Breeding Grounds – Carnegie Corporation of New York (EP.377)

Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry

Today’s show is the first in an ongoing mini-series discussing Breeding Grounds, organizations that have developed and spawned future industry leaders. We’ll cover both allocators and managers to see what we can learn about developing talent.

In the first episode of the mini-series, we discuss Carnegie Corporation of New York. Ellen Shuman became Carnegie’s first CIO in 1999 after working for David Swensen at Yale. Over her dozen year tenure and that of Meredith Jenkins and Kim Lew for the next dozen, and incredible 8 of the 17 investment professionals that walked in the door have become CIOs, and the rest appear either on their way or found their passion as leaders in complimentary roles or outside the industry. Those who became sitting CIOs are Meredith at Carnegie and Trinity Wall Street, Kim at Carnegie and Columbia, Jon Michael Consalvo at Carnegie, Alisa Mall at Michael Dell’s Family Office, Niles Bryant at Bowdoin College, Brooke Jones at Bryn Mawr College, Ken Lee at Children’s Healthcare, and Li Tan at Radian X. Carnegie is a lesser-known allocator training ground than Yale, but it’s produced half the number of future CIOs from fraction of the team size.

My guests to discuss how this happened are Ellen Shuman, Meredith Jenkins, Kim Lew, and Alisa Mall. We cover the chronology of their paths, and the Carnegie organization and investment process, including recruiting, culture, research, decision-making, and succession. Alongside the many applicable lessons they share, their palpable love and respect for each other is evident from the get go.

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