YouSaid · the spoken record

Melanie Pickett

lines on the record: 55
first: 2022-11-17
most recent: 2022-11-17
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

“Until I took that role. And I have to say, I got by in that role as Emory's first COO of the Endowment, really with the help of some amazing peers in the Endowment and Foundation community. I spent probably the first few months just calling. We were, I think, number 16 in terms of the top 20 endowments. I called the 15 ahead of me and asked them, you know, any question I could ask about who their service providers were, how their teams were set up, how they were interacting, what things were working well, what things weren't working well, and really formed these deep, respectful relationships with the other chief operating officers, endowments and foundations don't compete against each other, right? Except once a year when the press comes out on the returns. And so there's this really amazing community of COOs and others who talk all the time. We started a Slack channel. We started getting together in cities a couple times a year. And that group taught me everything I needed to know about how to do the job. And then a couple years later, hopefully I was kind of sharing that.”
2022-11-17 · Capital Allocators · Melanie Pickett – Modern Technology in the Investment Office at Northern Trust (Capital Allocators, EP.281) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so it's interesting. So I got married and we were living in New York City and I got pregnant. And so we decided to move back home to Atlanta. And that's where both of our families were from. And so I commuted for quite a while between Atlanta and New York with an infant. And that got to be pretty difficult. And so I came across a job listing for chief operating officer at Emory University Endowment. And the job listing had enough of things that I knew a little bit about enough to be dangerous, if you will. So I was going to be responsible for everything outside of investing. So that would be operations technology, risk, HR legal finance, things that I had done a little bit of at Morgan Stanley again, but was pretty naive in terms of the endowment world at large and the buy side. And so everyone that I respected in my career at that point should jump at this opportunity if you get this job take it. It's one of the best things that will ever happen. And it was, certainly. So I thought I knew what alternative investments were.”
2022-11-17 · Capital Allocators · Melanie Pickett – Modern Technology in the Investment Office at Northern Trust (Capital Allocators, EP.281) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Job at Morgan Stanley and then spent 11 incredible years there. I worked on everything from client reporting, performance measurement, building new trading systems, building new businesses when we went into Latin America, when we went into Switzerland, really helping the business translate their strategic objectives every year into what that meant from a technology and operations perspective. And then the last project I was involved in was leading the operational components of the merger, the joint venture between Morgan Stanley and Smith Barney. So that was the world's largest at the time conversion of businesses between wealth management platforms was really transformational for Morgan Stanley. It was transformational for me in my career having the chance to work on something that large and that complex. And so my last stent at Morgan Stanley really was focused on that deal.”
2022-11-17 · Capital Allocators · Melanie Pickett – Modern Technology in the Investment Office at Northern Trust (Capital Allocators, EP.281) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Into a firm that was doing municipal bond underwriting of all things. So we took defaulted healthcare facilities, formed management committee, bought up all of the junk bonds and refinanced these health care facilities. So I had gone from really deep sort of experience trading equities into doing some bond underwriting. And then a friend of mine called and was running for Congress in South Georgia. And so I took some time and went and worked on his campaign, again, thinking that's where my career would go. And then we had the hanging chads. So we were waiting for jobs in the White House. And the Supreme Court case was happening. And so I started temping at Morgan Stanley, literally answering phones at the front desk to pay rent. And they had a job opening. And that job opening was to work in this group called the Port Group, which was this portfolio analysis client reporting performance reporting group within private wealth. And so I applied for that job, was still waiting on the White House to call, thinking that's what I was going to do next, but took”
2022-11-17 · Capital Allocators · Melanie Pickett – Modern Technology in the Investment Office at Northern Trust (Capital Allocators, EP.281) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. Yes, I grew up in South Georgia, daughter of two government workers, blue collar environment, went to University of Georgia and majored in political science, was really sure that I was going to go into politics or law. And on my way out of University of Georgia, someone said to me, you really want to go into international M&A for some reason. I don't know why he said that to me, but he said, go get a JDMBA. But before you do that, you'll need to get some finance experience. And having had a political science degree, I knew nothing about finance and applied for a job at Bear Stearns and got it. And so I walked into Bear Stearns at age 20, having not graduated yet and didn't know the difference between a stock and a bond. Literally had to ask someone what credit meant on the first day and felt like an idiot, but really had an incredible year there. The Dow 10,000 in March of 99 was my first day at Bear Stearns. And so I worked on the middle markets trading desk, trading equity IPOs that summer, graduated from University of Georgia, and then made the transition.”
2022-11-17 · Capital Allocators · Melanie Pickett – Modern Technology in the Investment Office at Northern Trust (Capital Allocators, EP.281) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source