Billion Dollar Backstory

This conversation was too good to leave in the archives.

In this encore of our Ask an Allocator series, Stacy sits down with Bill Harding, CIO of Jackson National, who oversees $200B in assets and $29.8B in directly managed fund-of-fund assets.
Bill gives us a look inside the mind of an allocator and shares what he’s actually paying attention to when evaluating fund managers, because past performance is only part of the story.
In this episode, Bill and Stacy discuss:
Bill’s backstory, from financial analyst at a cheese manufacturer to CIO at Jackson National
What fund managers need to get right when pitching a potential partnership
Why past performance alone isn’t enough to earn an allocator’s attention
Why Bill sees culture as a real source of alpha
The questions fund buyers are asking behind the scenes (and why the most important ones aren’t always quantitative)
If you’ve ever wondered what really matters on the allocator side of the table, this conversation gives you a pretty good look behind the curtain.
 
About Bill Harding:
Bill Harding, CFA, is Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer at Jackson National Asset Management (JNAM), where he leads asset allocation, portfolio construction, sub-adviser monitoring, and manager research. 
He joined JNAM in 2012 after serving as Head of Manager Research for Morningstar's Investment Management division, and has more than 30 years of experience across JNAM, Morningstar, and Leprino Foods. He holds a B.S. from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an MBA from Loyola University Chicago.
Bill graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business. He holds an MBA from Loyola University Chicago and is a CFA charterholder.

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Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus

In the world of M&A, deals tend to get reduced to spreadsheets long before anyone asks about the story or the actual people underneath.
Emily Blue built her whole career on believing maybe we’ve got that backwards.

She started out as a nursing major (until an anatomy syllabus sent her running ), failed the CFA before she passed it, and eventually found herself sitting across the table from some very fancy investment bankers. Then one afternoon, she was standing in an airport after a pitch that had gone really well... wondering why she felt so flat.

A phone call with her friend Ryan Halls changed everything. Eventually, that conversation became Hue Partners, an M&A advisory firm that works exclusively with sellers.

In this episode, Emily and Stacy get into:

➤ The airport phone call that turned into a firm
➤ Why Hue said no to every buyer who wanted to hire them
➤ What happened when a banker called Emily "soft" (and Ryan’s PERFECT comeback)
➤ Why younger, fast-growing firms are exploring partnerships earlier, and why waiting too long can cost you
➤ The real estate analogy that makes a pretty freaking good case for having someone in YOUR corner when you sell
➤ Why wealth firms are starting to look at boutique asset managers as a talent strategy
➤ The "messy middle," and what happens when the story that got you HERE stops fitting where you want to go NEXT

This one is about M&A, but it’s also about relationships, story, and knowing what you actually want to build. And what happens when the way it’s always been done doesn’t feel like the way YOU want to do it.
About Emily Blue:
Emily Blue, CFA, is a math nerd turned M&A disruptor and the co-founder of Hue Partners. She cut her teeth in M&A integrations, pushed back on traditional valuations, and led corporate development, and through every deal one thing stayed true: the best transactions aren't about multiples. They're about people. So she built Hue to put founders first, with no corporate fog and no empty promises, just real partnership before and after the deal.

Outside of work, Emily serves as Board Chair of the Girl Scouts of Northeast Kansas and Northwest Missouri, and advocates through Big Brothers Big Sisters and Newhouse. She has traded Kilimanjaro for toddler trails for now, and lives a chaotic, joyful life with her husband Harrison, their kids, and two doodles.

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Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus

Allocators are drowning in manager emails.

Kristof Gleich would know.

Today, he’s President and CIO of $50B Harbor Capital. Before that, he spent eight years leading manager selection at JPMorgan, fielding pitches from managers trying to break through.
So, he's a good person to listen to when it comes to figuring out how to stand out and win over allocators. 
In this Encore episode of Kristof and Stacy discuss: 
Kristof’s path from physics to finance, how he went from studying physics to landing his first finance job at Goldman Sachs right after 9/11
What actually makes a fund manager stand out (hint: it’s not tweaking a model or slapping “contrarian” on your deck)
Why it pays to celebrate even the smallest wins as you grow your fund 
Harbor Capital’s approach to backing emerging managers early (and why he believes more allocators should follow suit) 

About Kristof Gleich:
Kristof Gleich joined Harbor in 2018 and was appointed CIO of Harbor Capital Advisors in 2020, with oversight of the firm’s investment, distribution, marketing, and executive functions. Before Harbor, he was a managing director and global head of manager selection at JPMorgan Chase. He holds a B.S. in Physics from the University of Bristol and is a CFA charterholder.

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Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus

You didn't sign up to be a marketer. You signed up to manage money.
But the second you start your own boutique? Welp…

Marketing, sales, distribution, hiring... they're all your job now too.

Sean Peche knows that struggle firsthand. 
He's the Founder and Fund Manager at Ranmore Funds, a $650M investment boutique where "that's how it's always been done" isn't really a good enough reason to keep doing something.

And that applies to a lot more than how Sean invests. He's challenged a whole lot of the traditional playbook while building the business too.

So what does building a boutique differently actually look like?
In this Encore episode, Sean breaks it all down.
Listen in to hear:
Why he dedicates one day a week to distribution (and protects the other four for the portfolio)
The LinkedIn prospecting approach he leaned on before he had a marketing team
Why his approach to hiring looks very different from your typical asset manager
How "charitable marketing" lets Ranmore grow its network while doing some good along the way
The mindset shift that happens when you stop thinking like a fund manager and start thinking like a founder
Why honesty and humility might be a bigger competitive advantage than this industry gives them credit for

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Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus

Ten years ago, Andy Raskin wrote a piece called "The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen."
And Stacy Havener is still thinking about it.
Not because you need to build a SaaS deck, but because the structure underneath it works on allocators too.
Too many pitch decks start with some version of: "Let me tell you all about us."

You go into a long spiel about your fund’s process and performance. Meanwhile, the allocator is sitting there with a very reasonable question: "Okay... why should I care?"

That's the gap Stacy digs into in this Story Snack.
Listen in to learn:
What a decade-old SaaS sales deck can teach fund managers about raising capital
Why allocators move faster to avoid pain than to chase upside
How to frame old way vs. new way without accidentally insulting the allocator
Why "better" might not be the word you want, and what to say instead
This is Story Snacks, a bite-sized, jam-packed series for fund managers who are ready to master strategic storytelling in under 20 minutes a week.

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Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus