Vivian Lin Thurston is a Partner and Portfolio Manager at William Blair Investment Management, where she is based in Chicago. She previously covered global consumer stocks in a research role both at William Blair and a series of other financial services firms. She is Chairman of the Board at the Chinese Finance Association of American and a Principal Dancer and Director at the Xilin Dance Company. 

In this podcast John Harney, associate partner at AON, actuary and expert on pensions - see https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnwilliamharney/ leads the discussion on what was learned over the course of 2024 - how we separated the wood from the trees and what trends we...

Derek Walker, is Head of Portfolio Design & Construction, total Fund Management and a member of the Global Leadership Team at CPP Investments, based in Toronto. He previously worked in MSCI in Geneva. We start by discussing what Derek describes as a “non linear” career path, and his road from technology and machine translation to CPP Investments. 

Hallie Label, is the founder of Expect Equity, based in Baltimore.  She was previously Chief Operating Officer at Rock Springs Capital, and prior to that was a principal at Makena Capital and held numerous financial industry roles.

Kirk Sims is a Senior Investment Manager and Head of the Emerging Manager Program at the Teachers Retirement System of Texas, a public pension plan with over $150 bn in assets under management. He previously worked at the Teachers Retirement System of Illinois, where he spent close to 7 years, and where he had oversight of the $7 bn minority investment program and the $750 m emerging manager program. Prior to that he held a variety of financial services roles.

A delightful canter through an inspiring HBCU education, a lifelong passion for jazz and a role at the helm of an emerging manager program that is one of the most prominent in the USA.

Stephanie Niven is a Global Sustainable Equity Portfolio Manager at Ninety One. She started her career as an equity analyst and subsequently held a series of portfolio management roles.  She was previously an ambassador for the Diversity Project and sits on the Advisory Board of Girls Who Invest. 

Julie Koeninger is Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager in Agriculture at Manulife Investment Management, where she serves as the senior agricultural portfolio manager for the Hancock Timberland and Farmland Fund and leads business development for Manulife Investment Management global agriculture strategy.  She has over 30 years of experience in agriculture investing, having worked in a series of roles at other institutions prior to joining Manulife and led the first ever securitization of US Agricultural mortgages. 

Shan Chen was until recently a portfolio manager focused on mostly private investments at the Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System, where he spent over 17 years. He previously worked primarily within information technology and did research work in biochemistry. He has recently retired from the PSPRS and is focusing full time on developing AI solutions for investment management.