Mike O’Donnell is Chief Executive Officer of London LGPS CIV Ltd., a position he has held since March 2019, following a career of over 30 years in local government including a range of finance-related roles.  He recently announced his intention to step down from that...

Heidi Ridley is Co-Founder and CEO at Radiant ESG, based in the Bay Area of California. She has had a long career in asset management, including roles as CEO of Rosenberg Equities, a division of AXA Investment Managers, global head of client service and head of North America institutional sales. She is a member of the Advisory Council at the Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership.

A discussion of an empowered career journey and an investment firm start up journey and why it is not always a bad thing to be a “bull in a china shop.”

Molly Burba is Managing Director in Investment Research at RiskBridge Advisors, an OCIO firm serving institutional and individual investors.  She previously held a series of investment research and allocation roles.  She has a passion for wellness and spent a period working as a wellness consultant in a firm she established, and was captain of the Women’s Soccer Team while at Vanderbilt University. 

Kimberly Smith is Head of Capital Formation at Techstars.  She was previously Director of Marketing and Investor Relations at Owl Creek Asset Management and before that worked at Davidson Kempner and ABN AMRO.  She holds a number of Board Roles and is an active advocate for education.

We have brought you this story to showcase an extraordinary physical challenge – the world’s toughest row – that one of our own – investment manager Laura Langton – is about to embark upon. We examine what motivates a person to take on something so extreme and so obviously strenuous and physically taxing. We look at the preparation and mental journey that is involved, and ask what it teaches her and how she brings these learnings into the workplace.

Laura Langton an investment manager at JM Finn. She was previously involved in developing partnerships and revenue streams in financial services. Our conversation starts with her very sporty upbringing in the idyllic Cotswolds. Her mother was a jockey and Laura found rowing had its own rich history within her family.

Julia Kwamya is an associate at Tikehau Capital, the global alternative asset manager, based in NYC.  She has trained as an actor, musician and voiceover artist and has released her first album “Feel Good about Feeling Bad”.  We are featuring songs from this album on this entire Series 5 of 2023.  She has been Creator in Residence at Kickstarter, as well as a casting assistant among other roles in the entertainment industry.  She studied economics at Pepperdine University.

Ben Phillips is Head of Asset Management Global Advisory Services at Broadridge Financial Solutions, based in New York, He has had a long background in consulting at firms such as Casey, Quirk, Deloitte and Cerulli Associates and has focused for much of his career on the dynamics and evolution of the asset management industry. I asked Ben here to let us look over his shoulder into his crystal ball to chart the future course of the asset management industry.

Melanie Pickett is Executive VP and Head of Asset Owners, Americas at Northern Trust, based in the Chicago area.  She oversees the Alternative Asset Servicing Group and directs the firm’s strategy , growth and delivery of all firmwide products for asset owners and allocators in the America’s region. She was named 2021 Top 40 Women in Fintech and the 2021 Global Banking & Finance US Business Woman of the Year. She previously was Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of Emory Investment Management at Emory University and prior to that spent over 10 years at Morgan Stanley.