Sonali Patel Wilson is Managing Director and Director of Alternatives, Americas at Wellington Management where she is based in the New York City area. She sits on the investment committee of the Harry and Jeanette Foundation in Baltimore and she is the trustee of EWOB Encouraging Women across All Borders, which helps college aged women and non-binary individuals build their confidence to enter STEM and finance fields. She previously held various positions at PIMCO focused on account management in the alternatives area and has held various investor relations and analyst roles.

Richard Okello is CEO and Co-founder at Sango Capital, an investment firm he founded 10 years ago that has a particular focus on investing in Africa.  He previously was a principal at Makena Capital, and prior to that in a series of roles at Bridgewater Associates. He sits on several fund advisory boards, portfolio company boards as well as the boards of the African Leadership Foundation and Human Horizons Foundation.

Laura Sage is CEO at Chill Anywhere, and Co-Founder of the Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Foundation.  She has previously held a series of advisory and business development roles at different financial institutions including hedge funds. Our conversation starts with her financial career, and the grueling travel schedule that accompanied it.  She describes her pivot to wellness and what led her to think about a solution for employing a holistic approach to health and wellness in the workplace.

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. 

Steve Butler is Chief Executive at Punter Southall Aspire, an investment consulting group.  He was previously the founder of Camradata, a business author and a visiting industry fellow at Oxford Brookes Business School.  He has a particular focus on areas such as #futureofwork, #olderworkers, #inclusiveculture, #intergenerational, and #retirementplanning and writes extensively on the topics on LinkedIN, which is where we met.  He is pursuing a Doctorate in Business Administration which is examining the effect of Covid 19 on different generations in the workplace.

It is hard to believe that we are back for our fourth year of the Fiftyfaces Podcast – and in Series 1 of 2023 we hear about unorthodox beginnings such as the twelve year old who arbitraged the price of chickens when growing up in Uganda, and ended up in a senior role in Bridgewater before starting his own firm. We hear about traditional ones too, about investment instincts honed at the family dinner table, or through seeing the world through an artist’s eyes.