Angela Miller May is CIO at Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund a public defined benefit fund based in Oak Brook IL which has over $40 bn in assets under management.Angela is a regular figure on the asset management conference circuit and has become a leading voice in promoting diversity and inclusion in the industry. She appeared as the third guest on the podcast in 2020 during her tenure as CIO of Chicago Teachers.

Adam Saron is Founder of Clara-Pensions, a member-first consolidator of defined benefit pension schemes. He previously ran Black Ant Investment Management, a long-biased value investor, which invested in both public equities and corporate credits.  

Johara Farhadieh is Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer of The Illinois State Board of Investment (ISBI), in which she oversees a $20 bn defined benefit fund and a $5 bn dollar defined contribution plan with over 150,000 beneficiaries. She has been at ISBI for over 13 years, and prior to that was a financial analyst. She was named an All-Star Chief Investment Officer by Trusted Insight and ISBI was ranked number one in private equity returns among public pension funds in 2020 by the American Investment Council.

A story about resilience and a refusal to accept “no” for an answer when it comes to building diversity in an institutional portfolio.

Mark Steed is Chief Investment Officer at Arizona PSPRS Trust, a US public defined benefit fund with over $13 bn AUM, where he has spent over 14 years. He previously worked as a banker and prior to that as a financial analyst, and has a Masters in Predictive Analytics. He describes himself as an “investment ideas” guy and an out of the box thinker at that.

An out of the box thinker and public fund CIO takes us out of the box to discuss his current investment ideas and what it takes to motivate a retain a team.

Julian Tregoning has worked in the asset management business for many years, having had senior roles in the Flemings Group (where he also covered Latin America) and at BNY Mellon. He has held multiple Director and Chair roles and is a member of the investment committee for SAUL, a multi-employer defined benefit scheme for the non-academic employees of the University of London.

A podcast that features in both our “Next Chapter” series and our main series, this trip back to the era of Top Hats in the City of London traces and extraordinary international career that first happened “by accident.”

Sharmila Kassam is the founder of Aligned Capital Investing, as well as holding a portfolio of Board roles. She was previously Deputy Chief Investment Officer of the Employees Retirement System of Texas, a public defined benefit plan with around $30 bn in AUM, where she held a series of roles for almost 12 years. She previously worked as an attorney and a venture industry professional. She is a Senior Fellow at the Milken Institute.

A deep dive into what it takes to be an effective director and Board member and the power of our heritage to shape us and translate traditional values into career guides.

Angela Miller May is CIO at the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund, a public defined benefit fund based in Chicago, which has $11 bn in assets under management. The fund is a leader in promoting the G in ESG – i.e. in ensuring that the managers it does business with walk the talk in improving the diversity of their investment teams.

As a true trailblazer, Angela Miller-Mays rise to the helm of a public pension plan is a story of humility, hard work, motivating a team through inclusion and achieving diversity both inside and outside an organization.

Jon Salstrom is Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer at the Cincinnati Retirement System, a role he has held for almost two years. He previously worked in a series of consulting and financial analyst roles. Our conversation starts by tracing his earlier career path, and particularly his roles in consulting which set him up well for the current role with the City of Cincinnati.

Between Series 1 and series 2 of 2023, we kicked off a brand new focus series – the Love Series – in celebration of love in February 2023.  This had a great response – reminding us of what made people human.  It sent one listener back to his old photo album to remind himself of his showjumping days, and others felt motivated to take up hobbies again.  

Now we are back to our main series focused on investment professionals but love runs through it like a golden thread.  Love, discipline, lessons from parents.  Our guests include a former college football player, who spent time working as a prison guard before returning to university and ultimately entering the investment industry, an expert on music valuation, multiple ESG and pensions specialists and founders of fund companies – large and small.  

William McGrath is CEO of C Suite pension strategies. He has a financial and industrial sector background and was a longtime CEO of AGA range master. He has an honorary doctorate from Birmingham City University for work to sustain the relevance of the Midlands industrial heritage. He returned to the financial sector after 25 years working in industry.