Asha Mehta is Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Global Delta Capital, where she has a thematic focus on Emerging and Frontier Markets as well as Sustainability Investing. She was previously Lead Portfolio Manager and Director of Responsible Investing at Acadian Asset Management and prior to that an investment banker.  She has traveled to over 80 countries and lived in six, and recently released a book, The Power of Capital: An Adventure Capitalist’s Journey to a Sustainable Future. 

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. 

In this podcast we return to a former guest, Matt Sherwood, whom we featured in an earlier podcast in this series (see https://www.fiftyfaceshub.com/157-matthew-sherwood-ph-d-of-wevidit-media-determination-vision-and-the-power-of-reframing/) in order to catch up with his new venture, Pothos Partners. The name comes from the golden pothos plant which sequesters carbon particularly efficiently among plants. It is also a resilient plant that is difficult to eliminate.

John Teahan is a portfolio manager at Redwheel, which is focused on value oriented UK and global equity funds where he leads on engagement and responsible investing. The firm was formerly known as RWC Partners. 

Kate Fox is an Investment Manager at Baillie Gifford based in Edinburgh, where she leads the impact strategy Positive Change and is a Partner at the Firm. Our conversation traces her career journey, explores the meaning of “positive change” within an investment context and examines the way to develop a successful career in portfolio management.

Melanie Pickett is Executive VP and Head of Asset Owners, Americas at Northern Trust, based in the Chicago area.  She oversees the Alternative Asset Servicing Group and directs the firm’s strategy , growth and delivery of all firmwide products for asset owners and allocators in the America’s region. She was named 2021 Top 40 Women in Fintech and the 2021 Global Banking & Finance US Business Woman of the Year. She previously was Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of Emory Investment Management at Emory University and prior to that spent over 10 years at Morgan Stanley. 

Francois Bourdon is Managing Partner of Nordis Capital, based in Montreal. He is also Managing Partner in Sustainable Market Strategies, an independent investment strategy research service tracking global developments in ESG/impact-investing worldwide.  He was formerly Chief Investment Officer at Fiera Capital.  

Cathie Wood is CEO of ARK Investment Management LLC (“ARK”). Prior to ARK, Cathie spent twelve years at AllianceBernstein as Chief Investment Officer of Global Thematic Strategies where she managed $5 billion. Cathie joined Alliance Capital from Tupelo Capital Management, a hedge fund she co-founded which, in 2000, where she managed $800 million in global thematic strategies. Prior to her tenure at Tupelo Capital, she worked for 18 years with Jennison Associates as Chief Economist, Equity Research Analyst, Portfolio Manager and Director. She started her career in Los Angeles, California at The Capital Group as an Assistant Economist.

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.