We debut our flagship podcast series “Coffee Talk with Asset Allocators” with Esmeralda del Bosque, Interim Principal Head of Global Equities at LaCera, and a rare woman of color to oversee a 27-billion global equity portfolio, a large investment team and a bevy of external money managers. Over her 20-plus year career, she has navigated both fixed income and equities, and run the gamut of selecting managers to executing contracts. In 2020, she was nominated for the NextGen CIO award.  Besides her talent, Esme brings tenacity to her role. She is a single mom who deals with the challenges life has thrown her with humor and light-heartedness.  In this episode, we explore Esme personal and professional journey, her investment views, her passion for DEI and how she achieves work-life balance despite her demanding personal and professional responsibilities.

We continue our monthly podcast series “Coffee Talk with Asset Allocators” with Caroline Powell, Senior Investment Analyst at New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA). She graduated at the top of her class with a Bachelor’s of Finance at Siena College and landed a job as an investment analyst at NYSNA straight out of college.

Not only is she the first woman to join the investment team in her firm, in a short span of five years, she has been promoted to senior investment analyst where she is responsible for picking and overseeing a large roster of equity managers managing multi-billion dollars, and reports directly to the CIO.

In this episode, you will learn the tips and tricks that Caroline used to fast track her career in money management and the inside track of what works and doesn’t, if you are trying to win a mandate from NYSNA.

We continue our monthly podcast series “Coffee Talk with Asset Allocators” with Kirk Sims, Senior Director, and Head of Emerging Manager Program at Teacher’s Retirement System of Texas, where he oversees a 5.9 bln $ allocation to emerging managers, which is one of the largest programs of its kind.

In this 45-minute episode, you will learn how to position your capital raising efforts, various sources, and resources you can tap into as an emerging manager, what allocators want to hear in your pitch and details of a free, must-attend annual virtual conference where mega allocators show up.

Tune in to the episode to find out how you can be one of the 200+ emerging managers that TRS has allocated money to.

Welcome to another episode in our monthly podcast series “Coffee Talk with Asset Allocators” where we hear from the trailblazing June Kim, Director of Global Equity for the California State Teachers’ Retirement System.

She is a rare Asian American success story, leading a $100 billion+ global equity portfolio at a mega pension plan. Her career has straddled both the sell-side and buy-side, the private sector, and the public sector.  In this 45-minute episode, you will learn about her circuitous but fulfilling career path and how she is moving the conversation on diversity “Beyond Talk”.  We also cover what it takes to win a mega mandate from CalSTRS, what impresses her team and what’s a red flag and how she manages her time as well as her portfolio by “allocating to what’s more important and impactful”.

This episode of our monthly podcast series “Coffee Talk with Asset Allocators“ features Justine O’Connell, Head of Diversified Portfolios at Australian Super.

Learn how a serendipitous stopover in London on a round-the-world ticket led to a stupendous career in finance, starting with Goldman Sachs in London to the largest superannuation fund in Australia – Australian Super, with A$ 260 bln. in aum.  In this episode, we explore how Justine helped build an investment infrastructure and team from scratch to manage assets inhouse and the role of simplicity and need for iteration and reiteration to implement new processes and best practices.

Welcome to another episode in our monthly flagship podcast series, “Coffee Talk with Asset Allocators”, where we will hear from Meena Lakshman, Director of Investments at the Helmsley Charitable Trust.

In this episode you will get a sneak peek into this introvert’s journey from investment banking to investment management and from Mumbai to New York. Find out how she landed her current role and the mentors who shaped the arc of her career. Also learn how she makes decisions ranging from the macro to the micro and from managers to markets.

This episode of our monthly podcast series Coffee with Asset Allocators features Sinead Colton Grant, CIO & Head of Investments at BNY Mellon Investor Solutions.

Learn how her vacation led to her vocation and why she is fascinated by currency markets. In this episode, Sinead discusses her team’s asset allocation and due diligence process as well as what she looks for in managers – their elevator pitches, track records and commentaries. Also, what she is doing to support emerging managers and diversity as well as her belief in the transformative power of education and role models.