to the term “back office.”   We then dig into how inclusiveness drives performance reviews, compensation structures and how to develop a mentor program.    Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access transcript with Premium Membership