Kimberly Smith is Head of Capital Formation at Techstars.  She was previously Director of Marketing and Investor Relations at Owl Creek Asset Management and before that worked at Davidson Kempner and ABN AMRO.  She holds a number of Board Roles and is an active advocate for education.

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. 

Susan Martin is MD of Greenstone Consulting, a change and transition management firm. After a long career in the public sector, culminating in a CEO role at a financial services business, she now holds a number of director roles and works as an executive coach.

A committed change agent shares her secrets as to how to successfully execute change at a corporate level and her insights now as a coach and a director.

Kirk Sims is a Senior Investment Manager and Head of the Emerging Manager Program at the Teachers Retirement System of Texas, a public pension plan with over $150 bn in assets under management. He previously worked at the Teachers Retirement System of Illinois, where he spent close to 7 years, and where he had oversight of the $7 bn minority investment program and the $750 m emerging manager program. Prior to that he held a variety of financial services roles.

A delightful canter through an inspiring HBCU education, a lifelong passion for jazz and a role at the helm of an emerging manager program that is one of the most prominent in the USA.

Rendel Solomon, who recently worked in a Chicago-based private equity firm, is a leading voice for diversity in finance. He is the founder of the One Stock One Future, an initiative which aims to turn one million youth into public company shareholders. He serves on the Board of NASP and West Side Forward, and he was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Latin School, which he himself attended.

A discussion of a remarkable journey into finance, and a pivot to ensure better equity and representation for all.

Tony Dalwood is Chief Executive Officer of Gresham House, an alternatives asset management business based in London. Its product range includes forestry, renewables, infrastructure, housing, private equity and strategic public equity funds.

A fascinating discussion of the lessons learned from sport and how they an inform team-building, team-work, and success in the long game of finance and investing. service to private wealth and what he perceives to be the differences between the two.

David Hickey is portfolio manager and responsible investment lead at the Lothian Pension Fund, a public pension fund based in Edinburgh. He previously was a fund manager for a European Small Cap Equity team among other investment related roles.

An energetic discussion of how a boy from a Yorkshire pit village entered the profession against the odds, overcame setbacks and is now one of the leading voices in sustainable investing in the UK.

Dawid Konotey-Ahulu is an entrepreneur in financial services, technology and elderly care and the co-founder of Redington, the London-based independent pensions and insurance advisory group with $500 bn in assets under advisement, as well as mallowstreet.com, a social media platform connecting the pensions and insurance industry. He has had a long career in financial services and is a high-profile advocate for diversity within the financial services community and one of the leaders behind the recent initiative #10,000blackinterns.
Impact has always been, and continues to be front and center of Dawid Konotey-Ahulu’s life and career, and we hear about the “kinks in the hosepipe” of his own life and how is committed to aiding the path of the next generation.