Randall Stutman is the founder of Admired Leadership and one of the most sought-after executive coaches in the world. He's known across Wall Street, the hedge fund community, professional sports, the Olympics, and the White House entirely by word of mouth. Randall was a past guest on the show six years ago in a rare public appearance, and that conversation is replayed in the feed.

Our conversation covers the framework for uncovering the behaviors and best practices of admired leaders and then dives into examples around giving feedback. We also discuss how admired leaders both generate results and develop followership, and a few extra behavioral gems for investment leaders.

Last year, Randall launched ALEX, an insane AI coaching tool trained solely on his insights. It's effectively an executive coach available 24/7 for only $300/year. We use it regularly, and always for situations with elevated stakes. Give it a try at leadwithalex.com.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: OWL.

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Randall Stutman is founder and co-head of the Leadership Practice at CRA. and the Admired Leadership Institute. Randall is probably the top executive coach that you've never heard of before. He's spent 30 years coaching and learning about the behaviors and routines of extraordinary leaders. To give you a sense, he was worked in the White House and the Olympics, with something like 2,000 senior executives and 400 CEOs, and in our world, the most senior executives at JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Blackstone. Randall is also well known among the titans in the hedge fund community, where he's worked with many of the industry's leading funds. And he's done all of this entirely by word of mouth referral. Randall was one of the first people I asked to come on the show three years ago, and he respectfully declined – at that point in time not wanting share the uncovered behaviors that drive his work. A few months ago, he and his partners launched Admired Leadership, an online course with short videos of 100 behaviors repeated by the most talented CEOs. The course is extraordinary. It's so ridiculously good that I started sharing a link to it in my email signature as a gift to those who don't know about it. Our conversation covers Randall's path to coaching and the coaching process. We cover behaviors common among hedge fund managers, the admired leadership course, and examples across inspiring others, decision making, time management, and elevating performance. We close with Randall's thoughts on behaviors that allocators can identify in their manager research.

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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

My guest on today's special episode is Joel Holsinger, Co-head of Ares' $50 billion Alternative Credit strategy. In addition to his long and stellar career in the credit markets, Joel spearheaded the launch of Promote Giving, a philanthropic initiative similar to Warren Buffett and Bill Gates' Giving Pledge, designed for alternative asset managers.

Our conversation covers Joel's path to engaging in philanthropy, starting from humble beginnings to now making grants of $5 million in 2025 through Ares and launching Promote Giving in October.

The proposition of Promote Giving is simple – GPs commit up to 5% of their promote on at least one fund to give to a charity of their choice. With ten signatories and more than $35 billion in AUM pledged to participate already, Promote Giving is quickly growing the movement to managers across asset classes. It's the Giving Pledge applied to investment firms, and I can't imagine a better use of this space than to spread the word.

Learn more and pledge to give at promotegiving.org

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Bruce MacDonald is the CEO and CIO of the Virginia Commonwealth University Investment Management Company, which runs $2.5 billion for VCU's endowment and health system. Bruce joined the University in 2015 and shortly thereafter, had the opportunity to sell the portfolio and start fresh. Since being promoted to CIO in 2022, VCU has been a top decile performer with a team of just five investment professionals.

Our conversation covers Bruce's unconventional path from a religion major at Wesleyan to fixed income investing at Putnam and endowment roles at Columbia and UVIMCO before arriving at VCU. We discuss the principles of VCU's approach, including building a portfolio around secular tailwinds like India, Vietnam, gold, and artificial intelligence while maintaining abundant liquidity to act countercyclically during market dislocations. We explore VCU's team-based underwriting process, lessons learned from mistakes, and personal influences that have shaped Bruce's investment philosophy.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: Ascension.

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Kieran Goodwin is a Partner at Saba Capital, a $6 billion hedge fund manager that seeks to identify dislocations in credit and equity markets to generate convex returns in volatile times. Kieran has been one of the top credit traders on the Street for the last three decades across roles at investment banks in the '90s and early 00's, King Street, his own hedge fund, Panning Capital, and most recently, Saba that he joined in 2024.

Our conversation covers a tour of Kieran's background, including early experience with credit derivatives, growth at King Street, lifespan of Panning, downtime between stints, and re-engagement with Boaz Weinstein at Saba. We then turn to risks in the private credit market, including its rapid growth, asset-liability mismatches, pricing marks, leverage, liquidity, default risk, and the potential for reflexive problems. Kieran shares how managers should navigate the environment and how he is positioning Saba to benefit.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: Thema.

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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

Jeremy Grantham is the Co-Founder of GMO, a $100 billion Boston-based asset management firm co-founded in 1977. Over six decades in markets, Jeremy has been one of the most respected and outspoken voices on value, market bubbles, and long-term investing. He recently published The Making of a Permabear with Edward Chancellor, an account of his career and investment lessons learned along the way.

Our conversation begins with Jeremy's early lessons in frugality growing up in wartime Yorkshire and his interest in numbers and investing. We trace his career through the founding of Batterymarch and GMO, the golden period of value, painful lessons of the dot-com bubble, and the challenges since. We cover Jeremy's framework for identifying and navigating market bubbles, career risk, and the current AI investment boom, and close with his essential philanthropic work to change the trajectory of the environment alongside the investment strategy he deploys in his Foundation.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: OWL.

Throughout most of my career, the S&P 500 has been an appropriate bogey to assess manager performance. More than that, it's the most widely used benchmark in the capital markets.

But today, it doesn't represent the broad-based, diversified exposure to the U.S. economy that most participants take for granted when investing passively or measuring manager skill.

This WTT, When the Benchmark Becomes a Bet, considers the evidence, implications, and challenges posed by the current composition of the S&P 500.

Read Ted's blog here.

Will Guidara is the author of Unreasonable Hospitality and the soon to release Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide. Unreasonable Hospitality has become a New York Times bestseller and a business bible for elevating customer experiences. Will was co-owner of Eleven Madison Park alongside Danny Meyer when the restaurant ascended to #1 in the world, the co-producer of Emmy Award-winning streaming series The Bear, host of the Welcome Conference, and advisor to business leaders ranging from professional sports to financial services on the delivery of hospitality as a primary business strategy.

Our conversation explores the operating principles of "unreasonable hospitality" across the identification and enhancement of customer experiences. Will describes operationalizing exceptional service, finding magic in repeated touchpoints, building teams that embrace hospitality, and leading others through vulnerability.

Once in a while, I share a conversation outside of managers or allocators designed to help you level-up your performance and business. From the day I met Will several years ago, I knew he could do just that from his valuable insights and colorful stories.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: Ascension.

Ryan Lovell is the Director of Capital Markets at Chainlink Labs, where he leads the development of blockchain-based solutions for tokenized finance across banking and capital markets. Chainlink has powered more than $28 trillion in transaction value and powers the majority of decentralized finance.

Our conversation explores the hidden plumbing of modern finance and the upgrade blockchains provide. We discuss Chainlink's critical role in connecting traditional finance with blockchain technology, the rise of tokenization and stablecoins, institutional adoption, and the intersection of AI and blockchains around a single source of truth for financial transactions.

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Katelin Holloway is a Founding Partner at Seven Seven Six, a technology-focused venture firm backing great early-stage entrepreneurs that she started with Alexis Ohanian in 2020. Alexis was a past guest on the show, and that conversation is replayed in the feed.

Katelin and I explore the intersection of human capital and venture capital. We cover her upbringing, work alongside Steve Jobs at Pixar, and turnaround of Reddit with Alexis. We then turn to the application of her operational experience to venture investing. We discuss 776's sourcing and underwriting of founders, interviewing approach, investment selection, and scaling the highly personal approach it takes to add value to portfolio companies.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: Old Well Labs.

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Alexis Ohanian is the General Partner and Founder of Seven Seven Six, an early-stage venture capital firm with $1 billion under management that he describes as a technology company that deploys venture capital. Alexis was the co-founder of Reddit, one of the most popular online forums in the world, which he sold 18 months after its 2005 launch for $10 million and returned as Executive Chair in 2014 to help lead the turnaround of the business. In between and since, he has invested in early-stage ventures as a partner at Y Combinator, a co-founder of Initialized Capital, and most recently founder of 776. Despite his success in entrepreneurship and investing, Alexis is most well known in the world at large as the husband of tennis star Serena Williams.

Our conversation covers Alexis' initial ride at Reddit, taste of early-stage venture capital, and return to Reddit to scale the business alongside the challenges of managing a modern social media platform. We then turn to his investing as a technology company, including Cerebro – 776's transparent operating system, thematic ideas, traits of successful founders, social media engagement, investments in women's sports, and lessons learned from his wife Serena.

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