AAAIM High ELI

Our guests for today’s podcast are Jen Vigilante and Maine Park, Counselors at College Labyrinth. College Labyrinth provides a highly personalized framework for students to pursue genuine interests, enriching the journey to college while finding the right next step. Most recently, Jen spent the past decade working in the Princeton University Undergraduate Admission Office, where she was an Associate Dean primarily responsible for the New York City schools, evaluating more than 2,000 applications each year. Maine is a long time friend AAAIM. During her own children’s college application processes, Maine recognized the incredible value in reassuring and steering parents and students through an often difficult period. In Maine’s own words, “Every child, including my own, has such different interests and strengths. It can feel overwhelming to try and find the right school, the right word, the right deadline! By starting College Labyrinth, I became the guide I wish I had when going through this process. My goal is for College Labyrinth to help students achieve more than just an acceptance letter, but an honest and healthy understanding of who they are and who they might become in the future.” Without further ado, here is our conversation with Jen Vigilante and Maine Park.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Tim Hsia, founder and Managing Partner of Context Ventures, a venture fund that invests in military veteran founders and also in consumer startups. Some of Tim’s startup investments prior to Context Ventures include Workflow (acquired by Apple), Morning Brew (acquired by Business Insider), The Hustle (acquired by HubSpot), and Thredup (which IPO’d). Tim is also the CEO & Founder of Media Mobilize (an online ad network, marketing agency, and media company). Tim is a distinguished honor graduate of West Point and was commissioned as an infantry officer in the US Army. Tim transitioned from active duty in 2010 and graduated from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Stanford Law School in 2014. While at Stanford he taught ROTC to cadets at Stanford and Santa Clara University. Tim is the eptiome of the word “grit”. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Tim Hsia.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Vishal Bhutani, Chief Investment Officer of AMS Children’s Fund (AMS), a new fund launching in early 2025. Together with David Gaynes, Vishal is forming AMS to capitalize on the growing interest by institutional investors in the Indian equity markets. Vishal believes that the middle market opportunity in Indian equities is one of the best investment opportunities available today. Leveraging his experience as an event driven portfolio manager, AMS believes it will be able to achieve superior risk adjusted returns. Vishal has spent the bulk of his 20 year investment career as an Event Driven investor, investing across the capital structure. Joining me on the podcast is Clark Cheng, CEO and CIO of Merrimac Corp, a large single family office with investments in hedge funds, private equity, venture capital and real estate AND David Gaynes, co-founder of AMS Children’s Fund. So why should investors care about the Indian equity markets now? Vishal provides many insights and answers why in this podcast. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Vishal Bhutani.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Darren Xu, Co-Founder and Portfolio Manager of Questline Capital. Questline Capital is a long/short equity fund focused on the gaming, media and communications sectors. After almost a decade as an investor at Farallon Capital Management, Darren decided to leave his job and will be launching his fund in the 1 st quarter of 2025. Darren started his career in investment banking in Mergers and Acquisitions at Citigroup after graduating with two degrees, one in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania and the other in Business from the Wharton School. I named this podcast “Living the dream: playing video games for fun and for work.” Literally, that is what Darren does. How fun is that? So, how does one create a career playing video games. Well, we are here to find out. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Darren Xu.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Dave Lu, Managing Partner of Hyphen Capital, an early stage venture capital firm focused on Asian American founders. Dave is a veteran of the technology industry, having founded two prior companies: Expo and Fanpop, as well as having worked at Apple, eBay, Cisco, Yahoo and Sony. Dave produced the Emmy-winning HBO documentary 38 at the Garden about Jeremy Lin. Amidst the rise of anti-Asian hate during the pandemic, Dave led a movement with an open letter signed by 8,000 leaders including President George Bush and the CEOs of Google, DoorDash, Zoom and others that was published in the Wall Street Journal and launched Stand with Asian Americans. Dave sits on the advisory board of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific Center and the Asian Pacific Fund. Dave received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and his BA from the University of Pennsylvania. To say that Dave is a role model would be an understatement. I applaud Dave for his selfless efforts to help inspire and galvanize change for the AAPI community. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Dave Lu.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Raymond Chan, Partner at Atalaya Capital Management, a leading private credit firm. Ray is responsible for the firm’s investing in Financial Assets, which focuses on sourcing and executing specialty finance and other private asset-backed transactions. Prior to joining Atalaya, Ray was a Partner and Co-Founder of TTM Capital, LLC, an investment firm focused on acquiring and lending against portfolios of financial and other assets. Previously, he was a Managing Director and co-head of the Assets Group at Highbridge/Zwirn Capital Management. Earlier in his career, Ray was a member of the Principal Transaction and Principal Finance teams at Lehman Brothers and worked on numerous securitizations across multiple asset classes at Salomon Brothers. He began his career as a consultant at Price Waterhouse, followed by internal consulting and operations roles at Lehman Brothers. He holds a BA in Economics and Political Science from Columbia University. As our podcast listeners know, I have a bias for featuring successful Columbia alumni, my alma mater. Ray’s success hits home for me as I knew him as a peer over 30 years ago and I am so happy for all the contributions he is making for the AAPI community, both professionally in his firms’s support of AAAIM and personally as a Board Member for Apex For Youth. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Ray Chan.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Tem Tumurbat, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Nomadic Venture Partners (NVP), where he focuses on fund strategy, fundraising, portfolio construction, valuation, and financial analysis. Prior to co-founding NVP, Tem was an investment professional at Resource Capital Funds (RCF), a mining focused private equity investment firm, managing early to late stage investments. He de-risked companies, commercialized their businesses and successfully completed M&As that delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to investors. Prior to RCF, Tem worked for Newmont Mining Corporation as a mining engineer and then project engineer. Tem also co-founded MNG Summit, a non-profit organization supporting Mongolian students and early career professionals. Tem started his professional career as an entrepreneur where he started and operated a transportation company in college to help pay for college tuition and support extended family. I found Tem’s story to be fascinating. Joining me on the podcast and my guest co-host is Brian O’Neil, former CIO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and long time supporter of AAAIM. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Tem Tumurbat.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Glenn Hosokawa, Director of Fixed Income at CalSTRS. After over 25 years serving CalSTRS, Glenn will be retiring at the end of August 2024 and riding off into the sunset. If you google or search for Glenn’s biography, you won’t be able to find anything. I tried. Glenn is as old school as they come and doesn’t have a social media profile. For those that know Glenn, he is credited for building a world class Fixed Income investment division at one of the most admired places to work. Glenn isn’t looking for any accolades as he just enjoyed coming in, day in day out, working hard to generate returns to help secure the retirement benefits of all the great teachers that serve the State of California. Great mission, great guy, great career. So who is Glenn and what is he known for? Well, Glenn was gracious enough to share his story with me and my guest co-host Sylvia Owens from Kennedy Lewis Investment Management. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Glenn Hosokawa.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Gino Reina, Principal at SECOR Asset Management. Gino is a portfolio manager and member of the client advisory team at SECOR, responsible for client relationship management and business development. Gino has over 20 years of investment management industry experience, including time at Segal Advisors as Director of Research, UBS Paine Webber, and Neuberger Berman as a portfolio manager on the mutual fund wrap platform. Gino holds a Bachelors of Business Administration (BBA) in Banking and Finance from Hofstra University. In addition, he is a member of the CFA Society New York and Vice Chair of the CFA New Jersey Chapter. I’ve always found Gino to be very pleasant to be around. In addition to his full time job, Gino is also a co-owner and restaurant entrepreneur of two pizza restaurants and an avid long distance runner, having completed a 100 mile ultra marathon. Needless to say, Gino is an interesting person to get to know! Without further ado, here is our conversation with Gino Reina.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Bordon Lai, Managing Director at Beach Point Capital Management. Bordon joined Beach Point in 2021 to help build out the firm’s private equity and special situation investing capabilities. Bordon has been in the industry for over 20 years and was previously at Quilvest Private Equity, a global multi-family office with $5B of AUM. Prior to Quilvest, Bordon worked at Pegasus Capital Advisors and Vision Capital, where he invested under a flexible mandate in opportunistic investments in the middle market. Bordon started out his career as an investment banking analyst at Wachovia Securities and Credit Suisse First Boston. Bordon earned his bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and MBA from The Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania. Joining me on the podcast as co-host is Agnes Tan, who recently graduated from Columbia Business School and will be co-hosting/hosting a handful of podcasts on behalf of AAAIM in the coming weeks. So what does it take to be a successful private equity investor? We asked Bordon and he was gracious enough to share good insights on how he differentiated himself. Without further ado, please enjoy our conversation with Bordon Lai.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Ingrid Yin, Co-Founder, Managing Partner and Majority Owner of MayTech Global Investments, a New York–based firm that specializes in managing global growth portfolios. Yin started her career as a research scientist and then made a leap to the finance industry, where she worked as an analyst and honed her focus to identifying investment opportunities in Asia and in healthcare. In 2017, with her extensive global investing experience, Yin launched MayTech with her business partner, Nels Wangensteen. The investment team, based in New York City, has been investing globally on average for more than 20 years. MayTech believes that focusing on deep research, big long-term trends, and clients’ needs are the most important things for an investment firm. MayTech has significant research expertise in technology, healthcare, and emerging consumers sectors, where they see innovations will accelerate, therefore driving the growth of the global economy. Ingrid earned her B.S. from Beijing University, an M.B.A. from MIT Sloan School of Management, and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from SUNY-Stony Brook. So who is Ingrid Yin, one of only a few Asian female led GPs? We are grateful to Ingrid for sharing her story. Without further ado, please enjoy our interview with Ingrid Yin.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Pam Chan, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Mosaic, a new private market strategy within Lingotto that will invest across asset classes, industries, and capital structures, and will be anchored by Exor. Pam’s mandate will be to invest in what she calls “the weird and wonderful” as she believes that flexible capital will create differentiated opportunities and sustained performance over the long term. Prior to joining Lingotto, Pam was the Chief Investment Officer and Head of Direct Private Opportunities at BlackRock. While at BlackRock, Pam co-founded and led the firm’s Alternative Solutions group which grew to over $12bn assets under management across a range of private market strategies and investment themes. Pam is a graduate of Harvard College magna cum laude and Harvard Business School with high honors. In 2020, Pam was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and was appointed a member of that organization’s Global Future Council on the Future of Responsible Investing and Women in Finance community. In 2022, Private Equity International included her on their list of Women of Influence in Private Markets. Joining me on the podcast as co-host is Agnes Tan, who recently graduated from Columbia Business School and will be co-hosting/hosting a handful of podcasts on behalf of AAAIM in the coming weeks. So what does it take to launch your own strategy and be seeded by one of the top investors in the world? Well, Pam shares her secrets. Without further ado, please enjoy our interview with Pam Chan.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Alka Goel, Founding Partner of Alkemi Growth Capital, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage healthcare and wellness focused companies based in Delhi. Alkemi became operational in 2018 and since then has committed to 10 companies in diverse sub-sectors such as hygiene, diagnostics, pharma supply chain, women’s reproduction, data digitization, etc. Prior to Alkemi, Alka was a partner in McKinsey’s global pharma and medical device practice & private equity practice based out of New York. At McKinsey, she worked for more than 100+ health care companies, advising them on a range of business issues - including M&A, go to market, operations, and organization. She completed her MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad in 2000 and BA (Economics) from Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi University. Alka’s mission for Alkemi is to elevate the Health and Well-Being of the Indian consumer while maximizing returns to our shareholders. Alkemi is interested in passionate entrepreneurs who are inspired by a vision, have boldness in their DNA, are not afraid of taking a few punches, persevere under uncertainty and most importantly build companies that can make an out-sized difference to consumer wellness and healthcare industry. Joining me on the podcast as co-host is Agnes Tan, who is a 2 year MBA student at Columbia Business School. Agnes spent her pre-business school career in Private Equity in the Phillipines and will be co-hosting/hosting a handful of podcasts on behalf of AAAIM in the coming weeks. So what does it take to launch a venture capital firm despite not having a prior track record and how did Alka persevere and secure institutional capital? Alka shares her approach on this podcast. Without further ado, please enjoy our interview with Alka Goel.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Eunice McHugh, Director of Private Credit at San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System (“SFERS”). Eunice is responsible for the buildout and management of the Private Credit portfolio, which has a 10% target allocation for the fund. Eunice has led SFERS' Private Credit efforts (initially as part of the Fixed Income portfolio) since she joined SFERS in early 2013. Under Eunice’s leadership, the Private Credit portfolio has delivered an annual return of 11% over the past decade, surpassing its benchmark by over 500 bps. SFERS’ Private Credit portfolio is comprised of multiple alternative credit and credit-related strategies. These include investments in direct lending, mezzanine, credit opportunities, specialty finance including asset-based lending/structured credit and real assets-related credit, real estate debt, distressed/special situations, and other opportunistic strategies. In addition, SFERS’ Private Credit program is a global portfolio with investments across the U.S., Europe, Asia, Latin America, and other emerging markets. Eunice is responsible for portfolio construction and leads investment research, due diligence, and manager selection across all these opportunities. Joining me on the podcast as co-host is Sylvia Owens who is a Partner at Kennedy Lewis Investment Management, an opportunistic credit manager focusing on event-driven situations in which a catalyst may unlock investment value. So what does it take to lead one of the top Private Credit portfolios in the business? Well, Eunice was gracious enough to spend the time with us to share her story. Without further ado, please enjoy our interview with Eunice McHugh.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Jonathan Xiong, former Asia-Pacific Co-CEO of Millennium. After a 20+ year career in portfolio management working for some of the top investment houses in the business including Millennium, GSAM, Mellon Capital and Franklin Templeton, Jonathan has taken the bold step to start his own asset management business. I was intrigued with Jonathan’s background after reading a Bloomberg article about him launching his own Asia multi-strategy fund. The platform model is dominated by the largest and most well established firms like Millennium, Citadel, and Point 72. How could a small guy enter the market and compete with the Goliath’s in the business? Well, I wanted to know and Jonathan was ready to share his story. Without further ado, please enjoy our interview with Jonathan Xiong.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Amanda Moore, CEO and Co-Founder of Aurora Peak Capital, a mission-driven investment firm, dedicated to alleviating the U.S. housing affordability crisis through investments in below market-rate multifamily housing communities. Amanda's first home in the United States was an affordable housing complex in Los Angeles County. Her family were Vietnam war refugees who were rescued by the U.S. Airforce from refugee camps and flown to California and placed in a Section 8 community. Amanda is grateful for the Section 8 housing complex because it filled her childhood with happy memories where her family had a safe and beautiful environment with a strong sense of community. Amanda is on a mission to ensure affordable housing parallels her childhood experience: provide low -income families a safe environment where they are proud to call home and can thrive against the backdrop of a housing crisis: lack of affordable, safe, and quality housing. Amanda has over 20 years of real estate experience, starting her career as an underwriter and then transitioning to become a capital raiser for Starwood Capital’s notable opportunistic global funds, covering Asia and U.S. institutional investors. So what does it take to launch your own real estate investment firm? Authenticity, passion, and a fearless, kick-ass leader in Amanda Moore. Without further ado, here is our podcast with Amanda Moore.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Soo Kim, Managing Partner and CIO of Standard General, an investment firm he started in 2007. Soo also serves as Chairman of Bally's Corporation. Soo has been investing in special situations strategies since 1997, including as co-founder of Cyrus Capital Partners from 2005 to 2007 and at Och-Ziff Capital Management from 1999 to 2005, where he was a Principal and co-founder of its fixed income business. Before joining Och-Ziff, he was an analyst for the Capital Management Group at Bankers Trust Company from 1997 to 1999. Soo holds an A.B. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School, one of the top public high schools in New York City. I always learn a lot whenever I interact with Soo so I know the audience will get a lot from this conversation. Joining me on the podcast as co-host is Mike Kim, CIO of Lalia Capital, a single family office focused on private investments. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Soo Kim.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Eva Ho, General Partner of Fika Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that invests in founders solving meaningful, systemic problems through the use of data, related AI-enabled technologies, and automation. While this horizontal thesis allows Fika Ventures to be fairly sector agnostic, the firm is especially drawn to innovations in enterprise software, fintech, marketplaces, and digital health. Fika is investing out of their Fund III and has committed capital of over $300 million life to date. Prior to Fika, Eva was a founding GP at Susa Ventures. She is a serial entrepreneur and founder, most recently a founding executive at Factual, a leading location data provider in Los Angeles. Prior, she was a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Google and Youtube for 5 years. Prior to Google, she was the head of marketing for Applied Semantics, a company that sold to Google in 2003. Eva holds an MBA from Cornell and a BA from Harvard. Eva also graduated from one of the top high schools in the country, Boston Latin School. And for those listeners who know me, I am biased as that is my high school. In fact, Eva and I were high school classmates and we took many of the same AP classes together back in the day! So, how does one get their start to becoming a great venture capitalist? There isn’t a clear answer, but I know our listeners will get a lot from this interview. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Eva Ho.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Marcie Frost, Chief Executive Officer of CalPERS. Marcie joined CalPERS as CEO in October 2016. She is the ninth CEO and second woman to head America's largest pension fund. As CEO, Marcie oversees an annual budget of $1.8 billion, an experienced team of 2,800 professionals, and three lines of business for the fund: pensions, health benefits, and investments. CalPERS administers a defined benefit retirement system for more than 1.9 million California public sector workers and their families. It is the nation's second-largest purchaser of health care benefits, covering more than 1.5 million lives. CalPERS' global investment portfolios stand at roughly $460 billion at the time of this recording. Under Marcie's leadership, CalPERS is focused on maximizing long-term investment returns to meet the fund's fiduciary responsibility to members and leverage the fund's global strength to drive sustainable markets. So how did Marcie land one of the most coveted jobs in the business? What does it take to run one of the nation’s most influential pensions? What is CalPERS looking for in the next CIO? You want to know? Well, we’ve got the answers. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Marcie Frost.

Our guest for today’s podcast is Arun Assumall, Global Head of Cross Asset QIS and Commodity Investor Products at Macquarie Group. Since joining Macquarie in 2011, Arun has built an impressive global business within the bank by offering sophisticated investors access to beta and risk premia strategies commonly referred to as Quantitative Investment Strategies, QIS. In a recent article published by Bloomberg, they estimate that over $370 billion in investor assets are currently tied to QIS offered by investment banks. So what does it take to build a global business from scratch? And how did Arun, who started off in sales, do it? Humility, luck, and not being afraid to hire people that are smarter than himself…. Congrats to Macquarie on becoming a market leader in QIS and Arun Assumall - a British Indian, an Asian leader, a champion of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – for leading the way. And thanks to Arun for sharing his path on this podcast. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Arun Assumall.