Ghiané Jones, is Deputy CIO at the Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois, where she is based in their Chicago office. She previously was Managing Principal at Meketa Investment Group, a role she held for over 6 years, and prior to that worked in a range of financial services roles including in institutional ETF Sales at Invesco and Northern Trust, and as a Regional Consultant at Goldman Sach

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.

Between Series 1 and series 2 of 2023, we kicked off a brand new focus series – the Love Series – in celebration of love in February 2023.  This had a great response – reminding us of what made people human.  It sent one listener back to his old photo album to remind himself of his showjumping days, and others felt motivated to take up hobbies again.  

Now we are back to our main series focused on investment professionals but love runs through it like a golden thread.  Love, discipline, lessons from parents.  Our guests include a former college football player, who spent time working as a prison guard before returning to university and ultimately entering the investment industry, an expert on music valuation, multiple ESG and pensions specialists and founders of fund companies – large and small.  

Stavros Siokos is managing partner and co-founder at Astarte Capital Partners. He started his career with Salomon Brothers in NYC in the mid-nineties, was sent to London and later was managing director of Citigroup responsible for the global trading strategies across the firm and for the product solution for all pension funds and insurance companies across the world. He was formerly Head of Investment Management at Piraeus Bank.

Simon Chisholm is Chief Investment Officer at Resonance Limited, an investment manager focused on achieving social and place-based impact.  It currently runs funds focused on three themes – homelessness, housing for vulnerable women, and housing for adults with learning differences.  It has over 20 years of an Impact Track Record and has housed over 2300 people in 1000 properties since inception.  Simon previously spent over 16 years in investment banking and also holds a number of Board Roles.

Welcome back to The Fiftyfaces Podcast in 2022. In this first series we meet with ten more inspiring guests and draw out in particular themes relating to impact and the importance of education.  For some of our guests their commitment to educating the next generation – whether through personal sponsorship, Board Roles, teaching decision making or the founding of The Skills Workshop – there is universal belief in its importance.

Impact takes many forms, and includes investment in education, but for some of our guests it also includes solutions to alleviate homelessness, house vulnerable women and adults with learning differences, or address the problem of climate change. 

Elizabeth Burton is CIO at the Hawaii Employee’s Retirement System, a US public pensions plan with over $17 bn in AUM. Before moving to Hawaii in 2018 she was managing director of the quantitative strategies group at Maryland State Retirement and Pension System. Prior to that she ran her own strategy consulting business, and worked as an economist, in portfolio management at a fund of hedge funds and a as fixed income securities trader. Elizabeth is a recipient of the CIO Magazine’s 2019 Innovation Award, and was named as one of CIO’s Forty Under Forty in 2017, and was recently appointed to the Board of CAIA.

An inspiring discussion of a life characterized by sport, competing, a striving for excellence and how this is translated into building a CIO’s team.

Rod June is Chief Investment Officer of the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System, (which has $19.5 bn in AUM), where he has spent over 8 years. He previously held the same title at the Hawaii Employees Retirement System, where he spent over 4 years.

A passionate explanation of how to create true inclusion in an organization and profession.