GuyLaine Charles and I met when we started on the same day as junior associates in a NYC law firm in the mid-90s. GuyLaine became a specialist in derivatives and recently launched her own firm, Charles Law PLLC, to represent clients in the negotiation of financial agreements including prime brokerage, futures and options, limited partnership and credit agreements.
A trip back to GuyLaine’s Canadian roots, her decision to launch her own law firm and her views on diversity in the profession.
Yvonne Bajela is an investor in early stage companies at Impact X Capital, which invests in start-ups across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She has worked across the globe in investment banking, corporate venture capital and in academia, and is a frequent speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and female empowerment. She was listed as a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30.
A discussion of this investor’s early interest in investing, risk-taking and how she learned the ropes of venture investing.
Greg Williams is a business development manager at Wellington Management Company, a Boston-based asset management firm. Greg is based in their Chicago office. Before pivoting to a career in finance he worked as a professional actor, and after business school spent time as an equity research analyst and has long experience in consultative selling and business development.
A successful business development executive tells the story of how he started out as an actor and continues to draw upon that skillset today.
Karen Shackleton is the founder and head of Pensions for Purpose, a collaborative initiative to promote understanding of impact investment for institutional investors. This is in addition to a portfolio career which includes roles as investment adviser to four local authority pension funds, as well as Chair and Non-Executive Director roles. She has spent most of her career in investment, including time as a fund manager, client relationship manager and chief executive of an Investment Advisory Firm. She is a frequent speaker on the institutional investor circuit and a passionate advocate for knowledge and action in impact investment.
A fast-paced discussion of a career driven by ambition and dedication, which is now evident in the Pensions for Purpose created by Karen which is creating tremendous impact among the pension fund community.
Are we slipping in our intellectual abilities? Have we lost the ability to read, reason, analyze, and more importantly pay attention?
Over the past decade we have seen a deluge of challenges – from Covid and its disruptive effect on education, to the rising use of screens and smart phones to the more recent threat from LLMs and an increasingly proficient set of AI tools that threaten to compete with and ultimately replace humans in almost every dimension. Each of these threats is nuanced and subjective, but we are starting to see patterns emerge in terms of the impact on our attention span, and ability to think critically and absorb new information.
Artemiza Woodgate is Founding Partner at Integrated Quantitative Investments LLC, based in Seattle. She has spent most of her career in the quantitative investment arena, including close to 5 years with Numeric, Man Group, and over 11 years with Russell Investments.
Henry Song is a portfolio manager for Diamond Hill, a asset manager headquartered in Columbus Ohio with approximately $30 bn in AUM. He joined the firm in 2016. Prior to joining Diamond Hill, Henry was a portfolio manager at J.P. Morgan Asset Management from 2005 to 2016. He specializes in securitized credit.
Jo Kempton is Head of Lincolnshire Pension Fund, where she has spent most of her career in various roles, including as the manager of an internal UK equity portfolio. She is an active participant on the local government pension scheme circuit.
Stuart Dunbar is a Partner at Baillie Gifford, based in Edinburgh, where he has worked since 2003. He previously held a range of institutional marketing roles, but before that there were some unexpected interests and pursuits.
Jen Choi is CEO of ILPA – the Institutional Limited Partners Association, where she has spent over a decade. She previously spent over 7 years at the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association.