YouSaid · the spoken record

Jacob Walthour

lines on the record: 84
first: 2020-08-10
most recent: 2020-08-10
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

“You're not going to see true change. I think it takes diversity at the senior levels of organizations, whether that's boards or C-suites or managing director levels, to truly make decisions every day that favor or benefit diversity. And so I don't necessarily disagree with your point that if you were to have some scientists kind of come in and study human behavior and how they make decisions and who they're comfortable with, it may very well lead to the decisions that have been made, Ted. I think where I part ways with it is that”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think about corporate America and Wall Street almost as one and the same when it comes to issues related to race. Both have a responsibility. The same way I think about the Republican and the Democratic Party when it comes to issues of race. Both have a responsibility. So from my point of view, we have to shed the titles and what we really need is leadership, people who are willing to say that. The organization that I command is going to change. I'm going to Do something inside my ecosystem to create opportunities for women, to advance to the point where they are making game changing decisions inside my organization. I'm going to do something to create opportunities for African Americans so that they have game changing opportunities inside the organization. And until that happens, the”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Those are great examples of an attempt of, let's just say the sales process playing on behavior. So we know that we all have more affinity to people in our quote-unquote tribe, whether that tribe is defined by gender or race or sports or where we went to school. And so on the one hand, you could see an institution, a bank, who's trying to maximize their profits just playing on that psychology And that probably research would show, yeah, that's right. Now, on the other hand, because there was already bias in the system, it perpetuates that bias. How do you think about these trade-offs of that's a problem in corporate America, therefore it becomes a problem in Wall Street? Is Wall Street the right one to correct the problem or is corporate America the right one to correct the problem?”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Why? Because they felt like government institutions would be a better place for them to go knocking and calling versus calling on corporate America. That was an acknowledgement that corporate America had an issue. That they didn't think their African American that they selected out of Harvard or Yale or Princeton could actually have success, or they would have a lower probability of success. To me that was the decision maker actually acknowledging that racism exists.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To come to the conclusion that a woman can call on a white male, and a white male can call on a woman, and an African American can call on a white, and a white can call on an Hispanic. And so that is how I sort of saw Wall Street playing the race card. And maybe sometimes that might have worked too an African American's advantage because they felt like there was more receptivity, but it didn't train that African American to be able to deal with the diversity that exists. In the world of decision makers. And likewise, as I said earlier, it certainly limited the opportunity in terms of who they would let us cover. One of the areas that African Americans always got pushed into was municipal finance.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and the firm wants to do business with that client. They think that they need to select a woman if that client is a woman. Or they think they need to select an African American if that client is an African American. Likewise, they need to pick a white male if that decision maker is a white male. The bottom line is that most of the decision makers in these environments are white males. And so what you're doing is you're perpetuating the issue by your unwillingness.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would argue that for most of my career, I didn't quite understand, that not only do Blacks play the race card, in other words, I'm going to put that out there as an opportune moment. Whites in our industry also play the race cart and put that out there at an opportune moment. And very early in my career, I sort of saw how race was used from a strategic standpoint. And it was For example, if you were African American, you got put into certain areas of the investment bank. You got put into certain roles in the investment bank. Same was the case for women. It wasn't just on racial basis. If you were a woman, you got put into certain types of roles, you got put on certain types of clients. And so the game that's played on Wall Street that isn't so subtle is that if there is a client,”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the challenges that I've seen and goes back to what you were saying as an analyst that some of the people on Wall Street don't even recognize how their actions can contribute to the perpetuation of these problems. And I know separately we had had a conversation about how some of those dynamics play out in the relationships between, say, an investment management firm and a client. I'd love to hear your perspectives on other examples of subtle forms of racism that are still a problem in the industry.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And a big reason why that water was hot is the conditions of blacks and African Americans in this country after four hundred years of stepping foot on this soil. They still have higher unemployment rates, higher death rates, lower life expectancies, lower income levels, lower net worth levels. And so what you saw was a response to their conditions. And I think that not just Wall Street, but all of corporate America, if they were to understand what they could do to chill the waters and the decisions that they make every single day, they truly understand why it's necessary to go beyond talking points and actually take action.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Until people truly understand the impact of the That racism has not just on an individual's career, but on that individual's family, and that individual's community, they won't really understand why it's necessary. So, when you saw all of the protests that really centered around the death of George Floyd, You had Really heightened emotions, like a pot, things had boiled over. Well, I would argue that the water wasn't cold. until George Floyd was murdered in the streets of Minneapolis, the water was already hot.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Especially on the right side of how clients are thinking, and so today you're seeing people openly embrace Black Lives Matters. Six months ago they weren't, a year ago, they weren't, now they are. The climate is now centered around social and racial justice. And so out of a lot of C-suites, you're seeing announcements about how they're engaging the firm in open dialogue around diversity and race, specifically as it relates to African Americans. You're seeing people talk about hiring more, the need to do more. The question I have is are we really reading from the talking points And trying to pacify what's of interest today to the consumer marketplace, or do we really fundamentally in our heart of hearts want change, really feel like we can. Improve lives if we open up Wall Street to be in an equal opportunity industry.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So even though the question really revolves around what needs to happen at the bottom, I think the solution comes from the top. So often on Wall Street, I mean, you've seen this Ted in your career, we get these fads where people jump on things. Climate change might be a good example of them, and people always want to be positioning themselves to be on the right side.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Outside of that dinner, which I thought was classless, how that conversation came up. For the most part, people weren't classless about how they went about this. And maybe in some cases they were absolutely oblivious to how their decisions were disproportionately negatively impacting African Americans. Some people on Wall Street don't even know what racism is. They don't really quite understand how decision that they make or a comment that they make could be viewed as offensive or hurtful.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At the end of the year, you can add everything up. Well, if an African American marketing professional or asset manager or portfolio manager had much less in the way of an opportunity set, fewer clients to cover, smaller dollars to manage at the end of the year when you rolled the numbers up, you kind of came to this justification as to why these people got promoted and paid more and why these people didn't. But no one ever really ever said Well were they given a head start? Were they given an advantage? Were they given a bigger opportunity set? And so I would say that the street wasn't the kind of place where people were classless.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They needed something done, but it never quite worked out the same way it did for some other people. And so you could see people's careers advancing at a much faster rate. than those of us who viewed ourselves quite frankly as equals when we started. I mean, there were guys hopping on airplanes two or three weeks on the job, and it's like, where are you going? You realize that there was a connection there. And then at the end of the day, Wall Street's a meritocracy. And I always say the numbers don't lie.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, Wall Street's about classes. Like when did you start as an analyst? When did you start as an associate? And so you can look to your left and look to your right and you can do your own assessment of kind of who's really smart and who's just getting opportunities just because their dad was connected. And that happens very regularly, that people who had connections were staffed on certain transactions. You know, they were traveling much sooner than the rest of us. And the cumulative effect of all of those experiences and all of that exposure put them ahead of the class. I rarely ever saw an African American have their career advanced by virtue of the fact that they were considered to be one of the favorites, and we worked as hard as everybody. We came from the same schools as everybody, with the exception of myself, we put the weekends in. We raised our hand when someone said.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They weren't making anywhere near the kind of bucks that I was making back then. They weren't getting the kind of bonuses that I was getting back then. I was making more at twenty four twenty six than my parents made at the height of their earnings. So we talked about it openly among the African Americans that I interacted with on Wall Street. We all knew each other because there were very few of us. And we all understood that what we'd have to go through to get access to the kind of wealth creation opportunity we all desired. And so we supported each other and we tried to, to the extent that we could, kind of protect each other.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ultimately started his own firm. I think he was a Sheerson guy originally, still may have his own firm, MR Beel and Company, but he was a legend in my mind, and here I am sitting at a table, and this banker is openly talking about the fact that it was a great club until Bernard joined. And that was sort of my first experience. And that may have been six weeks. Into my career on Wall Street. And so I would say I saw it at a very early age, but honestly, I always thought that It was worth it My friends were working at Proctor and Gamble or Maxwell House Coffee or Chub Insurance Company.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you do if you feel this way? And so I would say that I kind of entered. Eyes wide open to what African Americans experienced on Wall Street. I would say it didn't take long before I had my first experience. I think it was actually I was at my first closing dinner. You remember back then when a transaction closed, there'd be this big closing dinner. And so I was at a closing dinner and I remember a senior banker making a comment about the A club. I don't recall the specific name of the club, but the club back then was all white, and then it was integrated by Bernard Bele. And you may know Bernard, Bernard's a legendary.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, you want to talk about diversity and financial services? They really don't go together, Ted. It's like, you know, ketchup and peanut butter. You can't put them on the same sandwich, right? I came onto Wall Street, as I said earlier, through a program that was specifically designed to try and diversify the employee base of Wall Street, sponsors for educational opportunity, and great organization, probably responsible for sixty to seventy percent of the African population on Wall Street at one point. And so I knew there would be challenges going in. And they had a training program, really that was designed to help us deal with what I'll call would be potential cultural friction. So we learned how to respond to different scenarios. So I would say that was a lot like boot camp. Like, what do you do if someone says this to you?”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Back then it was kind of Morgan and Goldman always in a foot race for the bluest of the blue chip clients. And so you just had this tremendous sense of pride belonging to what we considered to be number one or number two in terms of investment banks back then, depending upon the day of the week that changed.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a really interesting time. Morgan Stanley back then was sort of on the cutting edge of international investing, really viewed as one of the true kind of global firms. I mean, you had like Bear Stearns, which was primarily domestic. Even Lehman was primarily a domestic shop back then. And so working at Morgan Stanley really gave me a window into the global nature of markets. What I also learned at Morgan Stanley was one of the white shoe firms was a sense of pride that people put into the work that they did every day and how the firm really differentiated itself based on its preoccupation with quality, quality in terms of the people they hired, quality in terms of the work that they did, and quality in terms of the clients that we served.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Six years, right? So there was the acquisition of Miller Anderson Sheridan and Greystone. And then the big deal was the merger with Dean Witter.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From the State Comptroller's Office to working at Morgan Stanley Asset Management. So that was my first real asset management job. And so I think it was 1994 I went to work at Morgan Stanley Asset Management and I was employee number 186. And back then, the firm was all about Barton Biggs and his macro views. You had Stephen Roach and Byron Ween, also very well known strategist and economist, but on the asset management side, Barton was the king. And so I went to work, and Barton's asset management group, as it was called, and watched it go from 186 employees to like 10,000 by the time I left.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So out of Lehman, I actually took a step into government. I worked for a guy named H. Carl McCall, who was the controller of the state of New York, and he ran the then fifty six billion dollars New York State Common Retirement Fund. And so I was his right hand helping him oversee and manage the pension fund. And so I was involved in a selection of investment managers, brokers who did execution, consultants that helped us do due diligence. And then I think back then my wife and I got married while I was in that job. And before we knew it, we were pregnant. She was working in government at the DA's office and I was working in government and the comptroller's office in between the two of us. I think we were making 50 grand. And so someone had to go back to the private sector and I kind of raised my hand and said, it's what I want to do anyway. Why not now? So I transitioned.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You accumulate assets, you get paid a fee on those assets, which effectively becomes an annuity stream for individuals and firms as opposed to banking where every year you start at ground zero and you got to make transactions happen. And I would say that business to me seemed far more cyclical. Asset management seemed like a place where I could really have longevity.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The thing about investment banking is it does introduce you to a lot of different areas on Wall Street, right? So you have your traders that are pricing stuff when you're doing initial public offerings or debt offerings. You have the bankers who are relationship driven but very creative in terms of trying to help institutions accomplish their financial objectives. You had economists that you were getting information from. You had people who worked in accounting. You had investment managers that were buying things that we were distributing. So it was a great place to be trained, but also a good place to kind of get a window into how all these other areas kind of fed into what we'll call Wall Street. And so I looked over at investment management and said, wow, that seems like a pretty nice lifestyle. You still get paid pretty well. But every year you're not starting it.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everyone else was white. But having said that, very friendly, very open minded, everyone got along really well. We were all young then, naive, and just knew that we wanted to be hot shot managing directors and occupy a corner office someday. So back then we ate three meals a day at our desk. We always had dinner together and occasionally we'd get a weekend where we'd go spend time in someone's like eight bedroom country house, which was for me like just out of this world. Like you mean the house that you stay in 25 days a year is five times the size of the house I grew up in. So it was a very different experience. But having said that, I think I was prepared for it and never really ran into any issues during that time period.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very different from anything I had experienced in my life. So I grew up in a small town, I went to a public school, and then I went to a public university. and then I end up on Wall Street. And that route is very different from the kids who were in my analyst training program with me. They had grown up wealthy, they were all going. Private schools and boarding schools. I couldn't even name a boarding school. Went to Ivy League institutions. Really by virtue of family connections ended up in that analyst training program. And so when I got there, I realized about the only thing I had in common with the people who were in my analyst training program was the fact that we were all working for Lehman. It felt very different. Outside of those of us that came through some of these”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Investment banking is very different than investment management. I figured out pretty quickly that I didn't want to work seven days a week, working sixteen hours a day. I think at one point when I was an analyst, I went forty-five days straight without a day off. And so I said there's got to be a better life. Fast forward 30 years I'm running my own business. I'm working 16 hours a day, seven days a week, right? So I don't know if I really learned a lesson from that experience, but that's kind of how I got my start.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, if I really applied my mind, I could figure things out. And so I just started picking up a phone and calling people who worked for investment banks and seeing if I could convince them to give me an opportunity. I was fortunate enough to find a guy at Lehman Brothers, who I got on the phone with, and he said, You called me fourteen times. No. Then we didn't have cell phones. So I'd leave a message and I had to get back home at night from studying and I'd find answering machine messages. So I convinced him that I deserved an opportunity he had introduced me to sponsors for educational opportunity. That was the beginning of my opportunity. So I did a summer and then was able to get the full time analyst position, which was my start.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All my career on Wall Street started in nineteen ninety. An investment banking analyst at Lehman Brothers, and I sort of got there through a non-traditional route. I grew up in a small town in upstate New York and wanted to work on Wall Street, thought that I could amass game changing wealth for me and my family Unfortunately, I didn't have Wall Street type connections. In fact, where I grew up, I didn't even know anyone who went to a four-year college. So, to try to get to Wall Street for me, Quite a difficult thing to try and figure out. Knew I had to have really good grades. And when I was in college, I did really well graduated cum laude. I knew I was a tenacious person.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On Wall Street, points of sensitivity for black professionals and blueprints current lawsuit alleging racial discrimination. Jake's experience sheds terrific insight into some of the subtle problems causing diversity challenges in finance. Please enjoy my conversation with Jake Walthower. Jake, great to see you. Why don't we start with the beginning of your career and just see where we go?”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My guest on the first episode of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Awareness, and Action is Jake Walthower, the co founder and CEO of Blueprint Capital Advisors, an alternative investment manager that advises, sources, and overseas portfolios of managers on behalf of institutional clients. Jake launched Blueprint after two decades of experience on Wall Street, including senior roles at investment consultants Axia and Cliffwater, and at investment managers Cowan, Citadel, Moore Capital, and Morgan Stanley Asset Management. Black Enterprise Magazine recognized him as one of the most influential blacks on Wall Street. Our conversation discusses Jake's path through investment banking to investment management, lessons from top alternative managers, and the business at Blueprint. Along the way, we address examples of structural and unconscious racial bias.”
2020-08-10 · Capital Allocators · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 1: Jacob Walthour – A Blueprint for Diversity (Capital Allocators, EP.151) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source