Fundviews Podcast

Greg interviews John Beldy from Season 1 of Fundviews Podcast, on  the first ever "Update" episode. John started putting together his fund in early 2020 right before COVID, but has found that there is a better fit with a Separately Managed Account approach. He has partnered with Exceed Investments, a mutual fund manager to offer these services to the very fragmented RIA space across the United States.

Greg interviews Ryan Craft, Founder of Saluda Grade. Ryan grew up in South Florida, before attending Georgetown University and making his way to Wall Street. Ryan surrounded himself with very intelligent and thought provoking people throughout his career, which took him from Merrill Lynch, Merging with Bank of America, then to RBC and Baird before launching his own firm, Saluda Grade. Ryan has built a specialty in the residential mortgage securitization business throughout his career, and focuses on providing efficient capital to operators, funds, and managers in underserved asset classes. Saluda Grade provides both equity and debt financing for these groups, and is constantly building into new areas. 

Greg interviews Herald Van der Linde. Herald grew up in the Netherlands near the German border and studied Macroeconomics before moving to Jakarta, Indonesia. He worked for a firm that merged with UBS as an equity research analyst, before taking a role in South Africa focused on strategy and macroeconomics. After a few years there, he moved back to Asia and eventually settled down in Hong Kong.Today, Herald is the Chief Asia Equity Strategist at HSBC. He has written 3 books over the years including his most recent “Asia's Stock Markets from the Group Up.” He dedicates time each year to studying something new, and thoroughly enjoys his research and Asian culture.

Greg interviews Chris Drose, founder of Bleecker Street Capital. Chris grew up in South Carolina, and became interested in failure and failing companies at a young age. He worked for several hedge funds after graduating college and recently took the plunge to launch his own firm and fund with a short selling bias. Chris discusses his views on the short market and the different styles as well as how he identifies positions. He is off to a roaring start with Bleecker street, and I'm sure will be expanding over the coming years.

Greg interviews Levi Benkert. Levi grew up all over the world, traveling with his family focused on missionary type work. He flipped his first house as a teenager and started a small chain of coffee shops in Sacramento, before scaling up his real estate business. 2008 hit both his business and personal life quite hard, and Levi and his family moved to Ethiopia to start an orphanage for children coming from extremely difficult situations. Over 6 years, he actively worked on the non-profit and built up several other large businesses in the country and surrounding region. Subsequently he moved back to the United States and settled down in Austin Texas. He stepped back from the non-profit finally and sold the businesses in order to launch Harbor Capital, and investment firm focused on Industrial Real Estate Opportunities.

Greg interviews James A Fok. James is a veteran financial and strategic advisor to corporations and governments, as well as a brilliant author. He grew up in Hong Kong before attending college in London and eventually found his way back to Hong Kong where he resides today. James spent the early part of his career in Investment Banking in Europe and Asia, before joining the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing as a senior executive for almost a decade. He played in integral role at the exchange, working on several major initiatives such as the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect programme. His book, FINANCIAL COLD WAR:  A View of Sino-US Relations from the financial markets is available around the world.

Greg Interviews Bryce Gilleland, of Asha Capital Partners. Bryce grew up in Southern California, working his way through the corporate finance world for large utilities companies before completing his MBA at UC Berkeley. After his MBA, Bryce jumped into the Cryptocurrency world, launching his first fund - Coincidence. Bryce recently launched Asha Capital Partners, and switched gears to focus on underwriting managers in the space to provide a more stable, diversified, and institutional offering for those that want to avoid deep drawdowns and negative volatility. Bryce talks about the industry as it is today, and the strategies they focus on at Asha Capital Partners.

Greg interviews Gershie Vann, Founder of Magma Capital Funds. Gershie grew up in Brooklyn and California before studying Jewish Law for several years. He started his career in Chicago working for ReMED, focused on operational process improvements and data analytics. Gershie then moved to Concerto where he honed his business intelligence skills. After reading Ray Dalio's book (Principles), Gershie decided it was time to take the plunge and launch Magma Capital, with a focus on building automated trading strategies that optimize risk in daily market environments.

Greg interviews Dean Myerow, Founder of Southern Waters Capital. Dean grew up north of Boston, and graduated from University of Miami Law School before jumping into the bond sales and trading markets on Wall Street. Dean co-founded Bergen Capital, which created an online exchange of bond quotes before getting acquired by BB&T. After years of special situations fixed income and capital markets, Dean moved back down to South Florida. What was a potential quiet retirement, turned into several entrepreneurial endeavors. Dean launched Southern Waters Capital, an asset management shop focused on real estate development and fixed income trading. Dean is also an active community member, and non-profit advocate through the Friendship Circle of Greater Fort Lauderdale.

Greg interviews author and investigator of financial wrongdoings, Jared Bibler. Jared graduated from MIT with a master's in engineering before making his mark on Wall Street. The combination of advanced systems engineering, and financial knowledge allowed Jared to excel at building more efficient and robust processes within several banks. Eventually Jared picked up and moved to Iceland, working for one of the top 3 banks in Iceland for a several years. The Iceland crisis in 2008 hit, and Jared was brought in as lead investigator to figure out what had happened. Today, Jared resides in Switzerland and just released his book, “Iceland's Secret: The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Con”. 

Greg interviews Heeten Doshi, founder of Doshi Capital Management. After some first-hand money management experience at Rutgers, Heeten decided to go into investment management. Heeten started his career in a rotational leadership program at Lucent as the company stock took a tumble from $90 to less than $1 a share. It took several years and several companies later (along with two masters’ degree and a CFA) but he eventually ended up at Morgan Stanley as an equity analyst. Heeten was a rising star and moved over to BBH where he managed a team of equity analysts formulating equity strategy for many multi-billion dollar hedge funds and investment shops. After a while Heeten realized that he wanted to go solo and put his analysis into action. He launched Doshi Capital Management and has been managing an algo fund with an absolute return target for the past 9 years. Today the firm has expanded, and now donates 5% of the performance fee to a foundation to help people in need all around the world.

Greg interviews Zeb Portonova, founder of GEM Funds. Zeb grew up in Arizona, and attended Cornell, University of Florida, Harvard and Duke. He first took a position in the public office side of things before jumping into Real Estate development. He eventually made a move into Pharmaceuticals through a firm that his family had helped build many decades ago, named Eli Lilly. Zeb went on to become CEO of several large multinationals, before finally starting his own investments funds in various opportunity zone verticals. Zeb has always donated his time and money to causes he believes in, and today is no different. He has built several investment verticals including hydroponic farming, solar installations, and cryptocurrency mining. Zeb and his partners are extremely excited, but also looking forward to a long overdue vacation down the line.

Greg interviews John Beldy, Founder of Sentry Capital. John reminisces back to the days of the crazy stock market floors and screaming market makers before things became digital. He was an options market maker and later became an options expert for Charles Schwab’s advisors. After a decade of providing hedging strategy consultation to Investment Advisors, coupled with his extensive ETF and Option trading experience, John decided to launch his own fund. Using options strategies and passive ETF investing, John aims to provide exposure to the broad equity markets while reducing the volatility and risk by a substantial amount. Little known fact – John was a professional bowler before becoming a financial guru and fund manager.

Today’s guest is Adam Hagfors, Co-founder and CIO of Silverpeak. Adam grew up in the Midwest, and spent the majority of his career working at Accenture, Bear Stearns, JP Morgan and UBS. Through these roles Adam has become a specialist in all things credit.Adam launched a firm called Silverpeak Credit Partners with his partners about 5 years ago, focused on private credit investments of about 10 to 30 Million dollars. Adam explains the importance of being with the right team and the right partners as you grow your business, and the importance of being patient and disciplined as an entrepreneur.

Greg interviews Christophe Forsinetti, founder of OBOR Capital. Christophe grew up all over Africa, Asia and Europe as his mother worked for the UN and he enjoyed learning about new countries. He quickly became fascinated with Microfinance and after working for a successful startup in Mexico, he moved to Madagascar to build a microfinance company from the ground up. Christophe eventually decided to move back to his mother’s home country of Cambodia, and started a VC fund called OBOR, focused on providing capital and advice to help small companies grow to the point where they can attract international investment. Christophe has a very interesting background, and always thinks about the social impact he is making as much as the commercial success if his investments.

Today’s guests are Ruth Amundsen and Alden Cleanthes. Ruth is an engineer spending most of her career at NASA and Alden runs a digital art company and has always advocated for clean air, clean water, and environmental awareness. These two rockstars combined efforts to launch Norfolk Solar Qualified Opportunity Zone Fund. Norfolk Solar installs solar at no cost to local businesses and non-profits in Qualified Opportunity Zones. The owner of the building gets the benefit of the free solar electricity after the system payoff period of about 7 years, while investors get to reap the rewards of a tax break on capital gains and modest investments returns. Ruth and Alden are continuously building into new markets, and are building a team of like minded individuals to tackle solar installation at a national level. Their impact is incredible and changing the way people finance solar panels.

Greg interviews Kevin Wojton on this week's episode. Kevin moved to New York city after graduating with a double major in Finance and Mandarin. He worked in Banking at Citibank for a couple years before moving to Hong Kong, travelling china, authoring a book called “Climb China” and then moving back to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Kevin is constantly learning new things. He learned to code as a full stack software developer, and now runs an Opportunity zone fund and a technology VC fund in Cleveland, while simultaneously building a rock climbing gym within an old masonic temple. Kevin is a very entrepreneurial spirit always looking at the true impact he’s making in local communities.

Greg interviews Mike Zlotnik on the second episode of season 2. Mike moved to the US from Moldova (USSR) at a very young age. After a 15 year career in IT and Risk Management, Mike made the shift over to Real Estate Investing. Mike joined the Tempo Fund in 2009, and eventually went on to launch several other real estate focused funds with Tempo as CEO. Mike speaks about the importance of keeping fees low, and diversification. Mike hosts the BigMikeFund Podcast and consults as a business coach on the side.

Greg interviews Eros Resmini on the first episode of season 2. Eros speaks about the early days growing up in Silicon Valley, and how he naturally gravitated towards startups and entrepreneurship. Eros launched his career at Hewlett Packard through an MBA rotational program, before joining a gaming platform company run by Jason Citron called OpenFeint. OpenFeint was sold to a Japanese company called GREE for $104 Million. Eros then went on to help shape Discord in an operational role as CMO. Finally he fell back to his roots of helping young startups grow through his group called The Mini Fund focused on angel investing and advisory.

Molly Canfield-Poapst interviews Greg Poapst. Greg is the host of the Fundviews Podcast and Head of Operations for Glide Capital. Greg grew up in Brockville, Canada and moved to Ottawa, Canada to study at Carleton University. Greg speaks about his time studying at Carleton, and how he figured out his career path. He switched majors three times and went back for an additional year of finance courses in order to learn more and find a foot in the door in investment management. Greg speaks about how important it was for him to speak with investment professionals to discover what he wanted to do, and the persistence that kept him going throughout those years. Greg founded Fundviews in order to give other students and professionals the ability to learn from the experience of others.Today, Greg resides in Miami, Florida with his wife Molly. He looks forward to continued stories and conversations on Fundviews in the future.

Greg Interviews Stephen Feid, Founder of Bedford Global Capital Strategies. Stephen grew up in Ohio, went to a boarding school in Princeton New Jersey before studying at Trinity College in Hartford. Stephen worked for a short time at an advertising agency in NYC, before getting pulled into the wall street craze. He got licensed and immediately became an institutional trader for Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Stephen was put on the block trading desk for hedge funds and institutions where he met his first client, Steven A Cohen.Over time Stephen left the firm to become head trader for a hedge fund focused on Healthcare stocks called Forstmann Partners LP. Forstmann was a long short, dollar neutral fund, and Stephen built many trading dashboards and models during his time there.After leaving, Stephen built a consulting practice, providing health care industry research and technical dashboards for other hedge funds. Stephen now resides in Miami, and continues to look for alpha in niche alternative investments.

Greg Interviews Mukul Pal, cofounder of Ait Inc, a long-short equity fund focused on generating uncorrelated alpha for investors. Mukul grew up in New Delhi and Bombay, moved to Romania and eventually to Canada. He has seen how financial markets operate in emerging, frontier and developed countries. Mukul is a very science-oriented investor. He focuses on the why and how in every situation. He has listed a fintech breakthrough on the NASDAQ, and founded several companies focused on artificial intelligence. AIT Inc encompasses Mukul’s long academic and scientific breakthroughs for the benefit of investors.

Greg interviews David P.A. Mullings, founder of Blue Mahoe Capital. David grew up in two worlds - Jamaica and Miami. He was one of the youngest to graduate from the University of Miami at the age of 19 years old, and after a year of professional soccer he went back and graduated with his MBA at the age of 22.He founded a company called Random Media with his brother in 2001 and built a successful business bringing Caribbean entertainers and pop-stars to the world, and the world to the Caribbean. After gaining valuable experience at Jamaica National Group, and working with other entrepreneurs he founded Blue Mahoe Capital. Blue Mahoe invests in both public and private companies in the Caribbean and Latin America, and has plans to go public in the near future.David believes that the best way to be successful is to follow your passion and invest in “what you know”. Find a successful person to model your business after and a mentor to help you get there.

Greg interviews Frank Holmes, of US Global Investors. Frank grew up in Toronto, Canada and went to Western University. He became a successful investor in mining companies, metals and commodities, and bought a majority share of US Global Investors and moved to Texas in 1989. His funds have received dozens of awards over the years, and he has since launched several ETFs including JETS which has grown to over 1.5 Billion in assets this year since the COVID pandemic started.Frank speaks about what it takes to be a successful fund manager, and how he sees the financial environment through a scientific lens. He discusses how important it is to use data that is available, but also to see things first hand on the ground. Frank believes that the future for Gold investments is very strong given the current environment, and he is working on several new projects to allow retail investors and the “Robinhood” crowd to participate.

Greg interviews prominent investor, Jim Rogers. Jim cofounded the famous Quantum Fund with George Soros which returned over 4200% in a ten year period from 1970 to 1980. In comparison, the S&P index returned just north of 47% in that same time period. Jim is an avid traveler, having broken world records for travelling around the world on a motorcycle, and almost ten years later in a custom Mercedes with his wife. He founded the Rogers International Commodities index in 1998, and has written over half a dozen books. Needless to say, Jim is an extraordinarily interesting guy with many crazy and wonderful stories. I hope you enjoy listening.

Greg Interviews Geetu Sharma, Founder of AlphasFuture. Geetu grew up in India, and found her way to London, Switzerland and now Minneapolis. She spent most of her career working for large banks and institutions and analyzing companies. After working on Pictet and Cie's ESG investing team in Geneva, she gained an insight into why companies are successful in the long run. Subsequently, Geetu decided to open up her own fund focused on identifying these opportunities while also promoting strong sustainability initiatives. Geetu’s story is extremely inspiring. She speaks about energy and sustainability initiatives, the importance of looking at the scientific facts, and the opportunities that are finally opening up for women in finance.

Greg interviews Brian Brackeen and Candice Matthews Brackeen on this first ever power duo episode!Candice studied economics and statistics but became an entrepreneur and built an app called Hello Parent, before working with an accelerator funding minority owned and operated startups and subsequently launching Lightship Capital.Brian has been a coder since he was 8 years old, and after dropping out of college worked for several major technology companies such as IBM, ADP, and Apple. Brian started and built a company called Kairos focused on facial recognition technology.Brian and Candice started Lightship Capital to provide growth capital to minority owned and operated businesses in the Midwest. They are fully subscribed and looking forward to launching Fund 2 down the road.

Greg interviews Steve Jasmin, of SC3 in the first episode where the is not directly a fund manager, but rather an asset manager and merchant banker.Steven Jasmin grew up in the United states, graduated from Emory University’s Business School, and immediately built a management consulting business providing advice to fortune 500 companies such as Delta Airlines, Coca Cola, and Johnson and Johnson. Around 2010 he pivoted towards advising Offshore Oil and Gas dynasties in both their business efficiencies as well as their investments, and ultimately became a Chief Restructuring Officer for several of his clients. Today Steve spends his time in Guyana, focused on growth opportunities largely related to the Offshore Oil discoveries made since 2015. He has built several companies to help provide value and impact to the Guyanese people, and investors that want to participate in the country’s growth.

Greg interviews Dave Seymour of Freedom Venture investments. Dave moved to the USA when he was 20 years old. Dave was a firefighter for 16 years, before getting into real estate through wholesale transactions in 2007. After losing virtually everything in the great financial crisis of 2008, he bounced back and ran a construction and real estate company focused on flipping houses in the Boston area. He was the star of A&E's "Flipping Boston" for 3 seasons. Dave speaks about the perseverance and determination that drove him throughout his career and the extreme importance he places on capital preservation.Dave is now raising capital for a $100 Million real estate fund with a focus on smaller multifamily buildings on the gulf coast of Florida.

Greg interviews Robert Frankfurt of The Living Fund. Rob talks about his early beginnings at Wharton and UCLA Business School as well as me spent as an investment banker and activist investor. After becoming an activist investor in the parent company of Lane Bryant (largest plus size retailer) and tearing his ACL in Jiu Jitsu Rob became focused on improving his own lifestyle choices and subsequently investing in companies focused on reversing the growing obesity and chronic illness epidemic. Rob is now actively raising capital for a fund focused on helping these companies grow, and making money for investors at the same time.

Greg interviews Michael Brown of Bowery Capital. Mike has a very unique view on career paths focusing on asymmetry (high upside with limited downside). This mindset has allowed Mike to make bold moves through Richard Branson's Virgin Group and AOL Ventures before starting his own early stage venture fund. Mike expresses the importance of mentorship in career development.

Greg interviews Raph Martorello the founder of Lotus Group Capital. Raph discusses his engineering background and management consulting experience that led him to found a wealth management firm, and eventually a life settlement fund, focused on buying life insurance policies on the secondary market. For those interested in very niche and interesting investment strategies, this episode is for you.

Greg interviews Jeff Ransdell from Fuel Venture Capital about how he became a fund manager, what it was like to work in leadership at Merrill Lynch, and his views and experiences starting a Venture Capital Fund 3 years ago, focused on identifying exponential technologies. Jeff is an early stage investor by nature, so naturally he was happy to be the first guest on Fundviews.