Sonali Pier is a Managing Director at PIMCO in Newport Beach, with a particular focus on Multi-Sector Credit.  She previously worked as a credit trader and was named recently to the Marketwatch 50 most influential people in markets.  Our conversation starts with her education, and a stock picking competition at the tender stage of sixth grade, which launched an interest in finance and economics.

In this podcast – which was recorded with co-host Tom Raber of Alvine Capital, the co-hosts sit down with Björn Thelander, who is an experienced Family Office manager with broad international investment and industrial experience. His background is varied and involved many stints in emerging markets, punctuated by market crises which often necessitated a pivot – or two.

Do you ever over order? This year, as is the case every year we were bursting at the seams with guests and talent here at Fiftyfaces Productions and were delighted to produce a bonus series featuring 8 inspiring guests at the end of 2024. We hope you can take some time over the break to listen back to some big themes – neurodivergence and the workforce, system change, moonshots and deep dives – all delivered in bite size chunks.

Matt Whineray recently retired from the role of Chief Executive Officer at the NZ$77 bn NZ Super Fund, where he had spent close to 16 years in a series of roles, culminating in CEO but which included 4 years as CIO. He previously worked in a series of corporate finance roles, and currently holds a number of Chair and Board roles.

Mike Tiedemann was a Founding Partner, CEO and Chairman of the Internal Investment Committee at Tiedemann Advisors, as well as CEO at Tiedemann Investment Group (TIG), before leading the merger that created AlTi. Early in his career, Mike lived and worked in Brazil as part of the equity research group at Banco Garantia and later ran the equity sales and trading operations for Latin America.

2024 will be a year of tremendous change, and tremendous noise.  With elections in key regions, we are likely to be subjected to a volley of rhetoric and uncertainty will be the order of the day. In times like this, it seems even more important to reach out to our wise community for their insights on what should stay the same, and evolve, amid this uncertainty. 

Howard Fischer was the original founder of Basso Capital hedge fund and the co-founder of the Gratitude Railroad initiative in 2013. He is now the Chairman Emeritus of Basso Capital and “Chief Evangelist” at The Gratitude Railroad. The Gratitude Railroad is an initiative that unites 9 “tracks” or different concepts using capitalism to solve a social or environmental problem.

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.  

David Vickers is Chief Investment Officer at Brunel Pensions Partnership Limited, which manages assets on behalf of 10 partner funds within the local government pension scheme, representing about £30 billion He has extensive experience and investing in the multi asset arena, where he has spent time managing assets for a range of institutional investors.

Nazmeera Moola is Chief Sustainability Officer of Ninety One, based in Capetown, where she previously headed up South African investing.  Our podcasts starts with a discussion of her farming background as a child and the lessons that that taught her in terms of planning, market volatility, the importance of diversification and risk management.  It was an interesting preparation for a career in investing, and we talk through the challenges and opportunities of emerging market investing, particularly in Africa.