YouSaid · the spoken record

Michelle Seitz

lines on the record: 87
first: 2022-03-11
most recent: 2022-03-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Is exactly that. So I wish all of us had understood 30 years ago how critical that need was going to be with an aging demographic and how fast the clock was ticking. I wish we would have done things differently versus being so concentrated on putting all of our R&D dollars into beating benchmarks, which helped. Some people, but it didn't help as quickly as it needed to.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say I might be repeating myself, but I really wish that I understood 30 years ago how critical it was that we solve for the right problems, the biggest problems, and make it scalable so clients could actually execute it. And so I derived a great deal of personal satisfaction sitting across from kitchen tables and making a difference in individual people's lives. I didn't understand how Urgent that need really was Again, at scale. Like the high net worth business was always considered a practitioner business, and it wasn't scalable. Wealth management wasn't as attractive as institutional management because it wasn't scalable. And now all of the innovation that we're seeing today”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would still say go for it, just like I felt when I came in in 1987 that the best had already passed me by and I missed the threefold increase in the Dow Jones industrial average. You know, the end was near. It never is. And I do believe that investing in finance is core to capitalism. I believe it's core to a growing economy, and I believe it's core to solving societal needs. So it's not going away. I would encourage anyone coming into the field to drive change. Ask better questions and solve for really big problems in a way that people can live better lives because of your efforts.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Reading right now is the code breaker. Jennifer Doudna on gene editing, so that foots a little bit with my board director role with Sona Biotech. And then favorites, I would say favorites I define as I dog ear them. It drives my husband crazy. I highlight them. I dog ear them, and I actually end up buying a second one so I don't ruin it. But I would say sapiens. I've always come back to factfulness. So, those are some of the favorites.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“who is one of the greatest investors that frankly the world doesn't know, but he is phenomenal and was my predecessor as head of William Blair Investment Management and very responsible for many of the things I went on to grow from and impact while I was at Blair, but continues on to this day. But I would say I find mentors everywhere below me, next to me. I'm able to learn from everyone and I seek to learn from everyone.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, for most people and for me as well, it starts with my family. My father was an instrumental figure in my life. I lost him six years ago, but he was my best friend, my confidant in my career, in my life, but also my mother, early mentor in hard work and the human aspect of approaching business. But I would say early mentors from just a pure career standpoint, I had many, I learned from everybody. I feel like I still have mentors. I know you're asking about early, but I really, it's equal opportunity when I think about mentors. I would say probably one of the most pivotal ones that you think of in a traditional sense, though, would be Conrad Fisher.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, several things. We're a big podcast family, but since you mentioned longevity and health spans, Peter Atia, the drive, is one that I listen to with regularity. The other one is Sam Harris. He has a couple of different apps. One is making sense, but the one I listen to with equal regularity is waking up. which is a meditation philosophy app, which I find very interesting. And since it's top of mind, I'll give you the guilty pleasure one while I was wrapping gifts last night for my kids and my family. I was watching the latest episode of Succession.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“business models with the new business models. And I do believe that that will be the outcome and it will be a good outcome of the advancements that are being made with technology at its core for the finance and investment industry. But I believe it's a higher level impact than simply distilling it down to cryptocurrencies. But I do believe that there are places for lots of innovation within the industry. We haven't incorporated crypto into our strategic asset allocation for our DB plans. We still deem it to be early innings, but clearly there will be a lot of winners and a lot of carnage along the way. And I would just differentiate speculation from responsible in a Within the industry, and I think both are occurring right now in that segment.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe it will be incredibly disruptive to the ecosystem, but I believe that it will be very additive. And ultimately, the core of innovation efforts as we move forward. However, like any burgeoning field, and again, again, I age myself back in the eyeball days of 1999 where every company was launching. It was highly speculative. Everyone thought that bricks and mortar businesses were going to go out of business. And it just wasn't true. It was that every company needed to figure out how to incorporate the internet. There weren't necessarily stand-alone internet companies that truly turned the world upside down. There were a few, but they blended both the traditional”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Twofold answer. The first is when we talk about crypto, there clearly are speculative bubbles. And I think, unfortunately, the conversation, whether it be around Dogecoin or Bitcoin, distracts from the innovation that truly is occurring within the technology and the platforms and the concept of peer-to-peer networks. So I think you've had several guests on over time and lots of discussion taking place in the industry. I believe it's real.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Investors can gain access either through their employer plans, even if it's a small or mid-size employer, or eventually we're not there yet, but eventually tap into it through the wealth channel. We've given people access, we haven't, in my opinion yet, given them all of the tools to ensure that they have responsible access and they understand how alternatives, broadly speaking, exposure is interrelating with the other investments that they've already made in their portfolios.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“to a private equity manager, say it's a growth equity manager, for instance, and not know how it relates to your public markets or your factor exposures or your indexing exposures. And most risk systems have not incorporated a total portfolio view so that you understand those exposures down to the individual level. What we've done instead is just put a risk, a liquidity or illiquidity risk premium on many of these other asset classes and alternatives. That's just a very blunt tool that we've outgrown. And so all of our efforts, again, powered with the partnership with Hamilton Lane, but why I felt a sense of urgency to do it, this will be a Critical area to tap into in order to solve for this societal financial financial resilience or financial security need.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it's not how any portfolio for an individual should be constructed. So it should tap in to everything that you mentioned as appropriate. We use hedge funds, venture, real assets, real estate, private credit, private equity. So all forms, co-investment secondaries, have to be managed very purposefully, but with a risk control and an understanding of how those various parts of the portfolio actually work together. So for instance, you don't want to spend all of that money and alpha exposure”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of technological change that will influence positively access to lots of different vehicles and asset classes that haven't existed to date. But the here and now is very real in alternatives. I really don't even like that term because it's such a big category that gets lumped into one bucket and the individual asset classes underneath alternatives quote unquote couldn't be more different. But the other reason I don't like it is we've traditionally talked about portfolio construction as a 60-40 balanced mix of stocks and bonds and then we bolt on alternatives and that's just not how we construct portfolios today.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely critical. We should allow and avail our clients of responsible access within their parameters and goals, responsible access to as many forms of investing as possible and certainly the advancements that are being made the conversation to go off in these areas, but the advancements that are being made with access to potentially different asset classes that may grow over time through digitization, through blockchain, peer-to-peer investing, I think are very exciting. And while they're highly speculative in pockets at the moment, I do believe that that also is a core”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“what they have, what they need, how long they need to work and define what their goals are, the quicker we can put them on the path to financial resilience and enable them to be empowered with data so that they can make better choices for themselves. And we have not done that well as an industry. And I'm very excited for all the things we've been talking about in terms of manufacturing and access, but I'm even more excited about having an interface with the clients that allows them to To not be educated in a finance degree or an investment degree or go get a CFA in order to figure out the complexity that we've made of this system while still not solving the root cause problem of financial security for people around the world.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Over my 35 year career. But you can't educate someone out of a crisis. And I would say for our aging boomer generation, it absolutely is a crisis that we'll pay for as a society because it's the only way we can pay for it. But it's the next generation and the generation after that that we need to interrupt the pattern. And that's why I feel so strongly about making innovation within the industry centered around client needs because as quickly as we can help people understand in real time”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Productive citizens for nearly 40% of their lives. I mean, we just can't do that. And we also need to have infrastructures that can accommodate that. So it's a big question. It's deserving of solving, which is why I talk so much about outcomes. It's part of why this became a very personal endeavor for me is making sure that people understood the power of compound interest. They understood the power of leveraging their hardworking activities to provide for their financial security that went for my family, but also a lot of other people that I've counseled.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“that the Davos reported on this, that there was a $70 trillion existing gap in what people need at retirement versus what they have. And growing quickly just because of demographics and math to $400 trillion by 2050. Now those numbers are so big. I see that people just like their eyes gloss over and so I always try to make things relative. To make it relative to something and put it in context. Annual gap is equal to one hundred fifty percent of the developed world's GDP. So it's a huge number that we cannot afford to ignore. And we also cannot afford to ignore that we are retirement infrastructure was set up in the late 1800s and then reaffirmed during the Depression when most people didn't live past 65. So it was never, we've never funded as a society, nor did we ever intend for people not to be productive.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Increasing lifespans, you certainly want equally good health spans, which is very dependent upon science and much of the work that's being done with biotech and vaccinations and helpiness live better lives for longer. But it also ties into what we do, which is, I think, about is wealth spans and ensuring that we could afford to live to be 120, right? And that may not happen for me, but I'm pretty convinced it'll happen for my kids and that generation. And so from that perspective, it goes back to purpose. But I've talked about this a lot, and you may have seen it in some of your work. But it was a couple of years ago that the”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh my goodness, we could talk about this one for a long time. But I love the quote that demographics is the future that already happened. Barring, you know, outbreaks like the pandemic, we do know that this is our world. And on the healthcare front, I do sit on a corporate board on a biotechnology. It's a fascinating, fascinating field to talk about lifespans, but we importantly need to talk about the infrastructure around the world to deal with this aging demographic. And that comes in lots of different forms, but I'll focus it on the work we do, which is I envision that within”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Find with trustee boards and big institutional investors specifically in Europe and in Australia and other areas around the country becoming quickly to the US. Is there bar for reporting back to their board on progress that they're making on net zero portfolio commitments and the like, not just at scope one, but scope two and scope three is absolutely necessary and we've teamed with people like Planetrics and other data providers to really give us that forward-leaning level of data. And you can only make use of that, and best use of that through active investing and active engagement.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Investment risk and move toward investing with your values and wanting to make more of a sustainable positive impact on the planet, on society, whatever the issues may be, you absolutely have to lean in to active management because that's the level of engagement that allows you to use your voice and your dollars to discuss with companies how they will change or manage their companies to align to those goals or not. And that again comes down to how you are choosing to build a portfolio to that third dimension, and in this case with an ESG investor where this is one of their highest desires, which is what we”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so, this is where active engagement, active data capture, I'm not just avoiding risks or excluding companies because of their industry classification, but actively leaning into judgment and fundamental analysis and allowing engagement, i.e. you're investing dollars to influence how companies think about their allocation of resources and their management to net zero or whatever the goals might be. Maybe it's diversity on their board, whatever goals are important to you as an investor, and you want to move beyond climate risk, social risk, or governance risk being an”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, this all goes back to what I said at the beginning, which is Russell is dominant where the puck is headed. It's part of the reason I chose and was very excited to come on board to lead Russell because I do believe we're at the tip of the spear for change within the industry. And that is in the area of ESG. Bringing to bear our enormous capabilities to focus on the total portfolio across all asset classes, agnostic to whether you passively or actively invest, but nowhere active investing can lead to the desired outcomes and be worth the price that you pay for the active investment. And that is no truer than in ESG.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Critical and clearly societal demand that I would say the desires are outstripping the capabilities at the moment. And you've got to go back to how do we all make it better and how are we clear in our messaging about what our current tools enable us to do versus not and I'll pause there, but I'd love to talk a little bit more about what we're doing specifically in that area.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Always disclosed or there isn't clarity of the metrics they should be disclosing or the materiality of those things. So that's fast changing and I know that Chairman Gensler is very focused on that and we should have something coming out with more guidelines in the near future that will be helpful. The second main thing with indices is they're backward looking and that's a problem with the data right so we do have a data problem capturing the data from companies how do we define it how do we measure it how do we define materiality then you have the complexity of is it scope one you know scope two or scope three you know is it is it the company's own carbon footprint is it How scope to it makes its way into”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Difficult to measure, and it's difficult to predict. So we have complexity, we have demand, and we have enormous need. And so the drum beat for the industry, and we all take it very seriously, is very high to make advancements in ESG investing and personalizing to those values at scale in a manner that goes beyond managing the investment risk, which is where I think these indices get a bad wrap. And the reason I say it that way is that they are reliant upon data that's disclosed by companies, which isn't”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Desires or impact that one wants to have, and not everyone cares equally about the E or the S or the G. Typically there's more of a focus for investors on some component where they want their money to have an impact upon society or they definitely don't want to be exposed to the risk. And so I would say that while indexes give you a starting point, you do need to get to the core of what investors are trying to solve for. And so I believe that that, number one, is difficult to find out. Number two, it's difficult to define.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is a responsibility of the industry to more effectively communicate both the complexity and the transparency of what the indexes do and what they don't do. So let me start with that. First, any index gives you a starting point. But the whole topic, I mean, we're talking about ESG as if it were one thing. It's clearly three very nuanced and complex”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's burgeoning. There is no question that this is not slowing down in its momentum or its import. And again, I believe that this one, like many others, is a very complex topic that we've tried too hard to simplify into messages and products. But I do believe it's only the beginning. So I'll start there. Your question was more about indices and the fact that there's been a spotlight on the understanding of what these various indices or managers, for that matter, have actually been doing.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ethnicity is different or your gender is different. When you're at the table you're required to speak and you're required to bring the diversity of thought, the diversity of view and make sure that your voice flows with the magnitude that it should have to represent your thoughts. You know, again, constructively appropriately, collaboratively. But I've just actually said somewhere along the way that I've sometimes, frankly even most of the times, I didn't notice that I was the only along the way because it was more about solving the problem. Then it was about individuals at the table. So the group intellect took over more than me feeling like the spotlight was on me as the only. Unfortunately, I'm no longer an only, and I think that's just going to continue to change at warp speed.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And my approach, I felt very self-assured in, but it was very uniquely mine. And I think the responsibility is to ensure that you're leading in a way that's authentic to you, but I do believe that it makes it a more inclusive conversation. It makes it more focused on outcomes and purpose and I'm not saying that that's a gender specific thing. But I do believe that operating in a manner that takes into account the responsibility of the seat is incredibly important because people are watching and whether you're”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I would say first, you know, we all know it's a rarity. All of the women you mentioned, plus many, many more, are coming through the ranks. Kate L. Hillow, I would mention as well, my global CIO that I was proud to bring on board from Goldman. So I'm very, I think we're even in more rarefied air to have a woman CEO and a woman CIO running a major investment institution. So I'm excited about that. But she was the best person for the job. And I think the responsibility is to give voice to authenticity and to certainly learn from every leader. person that you come across. And I've had the great benefit”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Act over $100 million in revenues relative to two thousand six hundred in the public markets. And so limiting yourself to only 15% of the investable large company universe, if you're only a public market investor, just makes no sense. And so as quickly as we can responsibly offer this and democratize access to private markets with the power of Hamilton Lane is what we want to do, both for the individual wealth market, but importantly the middle market for institutions, as well as even large markets.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Power to operate with Hamilton Lane as well as tap into other areas of expertise as we believe that we need to. But Hamilton Lane is a very powerful partner for us to offer access as well as manager research data and most importantly risk controls looking across the entire total portfolio public to private markets. So it's just an incredibly important time in the industry. You've reported, I think, in past podcasts, but also I think you might have had Hamilton Lane CEO Mario on the podcast as well. 17,000 to be existing.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“specifically with Hamilton Lang, fit for many, many reasons, and that is just the full power of a firm, number one, that's been doing it for 85 years and total portfolio solutions across all asset classes, paired with a firm that's been doing only private markets for the last 30 years. In an open architecture fashion, so looking for the best of breed managers in venture, private equity, private credit, infrastructure, real estate, just across the board, real assets was incredibly important to us. We're not saying that Hamilton Lane is the only source of our capabilities. We still have all fiduciary”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Felt the sense of urgency to deliver more co-investments, secondary investments, but do so in open architecture format. And so I did start down this path, frankly fully assuming that we would either acquire for capabilities that we felt we needed to ramp more quickly or I would build for it strategically partnering for it is not the norm, at least for our industry. We tend to acquire or build. But this is a very different time for our industry. And again, tying it back to the purpose, if our purpose is to deliver on financial security, the sense of urgency and that need is very, very high. And so a strategic partner”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fine contribution plans, most people have much longer dated time horizons than our industry is measuring for and is geared toward. And so the lack of exposure to private markets to date has been a missed opportunity, both for institutions as well as individuals. And this was an area of number one criticality of access and a responsible but very broad manner. Russell has been investing in private markets for decades. So it's not as though we were new to the asset space or new asset class or introducing it to our clients. But we and I”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think it ties into, again, being agnostic about how you define adding value to the clients, right? I mean, you want to provide access to every asset class, capability, vehicle, passive versus active that you possibly can in order to deliver upon the promise you're making to clients, which is to understand their objectives and deliver access and tailored solutions to meet that. Private markets has grown in its criticality to investing and capturing the illiquidity premium, especially when you're trying to solve for long dated liabilities like you are in a defined benefit plan like individuals are with”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“our clients and creating strategies for outcomes. And I think all of that goes back to being very grounded in why we exist and what we do and how we do it. So I just believe it's core to any business. It's core to”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The roots of what our industry was built for and why it existed. And that's to efficiently invest people's savings for ultimately their financial security, which we're not doing a great job at as an industry. And it's also for the effective deployment of capital. And so that why is really important. I can't tell you how many times I talk about it, how I bring it to life with the individuals and the companies, and ultimately the individuals that rely on those company benefit plans for their own financial security and their future. I talk about it all the time, and it does make its way into everything that we do. It makes its way into how we think about creating products. In how we service our clients. We don't talk about selling products or beating benchmarks. We talk about servicing”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think that every company benefits from asking the question, why do you exist? What problem are you trying to solve for? How big of a problem is it? And are you making it easy for clients to execute upon it? And so those are just pretty core questions, I believe, for any business and for our industry. But fortunately for our company, we had a founding family that understood that 85 years ago. And so I didn't have to change a thing. And it actually was part of kind of my mantra as an industry leader, even when I was at Blair, that we needed to get back to”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“why of why growth was good why do we need to change our behaviors so that we can get scalable durable sustainable growth for the clients as well as high quality frictionless service for them was what needed to change and so that's not a small undertaking but culturally it was being less Independent in the delivery of client service and manufacturing capabilities and more about leveraging One Russell and getting global scale as an organization. And that was a cultural change, but one that everyone understood and bought into.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Durable, profitable franchise by individualizing every single thing without it being scalable. And so what I changed as part of the culture was making sure that everyone understood that even though we were academically and intellectually very rigorous in how we solved problems for clients, it wasn't enough to be right with just an individual, a client. We had to be equally effective in how we delivered that at scale and leverage the IP of the global capabilities for the benefit of all clients and then customized at the last mile. And that commercial instinct”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I first introduced myself to the firm, I put the values and the purpose of the firm up on the screen and talked about those. So I leaned in to the strengths of the firm. But what I agreed with all of my associates was that we needed to align the firm's activities around values, things that the clients valued more than just liked. So we were such a client-centric firm that we personalized for every single client. And you can appreciate that that ultimately undermines quality and delivery of service because you can't customize everything. And you definitely can't grow a”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Iconic firm in our industry. I'm very proud to be affiliated with it. And what I did less than change it enhanced it and understood what we absolutely, and actually it was a question I asked when I did my tour around the world for four months and logged 500 plus thousand miles on a plane is just the listening tour is what do I absolutely need to be careful not to break and what do I need to change? And so it was a question that I asked clients. It was a question that I asked all of the associates around the world. We did surveys. I got feedback in any forum that I could.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the bottom line is why it's so important is that people matter. You can't in a people-driven business, you can't institutionalize anything to the point that people don't matter. And so ultimately, any great firm is a collection of individuals that work as a high-functioning team for a purpose. So I do believe that culture is a competitive advantage. There's no one recipe for success, but starting with a very clear value structure that's aligned to the client and the health of the individuals, I think you've won nine-tenths of the battle. So I will just start by saying that Russell had that. It's a venerable...”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That didn't motivate either firm. It was more curating the outcome for the client and ensuring that you were protecting performance and serving those clients well. And sometimes, especially in a profession like the investment industry delivering a service at scale versus selling a product. Size can be the enemy of the best outcome. And so making sure that we do that and manage the business in a way that growth actually inures to the benefit of the clients has been a key focus during the time that we grew the business at Blair and it's also been a key focus.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Risk management business slightly different, you still had at your core a value structure of non-negotiable integrity, client-centric alignment. Frankly, both at Blair as well as at Russell, so much so that growing I had to convince my partners at Blair early on and also convince Russell that growing is good, growing the business is good for clients. You can't impact clients if you aren't getting more of them. And so growing is good, but the client-centric focus was so strong that there was a bit of a resistance and not as much alignment to grow because we would make more money.”
2022-03-11 · Masters in Business · Michelle Seitz on Alternative Investments (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source