Access: The Lifetime Achievement award winner who's only just getting started
“I’ve spent a lot of time in my life thinking: ‘if I just show people goodness, they will be good.’ It’s a mistake, every time.” - Kim Lew
Hello reader,
Welcome to our 7th edition of Access - the most clicked link from last week’s newsletter was this interview with sociology professors Alexandra Kalev and Frank Dobbin.
It’s been a busy week. On Monday, we celebrated Halloween with pumpkins and ghost lollipops. If you enjoy the annual mundane Halloween costume parade, head over to this Twitter thread to check out the season’s most creative outfits. 🎃
We also released our first jobseekers edition of Access earlier this week, with a list of global opportunities at private capital fund managers, industry tech vendors, advisors, consulting firms and fund services providers. Check out the link further down this newsletter.
Our in-depth piece this week features Kim Lew, who currently heads up Columbia IMC, the investment company responsible for handling Columbia University’s endowment. Hope you enjoy reading - and don’t forget to write and tell us, who would you like to see featured next?
Until next time,
Liz & Melissa
In case you missed it…
Last week’s newsletter included interviews with Haruki Murakami, David Shrigley, and Alexandra Kalev and Frank Dobbin.
Our In-Depth section featured Wol Kolade, the straight-talking private equity veteran who’s looking to level the playing field.
FEATURING:
This week’s best interviews
Idol to idol - RM from BTS and Pharrell Williams sit down for a conversation
Former armed robber John McAvoy opens up on his journey from iron bars to Ironman
Amelia Goodman, on being an entrepreneur and finding joy in building her app, Bookworm Reads
In-depth: In 2021, Kim Lew received a Lifetime Achievement award from Institutional Investor, but she’s only just getting started.
IN BRIEF
“I don’t want to do anything that just feels like, ‘Oh, that’s cool, that’ll fit.’ No, I don’t want to fit. I want to knock the wall down and want to set the whole entire block on fire.”
A wildly honest conversation between two superstars, RM from K-pop supergroup BTS and his idol, musician and producer Pharrell Williams.
[Watch or read on Rolling Stone]
***
“I was literally at the end of the road in the deepest, darkest hole where nearly every human on Earth gave up on me and I fought back and I wanted to change.”
Eleven years ago John McAvoy was given two life sentences for armed robbery and his future looked bleak. Today, he’s an endurance athlete, public speaker and runs a charitable trust helping disadvantaged children.
***
“My book club is one of my favorite groups of people in the world. I just love reading - I love talking about books. And I think it really shines through.”
Bookworm Reads founder Amelia Goodman is building a community, one book at a time.
Looking for your next move?
Earlier this week we shared a list of 87 private capital opportunities. Missed the Jobseeker’s Edition? Check out the list here 👇
If you're thinking about your next role and would like to talk through your options, please feel free to reach out; we're happy to chat so we know what to keep an eye out for.
IN-DEPTH
“Investing implies a level of predictability. It implies a level of trust. And it implies an ability to analyse. So many [of these] problems are so idiosyncratic and so not predictable and we don’t control the outcomes.”
When Kim Lew was called by Institutional Investor to say she’d been chosen as the recipient of their 2021 Lifetime Achievement award, she says her first thought was - “how old do they think I am?(!)… My second thought was, I hope the Columbia board doesn’t hear about this, because I don’t want them to think that my best days are behind me. And then I thought, what does this do to expectations?”
At 55-years old, Lew has achieved extraordinary things. Born to teenage parents, Lew grew up in Harlem and the Bronx. Her father, a Chinese immigrant, worked in the mail room of AT&T, where the CEO happened to be a graduate of Penn’s Wharton School of Business. Lew attended the Ivy League institution after her father urged her to apply, then went on to study an MBA at Harvard.
It is perhaps fitting that she now heads up an endowment that, among other things, helps provide financial assistance to students who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend an Ivy League school.
“Playing a role in that is so important to me because I was that kid. I do still believe that higher education can be a way to propel people into different socioeconomic brackets.”
Lew didn’t attend Wharton with the intention of going into investment management. Her plan was to become an accountant, but whilst she enjoyed accountancy, she quickly realised this wasn’t the career path she wanted to follow. Instead, she joined Chemical Bank as an analyst.
Looking back, Lew says “even though Chemical was a great place to work, and I had an amazing training program where I learned a lot, it was a tough environment to work in.” She left the bank to pursue an MBA at Harvard, and several years later joined the Ford Foundation as an equity analyst working the technology sector. Lew later switched to a senior management role in private equity before joining Carnegie in 2007.
About Columbia Investment Management
The Columbia Investment Management Company (IMC) operates as an investment firm, managing Columbia University’s endowments. As president and CEO, Lew is responsible for the management of an $11 billion endowment whose income provides a perpetual source of support for University programs.
Lew is currently president and chief executive officer at Columbia Investment Management, joining after more than a decade at Carnegie Corporation of New York. Her most recent role there was as chief investment officer, and Lew admits she wasn’t looking to leave, except the opportunity at Columbia was too good to pass up.
“Taking on new roles and responsibilities isn’t interesting if there isn’t something about it that you have never done that will challenge you to step up to the next level.”
On leveraging talent
“Investing in the team is the most valuable thing that I do because it creates the most leverage. The best thing I can do is give them the tools to be great investors and support their efforts to source and conduct high-quality due diligence.”
On motivation
“I believe people are motivated by being given responsibility, authority over their development, and the freedom to be creative. I want them to be able to explore ideas that maybe don’t seem like they add value to our portfolio in this minute but could in the future. One of the tech firms—I think it’s Google—gives everyone 5 percent of their time to do whatever they want. I did the same at Carnegie.”
“If you are making your brain bigger, that will serve everything else you do. The world is wide, and you have to see it that way.”
Lew’s investment philosophy
“[My] philosophy is to look for inefficiencies, to be a value investor and to take advantage of the fact that we have really long-term capital. We really look for opportunities where people who have a short-term mindset can’t play effectively.”
On diverse ideas
“I strongly believe that outperformance will be driven by diverse and creative investing ideas that are generated from people with unique experiences. We are not increasing diversity because it is the fair thing to do (although it is); we are doing it because, over time, it will be required to continue to produce the highest risk-adjusted return.”
“A diversity of backgrounds and a diversity of opinions make a huge difference in how we think about things.”
On embracing new opportunities
“Taking on new roles and responsibilities isn’t interesting if there isn’t something about it that you have never done that will challenge you to step up to the next level. Therefore they should make you feel just a little anxious, but great things happen when you push through the anxiety armed with the tools to figure out how to be successful.”
On recognising areas of development
“The difference between a good CIO and a bad one is that a good CIO appreciates their limitations and biases and puts processes in place to offset them… you don’t want to end up with a portfolio that is too swayed and too much a bet on your view as opposed to a world view.”
On pet peeves
“The people who think they can tell you a half truth or sometimes a lie. Their presumption is that you’re so lazy that you won’t find that out.”
On joining Ford Foundation
“Because I hadn't worked in equities and didn't have a technology background, I couldn't check some of the boxes for the job I was offered. It was intimidating, but [my mentor] said I couldn't become a good analyst if I didn't take some chances. She said: do your research, make some investments, and if you get something wrong, we'll fix it. That was a liberating moment.”
On growth
“We have to give ourselves permission to not be perfect because if you don’t, you won’t try hard things. I tell my daughters all the time you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable because the really good stuff happens on the other side of that discomfort.”
“People need to see things from different perspectives for us to be really good at what we do. The world is changing, we have to invest globally in order to be effective, and we have to understand how all the parts work together.”
On being a co-CIO at Carnegie
“It’s in many respects a marriage, and we have a lot respect for the way the other person thinks… I think one of the challenges that CIOs have is not having anyone to talk to… We have each other. We can bounce ideas off each other, and we can come up with really constructive ways to handle things that arise, because we are both vested in the same portfolio and its success.”
On technology
“I think I’m most optimistic about technology and how technology is solving so many of the world’s problems. I do believe we’re going to see solutions to the climate issue. I do believe there are going to be solutions to lots of medical issues – the biotech field is awash with wonderful opportunities and brilliant people solving problems.”
The best advice
“The number one thing I would tell people: choose a good team. You will get the best experience with a good team - a team of quality people who are going to invest time in developing you and making sure you are learning the lessons.”
“The biggest benefits to my career and my ability to be a good investor, had to do with great sponsorship and great mentorship from talented investors.”
On calculated risk
“The best investment advice I’ve ever received is the fact that we are in the business of taking risk. And so if you want to produce return, you have to be willing to take risk, be willing to analyse and mitigate that risk the best you can, and to make sure the return potential of an investment is equal to the risk. But you can’t avoid risk.”
“If you don’t think about how the world is changing and have a point of view on those things, then you will lock your portfolio into something that doesn’t perform over the long run.”
And on reading for pleasure
“I think what I like about [Game of Thrones] is that they’ve done away with predictability. Anybody in that series could die. There are no sacred cows. And I think if you really pay attention to what it takes to succeed in a Game of Thrones, it is about creating alliances and having diverse perspectives in conversations. Some of the most interesting scenes are people from very different places coming together to solve a problem.”
Ted Seides of Capital Allocators partnered with Kim Lew for the second podcast in the mini-series on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Awareness & Action. They discuss conscious and unconscious bias, diversity across investment teams and the opportunities for progress. Listen to the interview below.
Sources
Thanks for reading. If you don't want to miss our next newsletter, please add Access to your contact list. (Or move this email from "promotions" to your primary inbox.)