YouSaid · the spoken record

Linda Gibson

lines on the record: 62
first: 2023-11-10
most recent: 2023-11-10
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

“Yes, I had never sold anything either. So again, what I had to do there was be comfortable with hiring really smart people. So I analyzed the landscape, figured out where there was demand for our products, made sure we had the right products to sell, made sure that the regulatory and the expense hurdles weren't too high to go in. And then I had to build a lean team of very smart salespeople that could sell our products in these various jurisdictions. But also when you think you're managing people so far away from you, the distance is so vast that you have to trust them. We had people in Dubai. I need to make sure those people are doing what they say they're doing and that I can trust them. And never mind also people in China, Hong Kong, Tokyo, sometimes we had language barriers. So again, I had to make sure that I hired the best people that I could really trust to do what they needed to do. And then again, let them go. I also needed to learn fast that”
2023-11-10 · Masters in Business · Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But also give them the direction that they need. And having this legal background, what was really great about it is when you're a lawyer, you're in every important meeting. So you're in all the board meetings minuting everything. You're in the board meetings. You're in the compensation meetings. You're in the internal audit meetings. So you really learn everything about a business, everything that goes right and everything that goes wrong. So that really helped me understand what it was like or what it would be like to manage a company. And then I had this strange seven-year stint of heading global distribution. Can you build a centralized global sales team? And oh, by the way, your compensation is going to be tied to assets raised, which is the first time that had ever happened in my life. Right. Interesting.”
2023-11-10 · Masters in Business · Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have a lot of introverts at our firm. They sometimes have trouble talking to clients. Sometimes they have trouble talking to me. So I need to adjust my management style. But what I learned really early in my career is that it's not about IQ. It's about, well, it is about IQ. We need very smart people, but EQ is equally important. What I have to do for them is I have to lead them, direct them, manage them, and then sort of push them, but then just leave them alone. I want to make sure I've got give them the resources that they need.”
2023-11-10 · Masters in Business · Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, the learning, the negotiation skills really helped a lot in dealing with managing investment professionals as well as managing quants. As you know, quants have extremely high IQs. I mean, our firm PGM quant, we have 29 PhDs. CIO is literally an ex rocket scientist who used to work at NASA. And then we have an advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK as a CIO. So these are very, very smart people. Managing them, you definitely have to adapt your style a bit. So you have to learn how to deal with smart people as well as introverts.”
2023-11-10 · Masters in Business · Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is, but South Africa is really amazing, and it was interesting going into Cape Town and looking around the brand old mutual was like Coca-Cola here. It was on every building everywhere. It was really interesting. They had offices in Cape Town and Joburg. I preferred Cape Town, of course, but.”
2023-11-10 · Masters in Business · Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was Boston based. We were Boston based, but we had our parent company was in London and then the ultimate insurance company was in South Africa. So I was in London quarterly. And then we had affiliates. We had 44 affiliates and they were all over the US, but they were also in the UK and Tokyo at the time.”
2023-11-10 · Masters in Business · Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I ended up negotiating with so many CEOs, CIOs, and founders. That was really eye-opening when people have self-interest and it affects their wallets. They are very interesting people. So I had to. Pivot”
2023-11-10 · Masters in Business · Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Never looked back and the firm got acquired pretty much a year later. I was told to shut down my division or my business unit, which I did. And more interestingly, given my usage background and the fact that I had traveled globally, this was a South African-based firm, so old mutual, but it was listed in London. So the head office was in London. They were very interested in my global experience and my regulatory experience. So they said, hey, you want to become general counsel of the holding company? Why wouldn't you? So I then put all of my 40-act work aside, and that's when I really learned the art of negotiation. They had 44 affiliates at the time. We had to convert them from revenue share to profit sharing. We had to put equity in the hands of the founders and their management teams. We were doing M&A work. We were disposing of firms that weren't strategic. We were acquiring firms.”
2023-11-10 · Masters in Business · Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I was thinking about going to Old Mutual, I was offered a job at Skaden that same day for the same amount of money. And I knew UAM was potentially going to be acquired and I knew it was a riskier business. But I thought I can go work for a law firm. And then eventually become a general counsel or I can just skip the law firm step, especially working at a firm like Scadden and go directly to the general counsel job, which I thought was much more interesting to me. So even though SCADN had such a big name. I decided to go to UAM.”
2023-11-10 · Masters in Business · Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we actually had a flat in London, so I was going to Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, trying to get regulatory approval of this mutual fund structure. So it was really, really a great foundation for me. And I did that for about 10 years. And this is where I moved over to UAM at the time, which is the first multi-boutique investment business. And I moved over there into their third party mutual fund business as general counsel.”
2023-11-10 · Masters in Business · Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In case they're tired, or they can't sleep getting asleep, puts them right out. Right. So that was just a really good foundation for me. I also sat, as I said, we were the third-party distributor for all of these major companies. So I was on 12 different boards, not on them, but I was the officer. So I was taking minutes. So I was learning just a ton about the mutual fund industry and working with these big global companies. But then this company, I'm getting off topic of the advanced management degree, but this company launched a new investment fund structure called Global Hub and Spoke or Master Feeder. You might have heard of it. And I was chosen by the CEO to go travel globally with him to not only get big firms the likes of HSBC, Julius Baer, those types to adopt this fund structure, but also to get regulatory approval. So I was traveling all around the globe. I was in my 20s and pregnant.”
2023-11-10 · Masters in Business · Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. This was the signature financial group, and that was a great opportunity to learn, frankly, because not only was I writing, offering documents, I was reading, I mean, how many people do you know that have read the Forty Act and read the various USITS directives, which is basically the UK equivalent to the Forty Act?”
2023-11-10 · Masters in Business · Linda Gibson on Quantitative Solutions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source