165: Life & Career Advice from the World’s Top Financial Executives: Compilation Special
22:52 Share

Welcome to the Money Maze podcast. If this is your first time joining us, I'm the host, Simon Brewer. And in this show, we talk to proven leaders and thinkers from the worlds of business, investing and beyond. To stay up to date with every episode, please do sign up to our newsletter via moneymazepodcast.com.

Episodes are also published on our YouTube channel, and we're active on all major social media platforms. Thank you for listening. Welcome to the Money Maze podcast. I'm Simon Brewer. Along with Will Campion, we've created this show to explore and unravel some of the mysteries surrounding the investment business. As the podcast approaches its fifth year, having featured almost 200 remarkable guests, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on some key moments from past episodes.

We've had the privilege of sitting with some of the world's most influential figures, finance titans and visionary leaders spanning a variety of industries. Despite their diverse journeys, they all share one common trait. They embody success, however you choose to define it.

In this highlights episode, we delve into the archives to bring you some of the most impactful advice. While curated especially for our younger listeners, these insights offer invaluable guidance for anyone seeking inspiration in navigating today's increasingly complex work environment. From breaking into finance to managing stress and tackling life's challenges more generally, these are a selection of moments that resonated with us and we hope that you can find value in what our guests had to share.

Beginning with Sir Chris Hone, who appeared on the podcast back in 2021. Here he highlights the importance of self-discovery and following your passion. Follow your passion. That's what I say to my son. People think life is about doing things, okay, what you achieve. But that's all wrong. The real secret of life is who you become. That's my biggest piece of advice.

Figure out who you want to become, not what you want to do. Nobody really focuses on what they did at the end of their life. It's just who they were. Next is Nikolai Tangen, CEO of Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund. Nikolai reflects on the fascinating, ever-changing nature of the industry and emphasises the importance of differentiating yourself and thinking differently to succeed in finance. I think finance is just incredibly interesting because it ties in

So many interesting things, right? It's company analysis. Everything you use and eat and so on is produced by somebody. So it's the micro side. It's macro. It fits into society. It's monetary policy. It's legal issues. It's greed and fear and social psychology. And then things are moving all the time, right? It's a never-ending moving puzzle. And so it's just fascinating. But what I do think is in order to stand out, you need to have something on top of an economic education. And that is...

important. And I think social psychology is really, really important. And then it's the importance of being contrarian, to be able to be contrarian, think differently from the other people. Because if you look at four squares and on the one axis, you have right and wrong. And on the other one, you have consensus, non-consensus. All the money is in one square, right, non-consensus. You need to live in a square where nobody agrees with you.

Life is not the popularity contest. And my wife says, well, that's only people without friends who say that. But I actually do have some friends. But to be able to live in a kind of non-consensus square, that's important. Nikolai was not the only one to pick up on the influence of differentiation and creativity. In a similar vein, Mathieu Chabrin, co-founder of Tiga Ho Capital, had this to say. Be curious, work hard,

be on the ball. The world of finance, it's interesting because it's been driving the modern world for a long time, but it's

Either a commodity, because everywhere there is some capital, or you make it something different. I think that what we enjoyed working in investment bank in the late 90s and then developing our own platform with alternative asset management is trying to make something different. We have this saying at TKO, which says, create, don't compete. And that's what young talent willing to join the industry should think about. Where can I make a difference?

Not by benchmarking myself to what others are doing, but by bringing something different. It's true at the micro level in a team, but also the macro level when it comes to coming up with an idea and a proposal and putting that in motion. On the topic of passion, Jen Prosek, founder of Prosek Partners, has a similar theme.

Find something that gets you out of bed and you're partially excited about. Find something that when you're working at it, it doesn't feel like work. Because if you can do that, you will naturally work harder than other people around you because you like it.

And if you are working harder than other people around you because you like it and you're passionate about it, you're generally going to get farther. So one of the things I am most proud of in my career is after business school, 99.9% of my colleagues were going into investment banking or consulting. I felt like the herd, I should do that too. I was already running my small PR firm. It wasn't very sexy.

I got myself an offer at two major investment banks to join their analyst program. And I had accepted one of them. And I woke up the next day after accepting and I called and I said, I just...

I can't do it. And it's the to thine own self be true. I just decided I could be a very mediocre banker or I could be a killer financial communications person and I should stick with what I'm good at and what fuels me. Sometimes there is a lot of pressure to feel like

I should be a banker because everyone else is, or I should do this because everyone said I should. You should find that thing, even if it's unpopular, even if it's not sexy, that gets you excited. That is if you want a career, not a job. We then spoke to David Neal, CEO of IFM Investors, on focusing on long-term horizons. Don't discount the future. We tend to discount the future

too much. But the future will be present one day. And so the challenge of dealing with long time horizons is always with us in all parts in our life. And the way that we choose careers, the way that we're impatient for promotions, the way that we think about investments and how we should try and create value on portfolios. It's very difficult to think about the long term. So I think doing whatever we can

to stop ourselves from discounting the future too much. Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, offered advice on experimenting with your career to understand more precisely who you are within the field.

First, know your nature. You're on a journey to take your nature and find the right path for it. Some people are left-brained or right-brained. Some people are creative. Some people have a pull toward adventure. Some people have risk aversion to kind of get a sense of what your nature is. In order to do that, look for your path through your experimentation.

Value your painful mistakes as learning experiences. So learn how reality works. Don't get upset if it doesn't work the way you want it to work. You own it. You own your life.

You own the responsibility of making those choices. Open your mind to learn from others who've been through it before and find your path because life is more like a video game than like the school told you. In other words, you go after your goals. You have your encounters with your realities. You bump into problems. You have to solve the problems. You get learning points as you accumulate your learning.

and you build on that to move on to higher levels and so on, that's how you have to approach life as you discover and learn at the same time. So before we continue this conversation, we're going to take a short break to have a note from our sponsors.

I'm excited to announce that the Money Maze podcast is sponsored by the London Stock Exchange Group, known as LSEG. At the heart of the global economy, LSEG provides data, analytics and infrastructure that connects investors, businesses and economies. LSEG is where ideas meet capital, enabling sustainable growth and opportunity. Tap the link in the show notes to learn more.

IFM Investors is a global asset manager founded and owned by pension funds with capabilities in infrastructure, equity and debt, private equity, private credit and listed equities.

They believe healthy returns depend on healthy economic, environmental and social systems. And these are evolving on a scale never experienced before. To find opportunity, build value and meet the needs of future generations, you need scale, skill and expertise. That's what IFM Investors has built up over 30 years.

With the increasingly competitive scramble for jobs and positions, Baroness Dambisa Moyo, economist, legislator and author, offers a powerful reminder of persistence in the face of rejection. I would say no doesn't mean never. It just means not now.

So I think too often, especially young people, somebody says no and they act like it's the end of the world. I've been there. But actually, just because somebody said no doesn't mean it's never going to happen. It just means you probably need to do a bit more work to figure out what will make it more likely to happen. So no doesn't mean never. It means not now. Next, we spoke to Sohee Kim, Senior Managing Director of CPP Investments in Canada on risk-taking and understanding strategy.

Be open to taking risks.

I would say. And you never know what the past may lead you to. We talked about how I got into the private equity industry. Private equity industry is changing rapidly. Like when I started private equity investments versus now, it's day and night. There are many more strategies that and many more products that's out there in the private equity players that they're offering and has evolved how they generate the returns. So don't be afraid to get into the new areas of investing. Don't

That may ultimately lead you to the private equity investing. Or private investing may be very different by the time they become a partner. Expanding on the idea of personal drive and resilience, David Schwimmer, CEO of the London Stock Exchange Group, came on the podcast in May of this year and advised young professionals to avoid setting their own limits and to embrace challenges. Additionally, warning of the dangers of short-termism.

This question comes up a lot from young people who are getting into their careers. And what I tell them is do not set your own limits. So many people don't try to do certain things because they think they might fail. And so they don't even try. And I think that is a really important constraint to avoid. So one other, if I may, is, and I think this is particularly relevant in

In the current era where you see so much short-termism and you see, you know, whether it's social media or any other cultural aspects, attention spans are very, very short. And so I would say invest the time generally. You know, you asked about history or I can't claim to be a historian, but I love reading about history and just the notion of history

Reading a book that's 800 pages in this day and age, like most people just don't even consider it because it is, it's viewed as how would I ever spend that amount of time doing something? And yet I think in terms of finding real opportunity, finding real understanding, finding real value in things, it often takes time.

So I would say invest the time. Try to extract yourself from the world of short-termism for enough time to really consider some of those things. So before we continue this conversation, we're going to take a short break to have a note from our sponsors.

Schroders is a $950 billion global investment house focused on asset and wealth management. The breadth of capabilities within their businesses gives Schroders scale and reach to understand and serve clients' complex needs through actively managed investment solutions across the complete spectrum of public and private markets. Remember, capital is at risk when investing.

In times of economic and geopolitical volatility, investors will look to gold. Today, as the world navigates uncertainty and heightened risk, investors of all sorts will look to safeguard their wealth. We're thrilled to welcome the World Gold Council as one of our sponsors. Tap the link in the show notes to learn more or visit goldhub.org on your browser for comprehensive research, insights and analysis on the global gold market.

Ian Charles, Managing Partner at Arktos, emphasised the importance of paying attention to your peers and mentors.

I wish earlier I had with intent spent more time with really skilled investors or at least just consumed more of what they put out into the ether than I did because there's so much value in the lessons that have been passed down from these iconic investors. And I had to learn my own lessons from,

by getting kicked in the teeth and punched in the face. And I probably could have avoided a few of them if I'd spent a little bit more time studying the lessons that have been passed down to us by the forerunners of this industry. But that's my favorite story. Now, stress and managing stress is a challenge that cuts across every job, business, and industry. In asset management, it can feel particularly acute when faced with factors out of your control.

Fortunately, we've had some incredible guests share their wisdom on how to deal with stress when it rears its head. Mark Darlaney, CIO of Australia's largest super fund, highlights the importance of stepping away from stress and fully engaging in an activity that clears your mind and helps your reset. I think, is it surfing? Do what you love. Do what you love. If you enjoy investing, enjoy how money moves around, do it. Be curious,

do your own numbers and don't believe what other people tell you. And while Mark finds relief out on the ocean, Colm Kelleher, chairman of UBS and former president of Morgan Stanley, offers a different perspective, focusing only on what's within your control and keeping the bigger picture in mind. Well, the one lesson that I've always had is that you can only worry about what you can't control. So

So too many people worry about things that are outside their control. I mean, what GDP will do, whatever, right? But you've got to focus on those things where you can actually make a difference. By the way, I remember one of the great lines from the crisis was when Gary Cohn said to Lloyd Blankfein, oh, this is terrible. I mean, this is the end of the world. And Lloyd said, this is not landing a Bailey boat on Utah Beach.

And that's put it in perspective, the stress and the stress. At the end of the day, the stress for us was the ongoing continuation of Morgan Stanley and what that meant for people. It wasn't life and death. Adding another dimension to career objectives and considerations was Marcy Frost, CEO of Culpers, who shared her invaluable advice on the importance of finding your voice and your network, especially for women in their early careers.

So make sure you're developing a network of male sponsors and female sponsors. And then just working with women. Sometimes women, we tend to be much harder on

our female counterparts than we are our male counterparts. And so just if you're in that place to help lift women, please do so and invite those conversations around risk-taking. There's no reward if you don't take some risk taking that feedback, but it's really finding your voice. I got some coaching from someone who I have a lot of respect for, and I didn't have my voice early in my career. It was more of this heads down, working hard, finding that way to be noticed versus finding my voice and what I stood for.

And I made that change mid-career and it just opened so many doors that I would not have seen even available to me. And so that would be the advice. I think find your voice and make sure you pay attention to building out that network and knowing what you're good at and spend more time doing that and less time about the things that you're not as interested in doing.

Many of our listeners here at The Money Maze are interested in or already involved in the world of asset management. Anthony Scaramucci, founder of Skybridge and a veteran of the finance industry, has some key insights into the industry and a few other thought-provoking lessons to go along with them. If you come into this industry...

with the right expectations. This is an incredible industry. And so I guess I would say to somebody, number one, it's not a get rich quick industry. It's a get rich slow industry. Number two, this industry is the business of understanding other businesses. For me, this has been the most fascinating business because it's the business of understanding other businesses.

And so if you're an incredibly intellectually curious person, come into finance, but stay in finance. I don't think you're going to serve yourself well if you come into finance with a one or two year goal. You're not going to get it. It took me 15 years in finance to really understand. Continuing on the theme of startups, Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President of Microsoft's Cloud and AI Division, offers a balanced perspective on the matter.

I think the thing I'd encourage a new hire to look at if you're evaluating different opportunities is, will you learn and what will you learn? And so I think it's absolutely possible to learn in a big company and it's absolutely possible to learn in a startup. And I think the real trick is, is it the right company and the right startup? And if you feel like you're going to have mentors and you feel like you're going to be working with people that are better than you and that you'll learn from, I think

I think that's always a thing to look for in a career. And I would say that even for me, I always tell my team, I don't have all the answers. And the reason I enjoy coming to work every day is, or almost every day, you know, it's because I get to learn from people that are smarter than me. And I think in general, you always want to work with people that are smarter than you, because then you'll keep learning. And they might not be smarter on everything, but smarter in something. And if you could find that, you can both learn and have a great career. And I think that's true for both startups and big companies. Right.

We often have young listeners starting their careers asking the all-important question, should I join a startup or a more established company? It's pivotal and potentially career-shaping as a decision. Emmanuel Roman, CEO of PIMCO, who joined us this year on the podcast, shares his perspectives on this debate. Join a company who wants to invest into you, learn as much as possible, ask questions,

Because the reality is your brain at 22, 23, 24, 25 is so plastic in a good sense of the term that this is when you learn an enormous amount. And it's harder to learn late in life than it is to learn now. And so I think that getting the right training, getting the right organization, getting the right friends in the company is incredibly important.

That's why I'm very ambivalent about young people joining startup because it's not clear to me they learn much from their peers. And the noise and the volatility of a startup is such that once in a hundred, it's the best place ever to have worked for. But in a lot of other cases, maybe the learning curve hasn't been as steep as it would have been in the

a more regimented and more professional organization. Finally, I welcomed Sir Tony Blair onto the show, who served as one of Britain's most influential and consequential prime ministers from 1997 to 2007. He now runs the Tony Blair Institute, a non-profit organization which helps governments and countries negotiate political, social and economic challenges. Get a sense of purpose.

I mean, I would say to people, wake up with a sense of purpose and go to sleep at night counting your blessings because your blessings are going to be much more than you think. And having a sense of purpose is part of what gives you energy in life.

All content on the Money Maze podcast is for your general information and use only and is not intended to address your particular requirements. In particular, the content does not constitute any form of advice, recommendation, representation, endorsement or arrangement and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making or refraining from making any specific investment or other decisions.

We try to provide content that is true and accurate as of the date of publishing. However, we give no assurance or warranty regarding the accuracy, timeliness, or applicability of any of the content. Guests, presenters, and other individuals involved in the production of this podcast may have positions in any of the investments discussed.