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. 

Amanda Pullinger is Chief Executive of 100 Women in Finance, where she leads a staff team and provides direction to 500 volunteer practitioners globally. 100 Women in Finance is focused on empowering women in the finance industry and inspiring the next generation of pre-career young women and has over 20,000 registered members globally. She previously held a series of roles in asset management and is a member of BAFTA and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

A discussion of multiple careers and pivots, and the central mission of 100 Women in Finance today.

Aman Kapadia is managing partner at Akaris Global, a hedge fund firm based in New York City. He previously worked at another fund Fir Tree Partners, and before that was an investment analyst focused on an event driven style of investing.

Catherine Beard is SVP of Alternatives Consulting at Callan, the investment consultants. She has had a long career in investment consulting and allocation with a particular focus on private credit and is based in Chicago. 

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.  

Matteo Dante Puccio, is President International  and a Partner at Wave Financial Group. He’s had an extensive career across the wealth management, VC tech investing and family office space. He’s currently focused on digital assets at Wave Financial Group.

Welcome back to The Fiftyfaces Podcast in 2022. In this first series we meet with ten more inspiring guests and draw out in particular themes relating to impact and the importance of education.  For some of our guests their commitment to educating the next generation – whether through personal sponsorship, Board Roles, teaching decision making or the founding of The Skills Workshop – there is universal belief in its importance.

Impact takes many forms, and includes investment in education, but for some of our guests it also includes solutions to alleviate homelessness, house vulnerable women and adults with learning differences, or address the problem of climate change. 

Patricia (Trish) Halper is a member of the Board of Advisors of Ativo Capital, a Chicago-based asset manager. Trish was previously CIO and Partner at Chicago Equity Partners, where she spent 21 years and most recently headed up the quantitative equity investment process.

She is a trustee of the La Rabida Children’s Hospital in Chicago, among other board and volunteer roles. Our conversation covers the experience of women in investing and in financial education, the importance of engagement and authenticity and how to communicate with clients during good and bad times.

Eoin Murray is Head of Investment at the international business of Federated Hermes. He has had a long career in investment management, spending time as a hedge fund manager and a quantitative equity specialist. He recently obtained a certificate in energy innovation and emerging technologies and is a passionate advocate for sustainable investing, greater awareness of climate change and in driving change in the investment industry towards these goals. He also has a diploma in specialist rescue which includes Swift Water Rescue, Powered Boat Rescue, Water Incident Management, & Rope Rescue via Outreach Rescue. It is these unusual intersections that we discuss in this podcast, which is also included in the Fiftyfaces Focus Intersections Series.

A discussion of a career journey that has rarely known limits and is now poised to take on one of the greatest challenges of all.

Annabel Gillard is an International Advisory Council Member at the Institute of Business Ethics. She previously had a long career in asset management where she ran institutional business development businesses for large asset managers and held various board and committee roles in the CFA UK organization. She is currently pursuing a post-graduate degree in the twin disciplines of Philosophy and AI.

A wide-ranging discussion that touches on ethics, artificial intelligence and institutional business development.