Improving Alpha: Innovation in Investing, ESG and Technology copertina

Improving Alpha: Innovation in Investing, ESG and Technology

Improving Alpha: Innovation in Investing, ESG and Technology

Di: Michael Oliver Weinberg
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A proposito di questo titolo

 The Improving Alpha: Innovation in Investing, ESG and Technology podcast with host Michael Oliver Weinberg, is built to engage with innovative allocators on forward thinking investment management business strategies and the challenges across alternative investment sectors. Through each of these discussions we will explore achievements, lessons learned and future advice for dealing with today’s financial markets. This podcast series is being powered by Vidrio. Learn more at Vidrio.com.Copyright © 2022 Improving Alpha Economia Finanza personale
Episodi
  • Improving Alpha: Kristin Varela on the Human Impact of Pension Stewardship

    Improving Alpha: Kristin Varela on the Human Impact of Pension Stewardship
    Jan 6 2026
    When running a pension plan for 150,000 active and retired members across the state of Hawaii, there are several factors that help achieve a 7% return. Governance, portfolio risk awareness, and culture all weigh on the minds of the investment team at the Employees’ Retirement System of the State of Hawaii. In our last official recording of the 2025 Improving Alpha podcast season, we welcome Kristin Varela, Chief Investment Officer, Employees’ Retirement System of the State of Hawaii. Kristin and her team oversee the $25 billion plan, which has a mission of ensuring the financial dignity and multi-generational wealth for plan employees in this generation and for those in the future. In this discussion with our host, Michael Oliver Weinberg, Kristin details her ‘fingerprint’ of principles and practices to prioritize steady and reliable results for the plan. Highlights include: What initially excited Kristin about the CIO position at ERS of the State of Hawaii, and how her operational and cultural background moved her to the top of the candidate pool. Why diversification is at the core of their investment beliefs, and how it enables her team to innovate alternative investment structures while adopting a proactive approach to asset management. Looking at the value of complexity over time and understanding the opportunity costs involved in making capital decisions. What were the steps in doubling down on fund managers that represented our core values and understood our mission versus those that were less innovative and aligned to the ERS mission? How her past experience working with Jonathan Grabel (a past guest of the Improving Alpha Podcast) shaped her view of ESG and how she puts ESG to work, given the culture of Hawaii.Why is food security such an interesting advancement for the pension plan, and what are some of the plays that Kristin and her team are navigating today in this space? How AI is featuring in capital plans, whether it’s on the manager side and implementing systemic strategies or through investment plays like data centers or larger energy transition themes. Disruption across private market investments and how Kristin keeps her plays in things like private credit and real assets at a high level of quality. And more Connect with Kristin Varela: LinkedIn: Kristin Varela Connect with Michael Oliver Weinberg: Michael Oliver WeinbergVidrio About Our Guest: Kristin Varela is the Chief Investment Officer for the Employees Retirement System of the State of Hawaii, a $23b pension plan, serving nearly 150,000 active and retired members across the state of Hawaii. She is responsible for the design and implementation of the Fund’s overall strategic goals, policies, and programs. Kristin holds over 15 years of experience in the institutional investment industry and has served in both public and private sectors throughout her career. Prior to her time in Hawaii, Kristin served as the Deputy Chief Investment Officer and Interim Chief Investment Officer for the Public Employees Retirement Association of New Mexico. In these roles Kristin oversaw the delegated implementation of a $17b pension portfolio, ensuring the long-term solvency of the Plan, and serving over 90,000 active and retired members. Kristin holds broad expertise in modeling, market analysis and manager-specific due diligence across various asset classes of public, private, and alternative markets. She specializes in risk-based asset allocation and portfolio management, real asset investment opportunities, innovative investment solutions, and prudent portfolio implementation through focused operational management. Kristin holds a BBA in Finance from New Mexico Highlands University, and is a recognized industry leader, featured in Market Group’s “2024 Elite 100 CIOs” (2024), as well as a Chief Investment Officer “Industry Innovation Awards” finalist (2021), and a top “Forty-Under-Forty” next generation leader (2017). She is from a multi-generational family of local New Mexicans and is a proud mother to her 15-year-old son. The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Vidrio Financial, and/or our host, Michael Oliver Weinberg. The Content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding your investment planning. The release date may not correspond to the recording date. Source
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    46 min
  • Improving Alpha: Geeta Kapadia on Endowment Innovation, Secondaries, and Defining the Future of Alternatives

    Improving Alpha: Geeta Kapadia on Endowment Innovation, Secondaries, and Defining the Future of Alternatives
    Dec 15 2025
    Evaluating all the investment pieces in a modern-day endowment portfolio requires a keen eye. You might have capital demands pouring in from the university to improve campus buildings, student education opportunities and equipment, professor salaries, and more. Today, these demands are then multiplied by concerns over inflation, regulation, and, in the case of our next guest, adhering to Jesuit principles, that have been mandated by the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. In our latest episode of the Improving Alpha podcast, we welcome Geeta Kapadia, CFA, Vice President and CIO, Fordham University. Geeta brings +13 years of experience heading up the investment office at Yale New Haven Medical Center before landing at Fordham University. Across its multiple locations, Fordham is home to over 17,000 students and $1BN in AUM. In this discussion with host Michael Oliver Weinberg, Geeta highlights the following key ideas that she’s paying attention to in managing Fordham’s portfolio and ways that she is separating the noise and hype from actionable investment ideas: How are inflation pressures managed today by the endowment, and what is the impact on future university spending?Given the breakneck speed of innovation in endowments, how is Fordham providing opportunities for students, the community surrounding their campuses, and their overall legacy?In contrast to our last episode entry with Aswath Damodaran, what does Geeta think of ESG in the endowment setting, and why is she proud of the Bronx Green Jobs Center?In terms of technology and AI, how is Fordham’s endowment leveraging technology and interacting with others in the endowment space to develop best practices not only in their investing process but also in running their jobs more efficiently?What are the ramifications of not having a sounding board to bounce investment ideas and other thoughts off in the endowment space?What is the likelihood of major endowments moving into the position of being sellers in private market assets, and what does Geeta really think of the democratization of alternatives?And more. Connect with Michael Oliver Weinberg: Michael Oliver WeinbergVidrio Connect with Geeta Kapadia: LinkedIn: Geeta KapadiaWebsite: Fordham University About Our Guest: Geeta M. Kapadia, CFA, is a global institutional investment leader and strategist with success advising on, developing, and implementing sophisticated investment portfolios. She is the Vice President and Chief Investment Officer at Fordham University, where she is responsible for all aspects of managing the endowment of $1 billion in assets. For over thirteen years prior to joining Fordham in August 2022, she was the Associate Treasurer of Investments at Yale New Haven Health System, where she led the team responsible for assets of approximately $5.5 billion. Prior to joining Yale New Haven Health, Ms. Kapadia served as Senior Investment Consultant for Mercer Investment Consulting in the United Kingdom, where she provided strategic investment advice to institutional investors and was responsible for heading up specific research into asset classes. Before Mercer, she served as Investment Analyst and Director of Marketing at Capital Metrics & Risk Solutions in Pune, India. Early in her career, Ms. Kapadia worked in a clinical setting at an academic medical center as part of a research team conducting phase one chemotherapy studies. While she found the work tremendously rewarding, she decided to leverage her undergraduate degree in mathematics and started her investment profession as an investment analyst at Stratford Advisory Group in Chicago, where she rose to consultant, leading institutional investor relationships and heading up asset class research. Ms. Kapadia holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Chicago and a master’s degree in financial markets and trading from the Illinois Institute of Technology. She is a CFA charterholder and holds the UK’s Investment Management Certificate. She is a member of the CFA Institute, the CFA Society of New York, and 100 Women in Finance. In 2019, she was named one of the Top 30 Healthcare Chief Investment Officers Investing by Trusted Insight. She is the President of the Board of Chester County Family Academy, a Board of Trustees and Finance Committee member for the Memorial Library of Radnor Township, and a board member of the FINRA Investor Issues Committee. The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Vidrio Financial, and/or our host, Michael Oliver Weinberg. The Content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding your investment planning. The ...
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    40 min
  • Improving Alpha: Aswath Damodaran on applying a dabbler perspective to AI, ESG, and Wall Street.

    Improving Alpha: Aswath Damodaran on applying a dabbler perspective to AI, ESG, and Wall Street.
    Dec 2 2025

    ​Can a generalist provide a much broader view of the institutional markets and uncover things that so-called experts miss? Can the sins of Wall Street be traced back to a genuine lack of perspective and ineffective communication when a crisis arises? These are some of the questions and answers that we’ll uncover in our latest episode of the Improving Alpha podcast.

    ​For this episode, we welcome Aswath Damodaran, Kerschner Family Chair and Finance Education Professor, NYU Stern. Aswath will take the audience through his perspectives on how to address some of the challenges posed by AI, including the Damdaran Bot, the ESG scam, the Mag 7, and more.

    Additional highlights include:

    • Why those in active investing shouldn’t be concerned about the introduction of AI, and the threat that it could take this industry to the cleaners.
    • The challenge of ESG and why those who write about it may be hiding an agenda to make it look better than what it actually is today.
    • So what if there’s an AI bubble? Isn’t overconfidence and a high degree of optimism going to be corrected by the markets?
    • Crypto currencies – are they a currency or collectible, and what perspectives should you take on them for 2026.
    • The gaming of quarterly reporting and potential solutions for allocators paying attention to these reports.
    • And more.

    Connect with Michael Oliver Weinberg:

    • Michael Oliver Weinberg
    • Vidrio

    Connect with Aswath Damodaran:

    • LinkedIn: Aswath Damodaran
    • Website: Aswath Damodaran
    • Blog: Musings on Markets
    • YouTube: Aswath Damodaran

    About Our Guest:

    Aswath Damodaran holds the Kerschner Family Chair in Finance Education and is Professor of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business. Before coming to Stern, he also lectured in Finance at the University of California, Berkeley.

    Professor Damodaran received a B.A. in Accounting from Madras University and a postgraduate diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management. He earned an M.B.A. (1981) and then Ph.D. (1985), both in Finance, from the University of California, Los Angeles.

    Professor Damodaran’s contributions to the field of Finance have been recognized many times over. He has been the recipient of Giblin, Glucksman, and Heyman Fellowships, a David Margolis Teaching Excellence Fellowship, and the Richard L. Rosenthal Award for Innovation in Investment Management and Corporate Finance.

    His skill and enthusiasm in the classroom garnered him the Schools of Business Excellence in Teaching Award in 1988, and the Distinguished Teaching award from NYU in 1990. His student accolades are no less impressive: he has been voted “Professor of the Year” by the graduating M.B.A. class nine times during his career at NYU.

    In addition to myriad publications in academic journals, Professor Damodaran is the author of several highly-regarded and widely-used academic texts on Valuation, Corporate Finance, and Investment Management.

    Professor Damodaran currently teaches Corporate Finance and Valuation to the MBAs, and his interests lie in disentangling value drivers and understanding market pricing and behavior.

    The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Vidrio Financial, and/or our host, Michael Oliver Weinberg. The Content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding your investment planning.

    The release date may not correspond to the recording date.

    Source
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    54 min
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