AAAIM High ELI

My guests for today's podcast are Troy Dixon, Founder and CIO of Hollis Park Partners, a $750mn+ independent alternative asset manager that specializes in structured products and Greg Maddox, Head of Global Manager Research at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. I took a different approach for this podcast by asking my two guests to follow along with role playing the following scenario: Let's pretend that the three of us have recently started the "Emerging Manager Impact Fund" (EMIF), a new $1 billion fund focused on investing in top emerging and diverse managers. We are being seeded by Priscilla Chan Zuckerberg and Oprah Winfrey with the dual purpose of delivering best in class risk adjusted returns while making an impact by investing in emerging and diverse managers. (Note to audience, repeat - this is a role play so please don't call us to ask for money!) Given Troy's and Greg's wealth of experience and juxtaposition of perspective: retail vs. institutional, sell side vs. buy side, investment bank vs. independent emerging manager, portfolio manager vs. allocator, having designed an emerging and diverse program vs having won mandates from emerging and diverse programs – I found this conversation especially insightful for all players in the investment game. Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Troy and Greg.

My guest for today's podcast is James Chen, Founder and CIO of Ovata Capital, a $600mn+ multi-strategy, market neutral equities hedge fund headquartered in Hong Kong. James takes us on his journey from being born in Mongolia to growing up in Long Island, NY through his formative years as a proprietary and customer trader at Credit Suisse, Bear Stearns, JP Morgan and Barclays. In 2014, James made the decision to join Bluecrest where he established their equities business in Hong Kong. Following Bluecrest's decision to convert to a family office, James made the decision to start Ovata Capital, personally funding and underwriting the business hiring many of his former Bluecrest equities team members in Hong Kong. James shares many lessons he learned over his career, providing valuable insight to portfolio managers who aspire to launch their own independent firms. Joining me on this podcast as guest host is Christophe L'Ahelec, who most recently was a Senior Principal in the External Managers group at Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, one of the most widely respected allocators in the business. I leave it to Christophe to ask all the hard questions! Without further a due, here is my conversation with James and Christophe.