As we enter high summer here we come with some summer bounty here at Fiftyfaces Podcast as we launch Series 4 that is bursting with wisdom and insights. Because life is not linear, these stories are not linear either – and they stress the power of the individual. Hear from an introvert who found her calling in connecting with people in private wealth, a pensions expert whose entire career has been driven my members first, a legendary business builder and a private credit expert forging her own path.

Kurt Summers is a Senior Managing Director and Head of Public-Private Partnerships in
Blackstone’s Infrastructure Group. In this capacity, Mr. Summers is responsible for
investment strategies in partnership with governments, public entities, civic and labor
organizations, and broader stakeholders to help advance local infrastructure priorities
and he also advances Blackstone Infrastructure’s ESG efforts. Mr. Summers was
elected and served as Chicago’s 70th City Treasurer until 2019. Mr. Summers also
served as both Chairman of the Chicago Infrastructure Trust, where he led the largest
lighting retrofit project in North America, and Chairman of the Chicago Community
Catalyst Fund, a first-of-its-kind $100 million local investment fund focused on private
investments in Chicago neighborhoods.

Kevin Leonard is Partner and Practice Group Director – Public Funds and Taft Hartley at
NEPC. He has had a long career in consulting and started his career as an accountant.
Kevin has had a career of over 30 years in investment consulting, and it had a somewhat
“accidental” start – being driven more by location and convenience than a calling. Things
quickly shifted however, and Kevin found that working with public funds where the possibility to
add value and have impact was high and the touchpoints with investment committees and
Boards frequent and satisfying.

David Golub is President at Golub Capital, a direct lender and credit manager established in 1994, and celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. As the son of a psychiatrist and psychologist, a path into finance was originally a divergent path, and a somewhat non-linear one at that.

Derek Walker, is Head of Portfolio Design & Construction, total Fund Management and a member of the Global Leadership Team at CPP Investments, based in Toronto. He previously worked in MSCI in Geneva. We start by discussing what Derek describes as a “non linear” career path, and his road from technology and machine translation to CPP Investments. 

Anna McDonald has a dual role at Moneta, a St. Louis based RIA with over $32 billion in assets under management. She supports athletes in all aspects of their financial lives, preparing them for sustained success beyond their athletic careers. She knows this segment well as she previously spent six years as an ESPN reporter, covering Major League Baseball and the National Football League. During this time she was a spokesperson around health and safety concerns of the NFL.  In addition to her work with athletes, she also serves as Moneta’s Director of Family Learning. In this capacity, she works at the net as client facing teams to facilitate learning programs for families to transfer wealth to younger generations.

Varun Laijawalla is a Portfolio Manager at Ninety One, where he manages long only EM and EM ex-China portfolios.  He started his career as a consultant and moved into stockpicking via Asia focused sales.

Jim McNamee, is President of the National Public Pension Fund Association.  He is director of Stonegate Insurance, Unique Insurance Company and Resolute Global Partners as well as the Illinois Public Pension Fund Association which he founded in 1985. He was formerly a police officer.

Stephanie Drescher is Chief Client and Product Development Officer at Apollo.  She started her career in the Alternative Investment Group at JP Morgan and is a Board Member at ADT.