YouSaid · the spoken record

Alyssa Altman

lines on the record: 23
first: 2020-08-11
most recent: 2020-08-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“All done a huge amount for me over the course of my career, but perhaps most importantly, they've told me the truth, especially when I didn't want to hear it. And you're really not going to get ahead in the world with people telling you that you're great all the time, mostly because we're not great all the time. I'm certainly not. And so you really need someone to tell you to sort yourself out. And so I have a tremendous gratitude for their sponsorship. And I learned a lot from them and how I want to lead and sponsor other people.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not sure that I want to go all the way to that extreme of radical transparency. In fact, it feels a little exhausting to me. But I do think we need to create moments of radical transparency to move forward in organization. And a couple of weeks ago, I spent some time with the Bridgewater head of research, Karen Cornel Tambor, and I told her that sometimes when I'm working with my team, I say, you know, time out. Let's have a Bridgewater moment here and just create the space to have a transparent conversation and an honest conversation. And I think that's kind of a useful tool for us to have as leaders. And finally, I just want to end with, you know, you asked the question about people that have inspired or helped me move my career forward. I've been really lucky to have and I humbly hope to have earned the sponsorship of some incredible executives at Goldman Sachs that happen to be women. So I would mention Alice and Moss, Sheila Patel and Dina Powell.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Give two quick examples of those. The first would be Steve Schwartzman, of course, the legendary co founder of Blackstone, who wrote What It Takes and lots of lessons in there, but one for me is just the importance of creating vision, which he calls, I think refers to as the worthy fantasy of what people want. So putting together the big picture and getting people to line up behind that and drive forward. And when I had the privilege of taking over as the co-head with Steve Barry of our public equity business, we really didn't have a shortage of challenges we were facing. Some were self-inflicted, some were about industry trends, and we had to reinvent ourselves. And we have been successful in doing that. And I think one of the reasons is that we were able to get people to buy into that vision. And I was really influenced by Steve's writing on that. The second would be Ray Dalio, who wrote a couple of books, one of which was principles where he writes about this idea of radical transparency.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think I got interested in investing because ultimately it's the act of predicting the future. And I just think that's pretty audacious and fun. And that drew me to it and I really loved it. I was also an English major, which maybe not be natural fit for investing, but one of the things that you have to do as an English major is take sources from lots of different places and pull them into a coherent thesis that drives you forward. And there's actually a lot of parallels between that and investing in my experience. I've really looked a lot to very accomplished investors in the role that I have now in leading our equity team and thinking about how to drive the turnaround that we needed to drive. I'm a pretty voracious reader and I like to trade book titles with my colleague Nora Creedon who runs our liquid real assets business and we share book recommendations and then talk about what we learn from those that we can apply to the investment culture we want to build.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Katie, how do you personally get interested in investing? And when you were starting out, do you have role models or mentors that you looked up to that made you believe it was possible and made you want to keep going?”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On the gender front, but we're facing a really big problem. And that problem is the lack of data. And so companies just aren't required to report publicly diversity statistics beyond gender. And actually, there's only 22% of the companies in the Russell 1000, which is the kind of the big broad U.S. index, report on both gender and ethnicity statistics. And so what we're really focused on is first and foremost engaging with companies for better demographic disclosure because we have this belief that if you can't measure it, you're not going to be able to push for the progress that you need to make. And so that's the first step that we're taking and really hopeful that other asset managers and asset owners will join us in that journey.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The industry has an enormous amount of work to do on racial equity. I mean, we clearly still have a lot of progress to make on gender equity, but racial equity is in a much worse position. If you just look at executives, I mean, worth noting right now, we only have three black executives leading Fortune 500 companies. There's actually only been 18 in the entire history of Fortune 500 companies. And in fact, only two black female CEOs. That is just dire, that statistic. One thing that we noticed when we were looking at those numbers that all of those executives had in common is that they did have black representation on their board when they became CEOs. And so that is something that we want to focus on. I mean, fixing board composition is not the answer to everything, but it's a place to start. And we would like to focus on pushing for board diversity on the racial front as we have.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so the other thing I would highlight in terms of the best way to do this is you don't want to just be antagonistic and voting against these companies. You also want to be part of the solution. And so one of the great parts about Goldman Sachs is we have this incredible network. And so we did engage with these companies. We told them what our intentions were on voting. And when they expressed interest in bringing a woman on board, but also expressed that they didn't know the right woman to bring on board, we provided many of them lists of board qualified women to help in that process. So we really wanted to be collaborative. And anyway, after having had that success, it built our confidence to take that policy global. And this year, we are voting against the nominating committees of all companies around the world where there is no woman on the board. So we voted against around 1,400 directors at 780 companies. And so we're really popular now in places like Brewing and Japan. As you can imagine. And I hope we get to.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This has been a really fascinating experience because my view on quotas, for example, has really evolved as we've thought through our voting process. So for 10 years, we effectively begged and pleaded with companies to add a woman to the board, and we made really limited progress. Most of them said that they'd love to add a woman to the board. They were working on it. That was the most common response. But we kind of lost patience with that approach. And so in 2019, we decided to increase the pressure, and we voted against the nominating chairs of 214 companies in the US because of their lack of gender diversity. And lo and behold, 37% of them actually added a woman to the board within the next 12 months. And so I guess they found that elusive woman. They were looking for very quickly. And we wouldn't take credit for all of that. I think there's many reasons that we've those companies added a woman, but we certainly played a role in it.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And over the long term, we think presents a great return opportunity. So those are some examples of the idea generation. And then finally, and maybe we can talk about it a little bit more, we're engaging with these companies as well to unlock shareholder value.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of the buyer. So that gives you an example of how we think about it from an integration perspective. Quickly on idea generation, there's lots of companies that are actually solutions providers to this space. So we've invested in a software company that helps people track the return on investment in their diversity programs. U.S. corporates spend $9 billion a year on diversity programs. And this software company does lots of stuff, but one thing is help them track the return on that investment. And then just another quick example would be investments that we've made, particularly in the US, in the childcare space, where you have one of the greatest mismatches of supply and demand. There are childcare deserts effectively across our nation. It disproportionately impacts women. 43% of highly qualified women take a career break, and many of them because of lack of high quality childcare options. So this is a market where solutions providers have a big addressable market.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Team. And then by looking, doing a quick look on our iPad, we saw also an all-male board. And we just thought, you know, this is going to be tough for this company to get this consumer cycle right. And I love men. They're great investors. I'm married to one, you have four kids, Jake. I have three. I'm having a fourth. I think Christine, your wife would agree with me. Like, they're good at men are good at lots of things, but I'm not sure that they're the best engineers to build a bottle that perfectly mimics breastfeeding. And so we kind of looked at that example and said this company needs to have more diversity. And we worked with them and we've engaged with them on that. So that's an example of something that we factored into our decision making of ultimately not owning the company. And then there's other companies that I think really excel at this, consumer and cosmetic companies, for example, we really look to those to have diverse representation because women are 99%.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Say we do it three ways. The first is to use your word, is the way we integrate it into all the companies we're looking at. The second is we use it actually as a source of idea generation. And then the third is around the way that we engage with those companies to unlock shareholder value. So from an integration standpoint, it's asking those questions around do you reflect the consumer base that you're trying to sell to, for example. So quick example on that from an example of a company that doesn't do this well. We as a team met with a Japanese consumer company. They actually make household goods and some of their most prominent products are in the infant space. And we had a team of diverse investors meeting with this company and they claimed to us that they had an edge, particularly on making a bottle that did the best job of mimicking breastfeeding. And it was a kind of surreal experience because, of course, across the table from our diverse team was an all-male management.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And propensity to spend. And that's a very diverse consumer. And in that cohort, 90% of women are controlling the daily shopping decisions, for example, and actually just globally $32 trillion of consumer spending is driven by women. So how can you possibly make successful investment decisions in the consumer space without reflecting the perspective of women? That's important for how we invest on our team. And we also think it's important for the representation at our companies. And just one other stat on how this is becoming so much more important from a race perspective, there's a really popular consumer survey, the Edelman survey, which was published recently and said 60% of millennial consumers will boycott or support a brand based on their perspectives on racism. So that all just gives you examples as to how important it is for companies to consider this in their composition. And I'd say some of them are doing it. They have a lot of progress.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The companies that we invest in have a lot of progress to make on diversity that would be the headline. I think from an investing perspective, though, that's actually pretty interesting because it suggests that there's latent growth potential and return potential from those companies if they can get it right. We are passionate believers and think about this a lot for all the companies we invest in that successful companies need to reflect the societies that they're part of and the societies that they're catering to. Again, not an issue just of equitability, but also profitability. Why do they need to do that? Why do they need to reflect society? Because it allows them to better understand their client base. They can come up with the right products. They can land on the right marketing message. And they can maintain that critical tie between brand and trust. And I think it's more important, the most valuable consumer in the market right now is the millennial consumer, both by size.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This topic. And she said, you know, often she says the power of difference can only be realized if you value that difference and factor those views into your decision making. And I think that's a really profound insight that we have to make sure we're doing a better job of as managers. If we want to realize the return on investment of diversity and given all the time and energy we're all spending on it, it would be crazy to leave those returns on the proverbial table. We need to find a seat for everybody at the table and also make sure that they have a voice. And I think that's inclusion.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I agree. I think we always have to be in that growth mindset of what we can be doing better. I want to start by saying obviously I'm very proud to be part of Goldman Sachs and our commitment to diversity, I think is real and authentic. And I am also proud of the really honest conversations we're having around it. But as you pointed out, like all organizations, we've got more progress to make on a lot of fronts. One area I would highlight is just the general need to think about inclusion alongside diversity. So diversity kind of means let's go out and hire lots of different people. And it reminds me of Noah's Ark. Like let's just go get two of every kind and bring them in and hope it works out and actually hiring different people, as I've already said, is important. But we also have to kind of engage on that second level thinking about how we pull out the diverse perspectives once we've hired those folks. So Erica Irish Brown, who's of course our head of diversity and inclusion at Goldman Sachs, has really formed my thinking on this.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That critical mass, which we've been able to do on the gender front, you actually don't have to talk about it that much anymore and obsess over it. The diverse talent actually comes and finds you. And that's just a really great place to be.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's a good question. And when people ask me about that, about how we've been able to attract all these investors, half of them are women, half of our assets are run by female investors, it reminds me of that movie, What Women Want, which was directed by Nancy Myers. Remember that with Nell Gibson and Helen Hunt. And anyway, as part of that movie, he drops a hairdryer in a bathtub and electrocutes himself. And then he wakes up with this telepathic ability to know what woman wants. But for you, Jake, I'm going to save you getting electrocuted and I'll just kind of cut the pace in terms of what's worked for us. At the heart of it, it's really not that complicated. Women want to work somewhere where they see other incredibly talented women in seats of authority, influence, and risk-taking. And that's the best evidence that the organization does in fact value diverse perspectives and that they will be able to move forward with their career. And the really great news is that once you reach”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Commitment to sustainability, and we were able to understand all of that well ahead of the market. And this has been really beneficial to performance. So that's another great example of how diversity of perspectives can help drive better performance in portfolios.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that really helped us build comfort in paying the higher multiples for those types of businesses because she built our confidence on the long-term secular growth opportunities that existed there. And some of the Generation X and baby boomers on our team were really skeptical about millennials. Aren't those the kids still living in my basement? Do they really have any money to spend? Why are we focused on their taste and preferences? But Laura was quick to point out that millennials are in fact the world's largest demographic with 2.3 billion people. Their spending is set to increase over the next five years by 17%, whereas baby boomers is likely to shrink by 10%. And we therefore with her perspectives were early to understand the dynamics of the shared economy, the millennial preference for experience over things, the emphasis on healthy lifestyle, and the millennial”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sustainable investing revolution, and it's going to have the scale of the industrial revolution and the speed of the digital revolution. And now, of course, it has the added tailwind of COVID. So his perspectives really added to our confidence to underway traditional carbon-based assets across our portfolios and lean into alternative solutions providers. And that's been really helpful to performance. And we got there because of his unique perspective. Another example of unique perspectives would be the importance of bringing in viewpoints from different generations. One of our portfolio managers is an exceptionally talented woman named Laura Desrobot. She's a really great investor and also a young millennial, whereas our analysts have often pointed out to me I'm actually the oldest possible millennial. So it's very good to have Laura's perspective on the team. More than five years ago, Laura attuned us to the incredible opportunity at the intersection of consumer and technology.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, that's such an awesome place to start because I think it's really important to frame diversity not just as an issue of equitability, which obviously it is, but also a really pertinent business issue of profitability for us and our clients. And I'm in the business of fundamental investing, which is human-driven investing. And what we're trying to do every day is create an edge by having a unique perspective relative to the market. And one of the ways to ensure when you're building a team in a process that you're able to cultivate that variant perspective is by bringing in people with different views and backgrounds. And so I know we're going to talk a lot about gender, but I wanted to give you a couple of examples of people on my team from a different lens, one cultural and one generational. So if we think about the cultural lens for a second, the head of our global equity team is an incredibly talented guy named Alexei Delader. And we actually started together as analyst at Goldman Sachs almost 20 years ago.”
2020-08-11 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Diversity Drives Better Investment Performance · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT