YouSaid · the spoken record

Joshua Fenton

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61
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2024-08-19
most recent
2024-08-19
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1
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  1. “And so my purview slowly expanded to just being a little bit more aware of what managing a group of people who are all contributing to the greater whole, how that might be a different focus or something I had to be a little bit more aware of. And it's clearly the most important part of my job now. So I'm glad I got a little taste of that. It was not a deliberate thing where Roz came in and said, you need to be aware that this is going to be something you have to learn how to handle. She just sort of gave me little pieces of it at a time. And that was a really constructive way for me to become aware of what would become a really important part of this role.”

    2024-08-19 · Capital Allocators · CIO Transition – Roz Hewsenian and Joshua Fenton, Helmsley Trust (EP.401) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Biggest indicator that this idea was bubbling in Raz's head was intentionally or unintentionally, sometimes there are misunderstandings among a staff about who is working on what project or how something should be presented, what should be prioritized. And these can create little moments on the staff that they're not unfriendly, but they're just little disagreements. And I think Roz started putting me in the position to think about how to resolve some of these, how to approach what was going on, and think of my role as helping the team work together and gel together really efficiently across lots of different roles on the team, where before as a director of investments, I was really very focused on portfolio implementation and finding.”

    2024-08-19 · Capital Allocators · CIO Transition – Roz Hewsenian and Joshua Fenton, Helmsley Trust (EP.401) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “So, Josh, what was this like from your perspective if you go back to that five-year period before Ros retired? When did you start to notice some of these conversations that she was bringing to the fore?”

    2024-08-19 · Capital Allocators · CIO Transition – Roz Hewsenian and Joshua Fenton, Helmsley Trust (EP.401) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “I had four bosses, so I would share with the team things that were going on as a result of the turnover of the bosses, the CEOs, what some of the pressure points were, what I was getting involved with, how I was part of the interview process for the successor, making sure that they understood that we were looking for somebody who could manage the entire organization some of that turnover was not as smooth as we would have liked it to have been. And so therefore, sharing with the team the pressure points about that and how I was handling it, I felt would be instructive for them. They would listen very carefully and very patiently, and I felt it was important for them to understand not only what was happening, but sometimes”

    2024-08-19 · Capital Allocators · CIO Transition – Roz Hewsenian and Joshua Fenton, Helmsley Trust (EP.401) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I would talk to them about things that are going on in Larger Helmsley, about some of the pressure points, some of the difficulties that occurred that I was involved in in one way or another. It wouldn't directly affect my staff, but it was part of my job, and that had to do with being a senior member of the organization and helping to run the organization. So it was those sorts of things that were internal to the Helmsley operating that I brought to their attention.”

    2024-08-19 · Capital Allocators · CIO Transition – Roz Hewsenian and Joshua Fenton, Helmsley Trust (EP.401) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Directors that I had, any one of the four could have succeeded me, but I thought that Joshua had the best chance of acceptance by the trustees, by the investment committee, and so I began focusing on him five years ago, and the way that I did it is that I would walk into his office and I would sit down and I would tell him things. I never told him that he was my pick. I just started telling him things that I thought that he should know. And we would have these great conversations that weren't planned. It was very informal, and I was putting in his head things that he would need to know if he were ever to succeed me one and number two be aware of the environment outside of our department because that's the environment in which he would have to operate.”

    2024-08-19 · Capital Allocators · CIO Transition – Roz Hewsenian and Joshua Fenton, Helmsley Trust (EP.401) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “At my first job out of business school at Craft General Foods where the HR director who was addressing us said You should decide today what your retirement date is and start planning for it now and we were all in our twenties and I thought okay I'm an obedient person I'll do as I'm told and I picked my retirement date. About five years before I actually retired I began thinking I really need to make sure that there is a good transition in place because around us CIOs were leaving their jobs without a transition and the teams below them would leave in anticipation of a new boss coming in over them and they wanted to take matters into their own hands rather than just wait for fate to dictate what would happen to them.”

    2024-08-19 · Capital Allocators · CIO Transition – Roz Hewsenian and Joshua Fenton, Helmsley Trust (EP.401) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “So there was a lot of turnover over me, and it was important to maintain stability below me. I always thought in terms of making sure that the team was aware of everything that was going on. As time went on, I had always known my retirement date. I had picked it actually in the beginning of my career in a group meeting of new employees.”

    2024-08-19 · Capital Allocators · CIO Transition – Roz Hewsenian and Joshua Fenton, Helmsley Trust (EP.401) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “It actually started with the simple question, which was what happens if I got hit by a bus? The concern was who would take over if that was the case to make sure that the department ran smoothly? The way that I was staffed is that we had four directors of investments each with their area of expertise, but all of whom were senior investment professionals, and I decided that any one of the four of them should be able to step in in the event that something happened to me. So the way that I manage the department was to be quite open with the team about the things that I did that were not necessarily investment related, but were related to my responsibilities as the department head and a CIO, most of which had nothing to do with investments didn't necessarily affect them, but clearly if they needed to step in for me, it was important that they understood these things. Also during my tenure at Helmsley, I reported to four different people in those nearly fourteen years.”

    2024-08-19 · Capital Allocators · CIO Transition – Roz Hewsenian and Joshua Fenton, Helmsley Trust (EP.401) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I'm very excited to be here, Ted. So, Ros, we're going to talk a bunch about this transition that you two went through together. And maybe the way to start is in your 13 year, 10 year at Helmsley, at what point in time did you start thinking about that you would no longer be the CIO?”

    2024-08-19 · Capital Allocators · CIO Transition – Roz Hewsenian and Joshua Fenton, Helmsley Trust (EP.401) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Guests on today's show are Ross Hussainian and Joshua Finn. Josh is the chief investment officer of the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, an $8 billion pool he began leading earlier this year upon the retirement of Raz, who served as CIO for the prior 12 years. Ros was a past guest on the show, and that conversation is replayed in the feed. Our conversation follows last week's about succession, using the live example of a successful CIO transition. We discuss Raza's plan for her retirement, steps to evaluate and train her successor, and actions upon her retirement announcement 18 months beforehand. We also cover the transition from Josh's perspective, including what happened along the way, conversations that took place, and changes when he took over as CIA.”

    2024-08-19 · Capital Allocators · CIO Transition – Roz Hewsenian and Joshua Fenton, Helmsley Trust (EP.401) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source