YouSaid · the spoken record

Jeffrey Becker

lines on the record: 61
first: 2025-04-24
most recent: 2025-04-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“As I mentioned, I didn't know anything about it 40 years ago when I was getting started coming out of college. But in reflecting back, what I think would be helpful would have been how many different types of finance careers there actually are. Everyone thinks sort of Wall Street Investment Banking, M&A, but there's investment management, there's wealth management, there's insurance, there's commercial banking, there's institutional banking, so many, many careers in finance and past that you can go down. I had a very narrow view of the investment world. And my journey really happened because of the next role that I got in the next role that I got. I didn't have a plan per se. And I think, you know, I wish I knew more earlier on and I might have set a plan. The plan turned out okay, and I've been happy with it, but who knows what the path would be.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the next department over, ask if you can be exposed to that, you know, while doing the job you were hired for and try to get more exposure. But don't expect anything to be given to you. You own your career. Seek out mentors and try to learn. But at the end of the day, you have to take ownership of your career and your advancement will really depend on the success of your current role. And if you focus on that and do it well, you'll be recognized.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say, first thing, you know Know getting into finance, the path to finance starts so much earlier than it ever did. And in our day, it was senior year, it was time to look for a job. Maybe you had an internship the year before. But now undergrads going into finance, they need to be lining up their internships, sophomore summer, junior summer, senior summer. So it really starts a lot sooner. But once they're on the job, my advice to them is always build a resume of skills, not a resume of jobs. Try to develop as many skills as you can along the way and ask questions early and often. You're not expected to know anything when you're young and in the job, but as you move on in your career, you're expected to know more and it becomes a little harder to ask questions. And then ask for experiences outside of your current duties. So if you see something going on.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, takes you through their administrations and some of the challenges that they faced. It's a big book. It sat on my coffee table for a few years and I looked at it and I've wanted to kind of tap in, but it was four inches high. And finally, I did tap in and I'm glad I did.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, right now I just started leadership and turbulent times from Doris Kearns Goodwin. It seems a little apropos. Sure. Right now, it's a book about Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and LBJ”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At ING, and then Alan Kara Oglin at Voya, to name a few. SIG Sigalis, who I mentioned past about two years ago, I worked with him for only about six years. And while he wasn't necessarily a mentor in the sense of helping me do my job, which was terrific when I came on board, SIG said, I manage the money, you manage the firm, and he kept his word there and allowed me to do what we felt we needed to do to help grow the business and set the strategy. And it was a terrific partnership, and I have great admiration for him. So he was more an inspiration to me, just his will to win and the way he impacted everyone around him and the quality and the values of the firm that he built really inspirational.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I would say first it was my mother from Values and from a work ethic perspective, a first generation college grad, went to got a master's at Georgetown, worked in politics, ran some nonprofits, and then ultimately worked in education. She's 90 years old and still alive and doing well. And she's been a great inspiration to me again from a values and work ethic perspective.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I just started it, so far so good. I've heard so many great things about it. So I'm looking forward to it. I'm a bit of a history buff, so I've been working my way through the Ken Burns documentaries. I've seen the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the Civil War, the Vietnam War, and the Great War. And the next one up for me is Benjamin Franklin. So I really enjoy Ken Burns and how he approaches the documentary.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm always well behind where everyone else is. I didn't watch the first episode of The Sopranos until the series was over. And I'm just starting Yellowstone. So that tells you how up to date. You're ahead of me.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think keeping a long-term focus is good advice for the pension plans who obviously have teams of experts focused on their asset allocation, but also for the retail investor who obviously has the financial advisor as well. But as you know, Barry staying invested is key. When people try to time the markets and exit, they've always regretted that. Being in the market during those key points of inflection when markets take up or missing that last large spike really can have a dramatically negative impact on your returns overall.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For a good couple of years. And it's been red hot. You know, there's still some good signs out there. Housing starts are up. Services PMI is up. Retail sales and manufacturing are down. Consumer sentiment's down. The income and labor markets importantly are still decent. I think that'll be a major determinant of where we go. Inflation is stubborn, but it's showing signs of coming down in key areas. Tariffs notwithstanding. And, you know, I think the tariff path will determine a lot of where we go here.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I agree with you completely. I hope it's the former and not the latter. We are starting to see some signs of some potential slowing of growth. I do think we could see growth slow down from what it's been. And it's been risky.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly, exactly. I mean, we do, I'm not one to call rates per se, but I agree with the base case out there that we'll probably see two cuts. Hopefully, they're for the right reasons and not bad news cuts, if you will.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we've seen that over the last several years as rates ticked up and there was something to earn in fixed income again. We watched pension plans adjust their asset allocations. One of the double-edged swords of being a high performing equity manager is when the equity markets run up and you outperform the benchmark, you get allocated against. You're the one they take the money away from. So we've had that happen and have been a victim of our success, if you will, in some of these areas. So we have seen that over the last couple of years as rates ticked up where we did see some of our clients maintain us, but shift some of the rebound.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Other things, and including some of the strategies that are in demand in Europe, like carbon solution strategy, that's a sort of a brown. Credit shop staying in the higher end of the space there down the fairway, core fixed income manager managing for the largest pension plans in the world and also in stable value and LDI mandates. So it's also a nice diversifier for the business. We have this very stable core credit manager and this high conviction high alpha equity manager.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Growth equity, as we've talked about, was the foundation of the firm and the largest book of assets, about half the assets of the firm. We have a global growth team that was built and extended off of that, getting into global, international, and emerging market equity, also following a growth style and philosophy. That team leverages a lot of the same research of our growth analysts. Then we have a small SMID mid cap team. They are a little more growth managers, but a little more valuation sensitive there. And we offer that in sort of growth and core portfolios. Our value team, we talked about our intrinsic value capabilities. But on the value side, we also have certain sector funds, infrastructure, utilities, energy.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You really have to have skill to differentiate and to separate the noise from the fundamentals of the company. And so we think we can benefit in these periods both on the value and the growth side. Certainly, on the growth side has pulled back most recently in the first quarter. You're starting to see that shift back already. It appears that mid-March was perhaps the bottom and we seem to be starting to bounce off of that. I, for one, don't see a recession on the horizon, at least not a severe one. So I think we will continue to see as we filter through the noise, we learn the tariffs may be a little more targeted and forgiven in some instances that the supply chains don't get as disrupted as We thought, and we could see a good period for growth equity again”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think volatility actually can be good on the growth side as well. So I think when you're a fundamental stock picker, you want, number one, is little correlation as possible. If everything goes up, it's hard to differentiate yourself when markets broaden out when volatility is elevated.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If we can decipher which companies have an inflection point and get into those early and hold them long term. Now, the market has broadened out recently from the MAG 7 and some of the most concentrated positions that have led the market. And we're being rewarded for executing in the value space. There's still good companies and good growth in value. I don't think investors really think about growth versus value investing like they used to. I think they think about it as portions of the portfolio, stable growers maybe with dividends versus innovators and disruptors that might lead the way in the future.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We'll growth indexes have certainly outperformed value for well over a decade. I think we're all aware of that. That's been good for Genesis, two-thirds of our equity assets are growth-oriented assets. And we've benefited during this period and also outperformed and raised money in new clients. So a lot of that has been a great tailwind for our business. But we also have a high performing value team that's put up some very good numbers. The way we manage in value is called an intrinsic value approach, which is very opportunistic. It's not deep value or a fallen angel type strategy. We look for companies with temporarily depressed earnings versus a permanent situation. We try to identify those. And periods of short-term volatility can actually favor our approach.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's exactly as you described. We're paid to invest in a certain strategy for a client, so we hold very little cash just for liquidity and trading. We're paid to be fully invested. And so as we see either a sector or a supply chain or a company's fundamentals coming under pressure, we'll either underweight or get out of the company completely and look for the next best opportunity.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's hard to do, but it really comes down to focus at the end of the day. We have to try to filter out the noise. Now, we can't, we're not macro investors, but we have to be macro aware. We have to understand if policy shifts or anything in the macro environment will ultimately affect the environment in which our companies operate. So we always bring it back to the fundamentals. We can't put blinders on and say this is a great company, but if the landscape in which they operate changes, it can affect the fundamentals of the company. So we work very hard to try to separate the noise from the fundamentals, but at the end of the day, sometimes that macro environment can affect the fundamentals.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
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2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The USIT platform that are used to structure the funds that are sold into the wealth management channels. And there, for example, if you want to buy Genison in a growth fund through the PGIM mutual fund company, it's the PGIM Genison Growth Fund. So sometimes we have multiple brands at play.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is. You have the master brand of prudential 150 years. You have the PGM brand, a little over a decade old. And then you have the brands underneath. Genison at 55 years being the oldest of the investment management brands. It's also why Genison tends to be the most independent of the affiliates or boutiques. It was an acquired business. About 75% of the assets were sourced by Genesison versus assets that have come through some of the prudential or PGM channels. But we do have to be careful about the branding and sometimes it's at the product level. For example, PGIM runs a lot of the consolidated platforms like the mutual fund platform in Europe.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The other great thing about the PGM multi-manager model that I'll comment on is that we have virtually no overlap among the different affiliates or boutiques. So Janison is the fundamental active equity manager. PGM Quantitative Services is the quant manager. PGM fixed income has broad-based fixed income capabilities. We have private real estate, private credit, et cetera. And we're not fighting with each other over shelf space in different products because we're all experts in what we do”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the other thing that Genesison can do is we have a small quantitative equity team, not to be confused with PGM quantitative services, which is a sister company. Our team is there to customize our fundamental alpha from our equity portfolios. So if a client is looking for a targeted tracking error, a targeted volatility likes what we do but maybe can't quite take the tracking error volatility, we can manipulate the portfolio to fit within their requirements. They might be someone who wants a sustainable portfolio and has some exclusions or types of industries they don't want to include. So having this little quoc group within Genesison to customize our outcomes for our clients has been a terrific addition of value that has allowed us to get into some of these multi-asset products.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, the great thing about the multi-manager model at PGM is each of the affiliates, as we call them, versus boutiques are free to pursue their asset class and their specialty in their own way. Now, to the extent that there are multi-asset portfolios put together within PGIM that might select components of the different affiliates or boutiques, that'll be determined by the multi-asset team doing the asset allocation. For Genesison, given the highly concentrated nature of our equity portfolios, we fit into some of those multi-asset products, but in other cases we don't. We're too high octane for that. But we are in a number of annuity and other asset allocation products throughout prudential that avail themselves of our various capabilities.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Want to make sure at the end of the day that the risk we're taking is stock specific. That's who we are on the equity side. We are stock pickers. And so we want to make sure that what's coming through our portfolio from a risk perspective is all based on stock selection and not some of the more factor-based influences that can take shape in portfolios. And as you mentioned, sector and geography and other exposures.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Against is unintended risk. So we're taking very deliberate and concentrated risk, but we have every kind of risk management report that you would expect in an asset manager to make sure we don't have unintended risks to check our dispersion and to make sure that at the end of the day, the risks we're taking are stock selection risk and not unintended risk around size, geography, sector.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and as we discussed, Barry, we are concentrated manners, high conviction managers. So, you know, we're paid to take risk. And as a result, our portfolios do tend to be more volatile than the benchmark, certainly, and many other managers who are more diversified. So, you know, we will have periods where we wildly outperform the benchmark and periods where we underperform the benchmark. We're looking typically at a holding period in our names of three to five years and much longer. And so we are long-term investors. We want to align interests with our clients who are long-term investors and try to filter out the quarter to quarter noise and the volatility that comes in between those periods. So again, if we can identify those companies early that are going to be the longer-term winners, that's where we go. From a risk perspective, what we want to protect against”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“what we think are undervalued companies or the disruptors and the growers. In terms of international holdings per se, as you mentioned the first quarter, after a long drought of underperformance compared to the US, international equities have had a nice run. It's primarily driven by policy shifts locally in some of those regions as well as reactions to current US policy shifts and the uncertainty around that. So in Asia, you know, the government is clearly priming the pump in Europe. Increased defense spending has really ignited the markets over there. And so I think the international markets might have some legs. We do still favor the US in the medium term and longer term right now, but certainly international markets after being Beaten down for years have come back strongly.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In terms of our portfolios that are invested overseas, and then I'll answer your question about how do I think about international versus U.S. markets. We have about $25 billion of dedicated international and global portfolios. But within our other equity portfolios across the firm, we do hold a percentage of international assets. So that number ultimately is about $40 billion of our $150 billion of equity. So it is a little larger than it may appear. And at the end of the day, unless we have investment guidelines or restrictions from clients, we seek alpha with a bit of agnosticism to both the benchmark and the region. We are building portfolios, bottoms up, company by company and looking for what we view are the best companies for our strategy, whether that be intrinsic value and, you know,”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Time have been driven by a narrow set of disruptors and consistent winners, and Genison has developed a reputation for identifying those companies”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In our firm are as important as our portfolio manager. It's not necessarily a track to portfolio management. In fact, we believe the real secret sauce to Genesison is the research that we do and what the teams do. And on the growth side, at the end of the day, what we're looking for is innovative and disruptive businesses driving structural shifts in industries, business models with significant barriers to entry, secular demand trends driven by superior product offerings. And these days, as you know, that might be EVs, autonomous driving, machine learning, obesity drugs, or luxury that's owned through the value chain. And all of those tend to be superior growers. They tend to have moats around them and are the leaders and the disruptors. And as you know, Barry, history has shown that market returns over”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think it starts with our investment research. We're a firm of 400 people, 70 investment professionals, about half PMs and half analysts. They have very long tenures with the firm about 30 years of experience in the industry, more than 15 on average with the firm. They are doing very deep research by team. So every team are large cap growth team, our global growth team, our small SMID mid team, our value team, and our fixed income team all have dedicated research analysts. So there's no central research model. There's no house view. There's no mandated approach to seeking alpha. Every team has the ability to seek alpha in its own way. And what we have are very long tenured experienced career analysts.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, for us, 5060 would be the largest portfolios that we manage in our growth book of business. We do have down in our small cap and smid cap book of business, we do have larger holdings down there just to get some more liquidity and diversification. But for our core franchise of growth portfolios, we have 10 stock portfolios. We have 20 stock portfolios. When we say something's focused, it tends to be about 30. And for us, flagship might be up to 50. But not typically more than that”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What growth investing has meant for Genesis? And it is the original legacy and original book of business for the firm. We've extended from there, but growth investing for us has really been about high conviction, deep fundamental research-driven active management. And we're a concentrated manager. We take large positions in concentrated portfolios, and we're really striving to be that high alpha equity manager for pension plans and for wealth allocators. And often we're part of an asset allocation and we're the alpha in the corners, if you will. And I think that's the right place to play as a fundamental active equity manager because the hollow's been middled because the middle has been hollowed out. And at the end of the day, no one's going to pay active management. Fees for two to three tracking error equity.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Competitor who wanted to win, but he was very values based. Everything was about the client and about values. And he had a great saying, which was, do what's right for clients and that'll always be right for the business. And I think those are pretty sage words. And if you're serving your clients well, you're going to both retain and get new clients. And in fact, if you look at our client roster, two-thirds of our clients have been with us for more than 10 years and 40% more than 20 years.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The business and was there when I arrived was Sig Sagalis, who was an iconic investor, again, really one of the first dedicated growth investors. He was an incredible investor, but also an incredible man. He worked right up until he passed two years ago at 89, literally until the week before he was never going to retire. He was someone who taught me a lot. He taught the firm a lot. But at the end of the day, he was in an intense”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was all around reputation, and the history is that Genesis founded in 1969 was really one of the first independent institutional asset managers. In those days, all the institutional asset management was done out of the banks. And there were seven founders who decided that maybe they could do it better. And they left their banks and they set up a business in the Dray Hotel in New York City, and they started to invest. They ultimately were growth investors, but growth investing was not even known at the time. You know, the Russell 1000 growth didn't even exist. But the team started investing in what they believe to be the fastest growing companies, the disruptors of the time, and really became, therefore, one of the earliest true growth investors. And the founder that survived almost the entirety of”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Stage of the asset management industry, a multi-boutique model is a good model. You get the asset class specialization, you get the entrepreneurialism in the boutique, but you get the benefit of being part of a larger manager that has access to wealth management platforms, capital, global distribution. So it seemed like a very good business model that allowed for sort of the best of both worlds. And I was therefore attracted to it and really have not regretted the move one bit.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“More independent or private would be the move for me. But I got the call from a recruiter and Jennison was an intriguing company to me. It's just well-known quality, firm, strong results, impressive client roster. And I'd heard it had a great culture. So I was intrigued and agreed to have some meetings and really got quite interested in the business. I thought the people were outstanding that I met. They validated the culture, the client list and roster truly was impressive. What I had to get my head around is that it was owned by an insurance company. However, part of PGM's multi-boutique model. That was very appealing to me. I think for this.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I wasn't necessarily looking for a new role. I was enjoying the role at VOIA, being CEO of the asset manager. I was on the executive committee. I was learning new skills being part of quarterly earnings calls and helping grow that business as part of a new company and new brand. But at the same time, I was probably deep down, ready for a change. I had been with the company for 20 years, but really it had changed around me from Altis to Aetna to ING and then Davoya. And so I was ready for a change. I said that to myself that if I left, it would not be for another insurance or bank-owned asset manager and no disrespect to those businesses. I had terrific experiences and opportunities presented to me there. But I just felt that a new experience, maybe going back to something.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was. I think he was being extra cautious given it that it was material non public information and pretty significant information at that. And also we needed to be up and running in New York Monday morning. And so he needed to make sure I was down Sunday night.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“that we were still in business. But as you can imagine, it's incredibly hard to run an asset manager with a for sale sign on your back because ING had announced that it would dispose of the U.S. businesses. So another crisis bread opportunity for me, I had to actually tell my team of peers that I was now their boss because it was so chaotic that no one came in to actually deliver that message. I had to deliver it myself. But it was a great team and we rallied together and we built the business, grew it coming out of the financial crisis. And then that ultimately became the business that we spun out as VOA.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mentor of mine who said, I need you to get down to my house tonight. I said, Rob, I'm up in Boston area. He lived in Greenwich, Connecticut. And he said, no, you have to be here. And I said, am I fired? And because if so, I'm not coming down. Just tell me now. I'm going to finish the game. And he said, no, you're not fired, but you have to get down here. So I made my way down to Greenwich, Connecticut, and I proceeded to learn that ING had taken the loan from the Dutch state and that in the morning before we woke up because Europe's ahead, it was going to go public and my boss would become the CEO of the Americas and I would become the CEO of the investment management firm. And we planned what was going to happen the next morning. I was going to have to assure our investment teams, our clients, our pension consulting partners that everything was going to be okay.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so I was working for the head of ING investment management. But when ING decided to take this loan, there was a change in leadership. And my boss became head of ING America's all of the insurance, retirement, and life businesses. And I became CEO of ING investment management, which later became VOIA. The way I found out that I was becoming CEO of INGIM was a bit of an interesting story. I was coaching my son at a U-12 hockey tournament up in the Northeast, and my cell phone kept ringing while I was on the bench yelling at kids to skate harder and get into the corners. And it kept ringing and it was my boss, and it was a Sunday. And eventually in between periods, I picked it up and it was my boss at the time was a gentleman named Rob Leary. Terrific.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it happened because of another crisis in 2008, the Great Financial Crisis. ING had gotten overexposed in mortgages and had to take a loan from the Dutch state to shore up their Tier 1 capital ratios. And as part of that deal with the Dutch government, ING agreed to sell off the US properties. If you can remember back to the start of the financial crisis, it was viewed as largely a US issue. And so I think there was a desire to shed the businesses where the subprime mortgage bubble had burst ultimately.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“CFO or COO, which one do you choose? And I said, well, can I be both? And he said, no, I can't do that right now. So you have to pick one. And I chose CFO and my rationale was the CFO is always at the head table because there's always a financial implication to everything you do. So that's where I started, but ultimately did become COO as well.”
2025-04-24 · Masters in Business · Embracing Global Opportunities with Jeffrey Becker of Jennison Associates · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source