Ep3: Ella Hoxha: A razor-sharp hedgie inspired by beauty, open-mindedness, learning

[Music] Welcome back to Being Invested with me Susanna Nicholene. This is the podcast about the personal stories of the people who make the markets and I am so excited today to introduce you to my brilliant guest, Ella Hawkson. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode with something for everyone. As we chat about the fascinating interconnectedness of markets, the professional importance of a close inner circle, the way music improves wine, and some must-read great books. I've always been fascinated by how skilled investors have become who they are, how they've ridden the roller coasters and what it means to them. Ella's stories and her reflections on life convey the intensity and breadth of her curiosity, the drive that has taken her from childhood in Albania to managing billions of dollars in macro strategies and her philosophy of balance. The mindset of being invested can enrich and elevate your journey, and I hope this podcast will encourage more people into the sector who may not have considered it before. Thank you for joining me and if you enjoy it, stay tuned for future episodes with riveting conversations full of insights into the careers, life hacks, and hard-won lessons of investors across the globe. My guest today is Ella Hawkson. Ella is a senior investment manager at Pictiasit Management in London. She has been managing portfolios for 20 years, specializing in hedge fund, total return, and benchmark strategies in global fixed income. She's also a frequent public speaker, and you may have seen her sharing market insights on TV or online. She is passionate about macro investing and is a keen observer of the interconnections in markets and economies. Ella grew up in Albania, the eldest of four sisters, hitting her teenage years as the country opened up. She witnessed economic and political upheaval close up, and saw both the opportunities and the strains that created. This lived experience of economic theories colliding with life choices and realities as helped her shape her understanding of risk, resilience, and probabilities. She moved to the UK for her BA and MSc in International Finance, and has since lived in London. Ella was featured in the 50 leading women in hedge funds in 2019, and she is co-chair of Picté Women's Network. She is also a CFA charter holder, as well as a Somalia Level 3. Ella is currently in the Executive MBA program at the University of Cambridge, having also completed a diploma in art history at CityLit. Ella speaks five languages, and she reads voraciously, which I know we will get into in a bit more when we speak. Ella, welcome, and thank you for coming on the podcast as one of my earliest guests. I'm really looking forward to the conversation. Thanks, Susanna. It's great to be here. So, Ella, let's start with your journey as an investor. You're now in a team managing over 10 billion pounds of assets for Picté, having started life in Albania, with a mother who was an engineer, a father in the army, and it would be great to hear a bit about your first job ever, and the key decisions that you made along the way that have brought you to where you are now. Well, I mean, assuming that we're saying the first professional job, because I did hold a few jobs prior to that when I was a student, including working in a hotel reception and, you know, waitressing in a restaurant and so on and so forth, similar to what some students had to do. Of course, those are all learning and building experiences, but I mean, not to the professional side of things. My first job in finance was at Investga Asset Management, which I like to call my kindergarten of investing, and I started there in 2003. It's coming up to its 20th anniversary in May, so next month, so we're very close to that. And in my first role there as a junior portfolio manager, working in the global bonds teams, I've always been in a global bonds team, and really learning from the very much get-go. So I was very lucky in that I have had great bosses throughout my career, and very first boss, the person that gave me a chance to get into the investment ladder, Mark Dowding, his CIO at Blue Bay, a fantastic investor. But, you know, I'm always grateful to him because he gave me that first opportunity. He saw something in me and gave me the chance. And so that's where the journey began. The fantastic thing about working with Mark at Investga is I worked with a group of people that became dear friends, and some of them are still friends to this day. But it was also pretty heavy on the learning. So we got thrown into the deep end, if you like, from the beginning. So you had to learn very fast, because you got given responsibility very early on the job. And so in some ways, you felt that you didn't quite understand fully the implications of what you were doing, but of course by doing your learning, and you're also lucky enough to observe those around you who were very experienced. And we did so at the same time having a lot of fun. So we had a fantastic dynamic between us. We were all very young. I was effectively the baby in the team, and also at least on the portfolio management side, the only woman, although at that time it didn't occur to me, that I was the only woman, because I wasn't even thinking about it. I was so excited, you know, at the age of 23 to be working in a job that was my dream job effectively. And so in terms of decisions made, well, it was really learning how to invest first, you know, by doing shadow investing to my colleagues at my boss, but then really managing the asset allocation of portfolios on the day-to-day construction aspects of portfolios, but really the biggest learning came through observing prices very early in my career. So we had to go through an interest rate hiking cycle from the Fed between 2003 and 2005, and then the European Central Bank, say around 2005-2006. And so I was, if you like, lucky enough to observe it, and that's been interesting more recently, given we've had another cycle of interest rate hikes. But more specifically, I would say observing the global financial crisis, which is if you ask any investor, probably one of the most shaping moments of their career, at least investors who are still active now. So that's really interesting that age 23, you knew that you were in your dream job already, and that you had a clear vision even at that point. And I'm interested to understand a little bit about the internal map or vision that you had that helped you see that. But I'm interested to know about the image that you have in your mind of yourself, and how you thought about yourself at that age to know that that was something that would be of interest and something that you could excel at. What was it that guided you to that and motivated you to do that? Well, I would say curiosity. I'm a very curious person, and I've always wanted to learn as much as I can about anything. And the funny thing is that as you grow older, I mean, my 40s now, you basically realize that the more you learn, the less you know. But hopefully you begin to understand a little bit. And so you learn some patterns and form some mental maps as you alluded to earlier. I think what attracted me to it, if I start with the curiosity aspect, is if you're someone that wants to constantly learn, it's curious about the world and wants to figure out how things come together. This really in my mind represented the perfect job. And the reason is that what we do in global bonds is effectively global macro. So we're trying to figure out what are the key drivers for growth? What are the key trends in markets, aspects such as demographics, for example, will matter technological changes, you know, inflationary dynamics, things like populism, geopolitics, bipolarity, all of these things matter a great deal. And the reason is that when you think about global macro, it's sort of like when you start with interest rate policy, it's almost like the genesis of pricing all assets out there. So if you can figure out where interest rates are going, then you can get a good sense about how different assets will behave. And it's really difficult to do. It's very difficult to do well, which means that if you're someone that gets a lot of intellectual stimulation, trying to crack the code, so to speak, then it's a great ground, right? Because you're constantly being challenged and you're constantly having to learn at a very rapid pace, but also in a very broad dimension, so in a broad array of areas, you have to learn about, I mean, the case in point is the pandemic, for example. So by January and February, we were dialing into a lot of calls. And I was, for example, having to come up the curve pretty rapidly in terms of understanding, how viruses pen out, how vaccinations, or how vaccine can be developed, for example. And what does it mean? And what does it mean for economists? You had to think at a very quick pace to put all of this complicated pieces of the puzzle together. So I think that fits the personality. I think that's why I was probably quite clear to me earlier on that that's what I wanted to do. And the global financial crisis gave you a front row seat at a tumultuous time where central banks were doing things that central banks had almost never done before. And we're waiting in and and introducing quantitative easing and all of these activities that people were having to dig out and look up in their economics textbooks and things like that. So you've had a 15 years of experience in the call phase of macroeconomic experimentation. And has it taught you any lessons about yourself that you have been surprised by? Has it given you a position or perspective now that maybe when you started in you know, January 2008, you wouldn't have had? It's interesting because I find that we learn about ourselves as investors constantly. It's probably a big one for me is to learn to trust your intuition. And it's you know, a lot of times intuition comes as blasphemy, particularly when it comes to the more mathematically inclined parts of finance such as global bonds or global macro. But really, you know, if you ask people like Warren Buffet, he will say that a lot of the companies that he bought actually the initial point, starting point for him was this intuitive angle, right? And so intuition is not this abstract concept that we've come to attach to as a label. It's far more of learned guidance, right? So it's something that comes from a different system that we're not fully aware or cannot scientifically explain, but it is actually there. And a lot of times you will find as an investor's time progress is that you become much better at sort of listening to that intuition. Of course, you have to elaborate with data, you have to do the work, you know, on the back of that. But those are incredibly astute guiding mechanisms. Those intuitive moments are super important. So I would say, I have learned and I have to actually a lot of times now push myself to trust my gut because it tends to be pretty well correlated to when I have those particular interesting moments in markets. Another one is this pursuit of excellence, right? So to be a good investor, you have to constantly improve. So you have to learn, you have to adapt, and you have to improve. And that, you know, if you're not someone that's keen on that, then you might have a problem. I mean, you might survive still as an investor, but I don't know that you're going to be excellent. Another one is resilience. Resilience is probably the thing that you learn. You learn about yourself, about the difficult moments, and there's nothing more emotional than investing. And the reason I say that is because you really carry your P&L as an investor. So you sleep with it, you go on holidays with it, and so on and so forth. And so when the times are good, it feels amazing. And then when you're going through drawdowns, you know, and everyone will have a drawdown, you know, even the greatest, some of the greatest investors out there, it feels absolutely horrific, right? And so you have to wear that. And this is where resilience comes in. You have to be able to cope mentally and emotionally, very well in those periods. In fact, those are the most interesting periods because this is probably where most of your personal growth will come, right? It's always in this challenging times. And so I have learned now to accept those as part of what happens, you know, to an investor, and that you should use those as areas where you start to reflect and get deeper and become much more skillful as an investor over time. And so use your difficult or challenging periods as girls, girls triggers, if you like. That seems very philosophical and almost requires a degree of mindful separation or less personalizing of the experience. How do you actually do that, Ella? In those moments, is there a book, a mantra, a way of thinking about it that you return to that gives you some stability in that situation? Well, so there's a lot of tools and mechanisms. One is obviously experience. It's journaling. It's writing down what's happening, how you felt, what the triggers were, what it meant, what did you take away, and how are you going to do it better the next day? And so regular journaling is very important. Another aspect is having a process that is very thorough that you work with regularly, but that you really becomes in some way becomes a little bit of an obsession for you, right? And so sticking to that process and being true to that process. Of course, not like it's a complete religion, because processes just like investors can be improved, but at least to try to be as honest as you can with that. And in terms of the process, for me, for example, that includes checklists, this is how I keep myself honest, if you like, for lack of a better term. So where I go back and I say, okay, since this is my journal, this is my process, this is my checklist, what am I doing? And what am I not doing? That's not aligned with that process. And if there are ways that I can correct pretty rapidly in that sense. So those are the ways that kind of keep you real, if you like. So you go to have a process to pin yourself to on a sort of like more mental personal level, it's really the people around you in your life, you know, your family or friends, your loved ones, your colleagues, if you like your mentors, all of the people that ground you and support you because we require supportive systems in our lives and ecosystems. I don't believe in this idea of being individual. We are part of a broad society. And as a result, we are a byproduct of our environment. So if we build around ourselves or at least incorporate ourselves in these types of supportive, strong, loving environments with people that want to see us thrive, then I think we can be the best version of ourselves. So, you know, even through difficult periods, you can never underestimate how important those supportive systems will be for you to get through to the other side. And how do you maintain that in such a busy life, you know, with a kind of, you know, as you said, the PLNL staying with you 24/7 and the demands of constant flows of information and demands at work. How do you maintain that support network? I think prioritization is probably the name of the game. You have to be super efficient with your time. I think that's probably stating the obvious. But one thing that we learned during the pandemic, I think it probably happened to a lot of us is we really, because we were so limited in the number of people we could see, so short of our immediate family, you know, there really about four or five people that, you know, I recall making a more of a constant effort to see. Of course, there were others that came into the picture, but really within the sort of limitations that we had, there were only about four or five that you really sort of went out of your way in my case to see. And all of a sudden you realize that less is more, right? And so you realize that actually, if, you know, in those circumstances, these are probably the people that would make the most effort to spend my time or provide my support to and vice versa, then that's that's quite telling in and itself, right? And so sometimes we spread ourselves too thin for the sake of doing more and being more, but what's the essence of what we get out of those relationships? And so, so for me, it became much more about that core essence. And so that's what I try to do now and try to be honest with myself, so don't make it a chore, make it more of a fun endeavor, right? To see friends and family. So, more of the stuff that makes you feel good and happy, right, is probably where you're going to be the best version of yourself. So it sounds like you are very good at checking in with your feelings. You actually are quite alert as you are both understanding what's going on in the markets and the impact on your portfolios and then how you're responding emotionally. Well, I'm Albanian, so I'm, you know, effectively in Mediterranean, so probably my emotions from time to time, you know, I mean, look, I think the truth is, I think you will really know what's going on with me. You know, I'm very, very much an open book and very expressive. Of course, you know, I'm fine as you learn to wear sort of this strong face and strong persona because it's important to do so. And actually, I would say the opposite, I mean, one of my challenges after so long and this industry became how to not be that person when I'm home, right, or around my friends. And so to basically soften that, you know, strong sort of professional aspect down, but you know, look, I think we are, we are, we have to be honest about it. And I'm really fascinated if we can just quickly detour back to your checklist approach. My husband's a pilot and so checklists are obviously important in that line of work. When you think about your checklist, does that something that's done privately? Is that something you look at daily? Is that something you share with your team? I'm just really interested in the actual application of how you use that in your work. I cannot take credit for the checklist because that came through some of the work I did with an investment coach probably many years ago. And he's excellent. And I remember when we first met, I approached it with a degree of caution, and I'd been investing for quite some time by then. And I thought, you cannot teach an old dog new tricks, basically. So I remember in our first meeting sitting there, very cynical of him, trying to suss him out. And also because our personalities were quite different to begin with. And it turned out that by the end of the session, I was quite in awe of him. Because I think he read me well, he read my cynicism and he realized, what's the best way to kind of approach or sort of crack this cynicism. So the checklist is really his gift to me, if you like. But that came through him getting, understand me doing a lot of tests, psychometric tests, and you can take those with a pinch of salt. For example, there were one or two things that came up that I laughed at because I knew you knew them not to be true. For example, I scored low on competitiveness and anyone that knows me up close and personal knows I'm very competitive. So you can't take it at face value, but it helps. So in general, it's formulated kind of like a decent overview of how I tend to think and operate. And with that, we crafted this checklist. And so I use it personally. So it's for my use. It's to help me think. It's basically a way of making what I do more systematic. So coming up with trade ideas, coming up with a version of where the markets might be headed. It could all sound nice and dandy. But of course, the hit ratio on that particularly in macro is very low, you know. Because it's a very hard thing to do as I was saying earlier. And if you think about investors such as George Soros, for example, he's hit ratio was something like 45%. So he was more wrong than right. Yet, you know, his money rate, so his ability to convert his bets into profits was huge, right? So it means when he got it right, he really made a lot of piano out of that. So the idea here being that you're not going to be right all of the time. So it's about how do you know when you're not right? And how do you size and calibrate your positions in line with the new information that comes in? That's what the checklist is for you to go every day and say like, what happened today? What's happening to my conviction? What's happening to new information? I've received market data, et cetera, et cetera. And then you revise and refresh and then you also make a weekly check in with yourself. You know, how did I feel this week? Did I do my best? Did I feel emotionally or physically well? Did I take the right position bets? Did I have enough of this? And what can I learn? So that's what the checklist is there for. It's really for me to learn better. And there is something to be said about when we write things down. It makes us reflect and our subconscious kicks in as well. And so we learn by writing and reflecting. That's really fascinating, Ella. And the investment coach experience itself is intriguing. How did that come about, given that you were skeptical and is that something that you see being discouraged by other investors? That sounds like someone I should probably get on the podcast as well. Absolutely. I'd love to hook you up. It's a very fascinating person. The coach was recommended to me in a previous role of mine and the reason it was this because I was working in a multi-risk taker setup that operated in a very different way to myself. I'm one of those sort of silent thinkers if you like. So I like to go and deep dive and read a lot and think a very independent in that thinking process. And in the setup I was in there was a lot more fast thinking and a lot more fast trading and so struggling with that because it's very difficult then to protect your ideas and your vision in that environment. So what would happen is sometimes you'd have a view. It would be really quite astute. A very contrary, because it was very difficult to take people on board with you. You kind of watered that view down when it came to the positioning or you walked away somewhat from that. And so I saw some examples of that that had repercussions for me because then you get, it's far more challenging and difficult for an investor to actually see something and not have it on. And then say, but why? For me it's much more frustrating and these are the periods that I want to learn more from, why did I not do something? And so I expressed some of that frustration to someone more senior in terms of how do I protect my process and my thinking because I still have to be part of this ecosystem and contribute to it. But I also at the same time need to protect my thinking and my process. And so that was very difficult. And that's when this suggestion came and that's when I started working with this coach. You mentioned that you're a competitive person. Can you talk to me a little bit about how competition influences you and what drives you and if that motivation for what you're doing has changed over time? A lot of things have changed over time. I think one of the key aspects probably is to I think make a huge realization when it comes to investing and that is a lot of times with focus on upside returns which are of course very important because that's what our clients hire us to do. But that actually a lot of skill on the secret sauce of the game is really about protecting downside because if you can survive in those sharp draw downs that you get in markets regularly. I mean last year's a case in point and you know we had another wobble in March for example for a couple of weeks during the SVB and credits waste issues. So a lot of the skill needs to be focused on that. So that's something that I've learned and I think I still still need to work with over sort of the long term to make sure that I've got that right. You know downside management is important. The other thing you learn is I think in my case I learned about myself is constant growth. I think that came up at the very beginning when we started this session but really a pursuit for excellence that really is I've realized that what kind of motivates me what I get up every morning is to do a better job is to learn a little bit more and to become more skillful at what I'm doing. At least that's what I aim for in practice and in philosophy. In terms of other areas I mean I guess you learn that balance is very important in everything whether it's in investing whether it's in relationships whether it's in life in general and so balance means whether you have the time or not finding and making the time to be healthy to feed your mind to feed your body to distress and to build healthier with all the important people in your life. Interesting how you see that from a portfolio point of view as well. It kind of probably has some read across to how you balance risk and reward. Yes I mean absolutely and I've had to learn the hard way I think working with some great investors you know has helped of course. It's my previous boss at Wellington. Very interesting thinker always asking the difficult questions. Sometimes frustrating questions but you know later you realize that there were very important questions and the concept of balance I could probably attribute more to my current boss to Andres Sanchez-Balkhousar who is an incredible investor and thinker very complete in all senses that an investor can be complete and you know for him balance is very very important right and a lot of times we want to pin ourselves to the strong views because we want to make the mega box but ultimately it's a little bit like the tortoise and the hair right so you really want to be the tortoise in this story so steady at a overtime is probably the best way to be and and I've you know in a lot of times I have to fight my instincts to be that because my instincts you know back to the competitive angle are very much about max it out you know in every way every way possible so you know a lot of times I have to hold myself back. Very interesting and one of the things we've talked about before Ella is your conviction that reading and books continue to have great relevance in today's world and despite the multiple of other ways our eyeballs and our attention spans can be disrupted. I wondered it seems to tie in well with what you've just said about the people you've worked with and you have I love how how much you appreciate their approaches and thinking and and credit them for what you've learned and I'm interested to know given that you have read so widely if you might want to just share with us a few of the books that are particular touchstones for you that you know from which you've learned either or how you thought or have been inspired by or continue to turn to you? Yes, I mean, this is so difficult for me because, you know, it's the same question as asking parents, you know, who your favorite child is and all parents will tell you there's no such thing, but at the same time we also know there is a little bit of favor to some with children. And so I'll try in that same mantra and I think I have to separate them by sectors because it would be unfair to just give you a couple of books, but I have to, you know, since you ask, you know, influential books. I think I'm probably doing no justice to all the books I've read, but if I start with literature, there's two elements to the, my most beloved books in literature and one is it's the great Russians. So, Bostoyevsky especially and from him I probably have to pick brothers, Karamazov. I absolutely adore that book, cannot emphasize how much and I find it's one of the, you know, books that really told me about honesty and truthfulness and there's a specific chapter in the book called "Grand Inquisition" where it talks about the importance of being honest and how dishonesty breeds a lot of ill. And so I will never forget that. And then another writer, Gogol, so his, you know, again, many books from him, but that's all, probably comes to mind. It's super entertaining and I think no one gets under the skin of characters and the human nature in the same way as those authors did. And then the, so within literature and the second bucket I would say the theme is one of simplicity and beauty. And what I mean with simplicity is simplicity in the sense that everyone can write sort of in a complicated manner, but few authors in my mind write beautifully in a simple manner. And I think those two are Julian Barnes, so a bit more modern. And I love sense of an ending. And then of course Nabokov Lolita, of course it's a bit of a controversial book these days, but it's a beautiful book. And so I love not just writers but thinkers in general who can convey their ideas simply but still in a beautiful manner. I think there's incredible skill in that. And if I think about philosophy books, I mean the stoics or huge influence for me, if I think about Marcus Aurelius, obviously Seneca, Apecetus, and then Socrates aside from the stoic school massive influence in terms of how we live and how to live. And then again, you know, in terms of thinking 100 mental models, it's a great book instigated actually by Charlie Munger. And that talks about this multi-dimensional learning and how you know, we need to build good decision and mental models. We need to learn about all the key concepts because they do not exist in isolation. And it's also something that Richard Famon has talked about and you know, talking of whom I like anything is written. I'm a massive fan of his lectures and his books. So surely you're joking Mr. Famon is probably one that comes to mind. And then in terms of core books that influenced me as an investor as well, I would say anti-Fragile from Caleb. I know his other books are more famous, but this one was quite instrumental in my thinking lessons of history from Will and Ariel Doront, concise book of lessons learned over their 12 volumes of research in world history. Fantastic book. And I really love the Almanag from Naval Rebacan. He's I think he's got some incredible observations in that book. As I say, you know, a lot of books, but probably those are some key ones to flag. Thank you. Those are amazing highlights and really good ones to to put on the list for some or some or time reading. If we haven't read them already, I have to say I did learn a lot from anti-Fragile as well. And I also agree with you about the the how rewarding it is to return to Dostoevsky as often as you can. One of the things that comes that flows from the reading is is just expanding your knowledge and your understanding of many different subjects and domains in the world. And it's fascinating to me that across disciplines that actually that seems to be useful to you in your daily life. Do you see that expansion of your understanding of the world through taking the sommelier classes or the art history classes? Is that something that keeps you smarter and investing better? Do you think or does it just add to the balance of your life? Or the two intrinsically the same? Well, when I think of art, I think of beauty. So it's soothing for the brain and the soul. And a lot of times when you've been in an office looking at lots of charts and some dark, Bloomberg screens, it's really quite something to just go and look at some art. So how does that influence investing? Well, patterns, languages are another thing that I've always been passionate about. I find that to learn a language is a bit like learning a different aspect of life seeing the world through different lands. And so that also helps with pattern recognition. So I think that's all this kind of learning processes do is help us put pieces of the puzzle together better, right? See things that we would probably otherwise miss. And it's very difficult to put into very eloquent terms how you do that. But it just opens your mind. It's through broadening your horizon and broadening your thinking. Why? Why is more for pleasure? It's a massive hobby of mine. Anyone that knows me knows how much I love wine. It's such an old trade. So much goes into it. So much love. In fact, with my Cambridge class, we were at this winery in near Lisbon, actually, in Portugal recently. They were playing some classical music actually in one of the sellers there because it suits the wine and makes it better. So go figure that. It's the frequency that seems to have a play. They cannot explain how, but it works. And so there's, again, beauty, open-mindedness, learning. I think it just all attributes more broad. And probably not exactly in the same way as, let's say, some book on science or physics might, but it has a contribution regardless. It just opens you to different perspectives. That's a great metaphor with the music playing to the fermenting rates and the process being somewhat unclear exactly how, but knowing that the results going to be even better, a full appreciation for the environment affecting the outcome. You mentioned trusting your gut, but also mixing that with the hard work and the graft and the analysis. I think a lot of people would agree that it is quite hard sometimes to separate what your gut is saying with a lot of noise and a lot of data. Is there any examples or could you walk us through how you do that? How you actually listen to that intuition and at the same time control emotion, especially when you're taking contrary stance? Well, I think probably the outbreak of the pandemic is a case of point. I think I probably recall started to drive to work in January. We just barely even heard, I mean, we'd heard those something in China, but didn't quite know what exactly. And I remember my panic started to trigger early on, right? And that was very early January. And I started to drive because I was thinking, well, surely there's no way this isn't gotten to London, hasn't gotten to London yet, given London is such a metropolitan city with a lot of daily flights to everywhere. And this was intuition, like, to begin with, I just don't feel comfortable taking the tube. And then obviously from an investment perspective, you start to feel, well, what's the upside to downside here? I like to think probabilistically, what can I make versus what I can lose in the environment? And so this is where you start to sort of think about this intuitive feel that's sort of telling you that something's quite off, but you cannot say why because anyone you ask is saying to you to basically, I mean, it's a virus in China. We've had so many of those and we had had a few of those, right? That didn't transpire to be pandemics, but somehow it just felt wrong. And then it's, you know, the learning process begins. And then I think by the time, because a lot of times this window is going to be very small. So by the time the market starts to react, you know, three weeks to four weeks is plenty of time to reposition, right? In those types of environments. And so it starts with the intuition, but then you have to do a little bit of work, but you have to also be super creative, right? Because then, you know, you have to, it's very difficult to foresee for anyone that you're going to go into lockdown mode, right? I don't think anyone expected that we were going to be, and I don't think I can say I was expecting that, but I did have certainly the intuition that something was very often and I was able to start acting on that intuition. Just very cheerly, sort of playing out this scenario where, you know, you'd have less trouble and still lower magnitude than what we have. to have. So that's probably one example. I think another example, I mean, there's so many, but another example is early on when we were at the very onset of the European crisis after 2008. So I remember Greece spreads over and above Germany in terms of the 10-year bond. The government bond had started to widen. I remember looking into that, because I was a young kid in my team at the time, you know, as the youngest PM, I had been charged with looking at this European spreads and I think I probably was in the career for about five years, five years into this career. And thinking that something seemed off about that, something that trades at 60 basis points and moves by 20, all of a sudden, you know, talk about pattern recognition that sort of triggered my fancy. And this isn't when we were talking about Greece yet, but within six months, for sure, we were. Right? So that spread went into the hundreds and hundreds, right? And then I ended up with Greece defaulting so and so and after. But again, you know, the intuition there was something's off. Let me do some deep dive in and I started to do the work without realizing it, but really deeply ingrained into the European crisis and learned a lot about Europe over that period. But it really started with this intuitive sort of thinking of, you know, what if and could this be a big thing? And, you know, let me find out. So yeah, you were a teenager when Albania opened up and it must have been a really fascinating time to have been, you know, that age and in that place. What about it? Do you remember as being most formative or interesting and how do you relate to Albania now now that you live here? Well, I mean, Albania is my heart and my soul. It's really where I come from. It's probably where a lot of my essence and personalities formed because I came to the UK when I was 17. It's super interesting place because the way I tend to refer to Albania a lot of times is where the Orient meets the oxidant or if you like, East and mid-Swest. And mentality is a little bit like that. It's got that warmth and food and sort of like family values and everybody in your business type of, you know, type of society. But that's very loving and very welcoming with a lot of tradition, a lot of history, a lot of folklore, by the way. Albania is a very ancient place with a lot of ruins and a lot of beautiful sites to visit. So certainly a bit of a gem, I would say, but of course has seen a lot of turmoil politically and economically and very fascinating to see regime shifts as you elude to. I love that you ask that question because I do think it's shaped how I am and how I think about the world. And that's because I have seen at least two major political collapses where I grew up. And so the first one was the fall of communism. So, you know, you grow up thinking, oh, you know, God doesn't exist because he's been banned by law. And that everyone is more or less equal and sort of we live in this little bubble that's Albania where not many people could come and go. And we had this concept of self-sufficiency and so on and so forth. But, you know, I remember beautiful memories of my childhood. I never felt that I was lacking and I always felt loved and we had the most precious thing of all, which was education. We were encouraged to read books and listen to classical music and, you know, we were having the involved in arts. You know, it was a little bit of this like communist platform, right? And so, so at least we got, you know, that sort of beautiful element that came for the education system. And so, but I have very fond memories of my childhood. But in terms of seeing the changes, yes, I remember them being pretty traumatic, you know, my parents were both professionals found themselves out of a job. They did a great job at sort of covering from us how difficult times were, you know, you know, I'm one of four, four children. So, it couldn't have been easy for them at the time. But they, you know, I have a lot of respect when I think about that period and how they handled it and how they did not make us feel that we were going through this challenging time. But it does, you know, those types of periods do shape your thinking that things can happen. They can happen more often than people realize and that your lives can change much more radically than you could ever conceptualize. And so I do think this is probably where sometimes I tend to see a completely different aspect to an event that I might be observing in the market. So I always think something that people might think less probable might be more likely to me. Now, I don't know if that's always a good thing, but there is an element of that. And this is the second Mayhem, I guess, came in '97 where we had the collapse of the pyramid schemes. People had just started to recover in this whole newly found capitalism, a society, and they lost all their savings. And it was a very dark period economically, politically for us. So that is also the year that I left Albania. And so again, you know, just this idea of how important economics and finances to a society, but also the structures of society and the management governance. It's very important for me. And there are factors that I look at obviously as a bond investors when analyzing, analyzing economies. So really personal experience of what political risk means. And that's fascinating. Ella, thank you for helping us look back. And now as you look forward, what is it? Are they already particular professional or personal horizons or areas of growth that are exciting to you right now and that you are thinking of cultivating further? Yes, I think I'm always going to be attached to markets because really it's my passion. And I believe you need to be passionate about markets to be able to do this job day in day out. I see myself transitioning more into the leadership side of things. So being able to do something I've been doing more of in the last five to seven years. And that is basically training younger talent or working with colleagues of mine who might be less experienced, but equally brilliant because I find that I learn just as much from them as they might for me. But really thinking about strategy of business and growth and so in that different element is really where my future is panning out. And so I'm very excited about that next chapter. It's going to be interesting to see how that dynamic unfolds with this passion for markets as well. So that's probably the area. Where do I see myself long-term? Probably more involved in the wine world would be love to be involved in in boards, probably in a non-executive capacity at some stage. You know, when I have more experience to contribute and really sort of throw myself behind my passions that are books and wine. So that's really the long-term goal. Sounds like a wonderful thing to look forward to, books and wine. Absolutely. Any of your organizations in those areas would be lucky to have you. I'm sure. Is there a single habit or thing that is most essential to your well-being that you've cultivated? We've talked about the checklist. You've talked about balance and the nurturing of support networks and strong relationships. Is there anything else that you've found that is a daily or regular habit that really you rely on? Yes. So yogic practice, so basically rituals and these programs, but I don't mean yogic just in a sense of going to yoga class. I mean much more in the meditative and the spiritual level. So very important for me. I find it helps balance me and keeps me much more in tune with who I am, not who I need to be. So that's very, very important. We mentioned reading. That's extremely important for me. I will always allocate time to reading no matter what in a day. So I try to craft that as much as possible. I'm listening to a podcast, but audiobooks are a big part when I get up in the morning or say if I'm driving or traveling and before I go to bed at night. So you can always find time to read. The travel is another one. I would say travel. I find extremely relaxing for me. Even when there's you know, airport drama, I just find that it kind of like teleports me to a different place and I can sort of switch off completely. Because this is another important skill that you have to learn in this job, is you need to be able to decompress and switch off. And a lot of times you'll see people on their sort of Bloomberg searches on their phones and not to say that I don't do that when I'm away, but I try to be much more disciplined now about how often and that you know, I will be a better investor if I'm a more balanced person that has more rest and you know, and sometimes holidays as well. So going to what you mentioned earlier in terms of mentoring and training and bringing the next generation along, what sort of advice would you give to anyone aspiring to be an investor now? And as you're recruiting people, what do you look for in particular if someone was going to be your apprentice? How would you evaluate them? What would you be hoping to see? I usually look for outsiders, it's probably the way to frame it. So people that stand out, not just for the sake of standing out, there has to be something to different about them. I'm not quite sure if I can put it into words, but like if I look at the qualities, the qualities are a bit easier to explain. The standing out is a little different, right? So people stand out and we don't quite know sometimes why, but that's a lot of times it's because they're different, right? But I would say grit and resilience. So evidence that you've been doing that or lived through periods, and it doesn't mean just in your career, but like in your life in general, like have you seen some challenges and how have you been able to overcome them? Because that is probably one of the best lessons that you're gonna get as a human. Humility, the market will humble you any time of the week. And so you need to be able to say when you're wrong, you'll be able to change your mind, so have flexibility. And you need to also support others when they didn't get it, right? So humility is extremely important. We talked about curiosity a lot, so that should be a clue. And like people who are curious want to learn. I think that's how we figure things out. And then passion for investing, as we said as well. I've often, I've noted sometimes actually that you have exceptionally brilliant candidates or colleagues who might have all of these qualities that we talked about, but sometimes you can't quite see that passion, right? And I find that that's such a waste because you do need to have a degree of passion to do this. You need to be able to get up every morning and say, you know, what's my day like today and not to feel bored by the tasks, right? So I sort of know is for investing just something that makes the blood run a bit faster when thinking about the markets. Exactly. And they're actually a rare species to find, you know, because a lot of times the industry will appeal because of the monetary aspect or because obviously a lot of smart people tend to work in the industry and it also carries a bit of glamour with it. Whatever it might be, right? So the external perceptions, it also equally carries sometimes negative connotations, right? But, you know, it can sometimes attract just because it sounds cool. But actually, you know, to see people that want to do it because they say, I love investing. I've in fact, I worked in this investment club at university or I don't know, I started a portfolio or you know, it's basically showing evidence that you care or you read about it. Those are rare to find, actually. And with only 11% of fun managers in the UK being women, what are your thoughts and be done to change that and what personal choices or qualities do you think might help women succeed at the front line of financial services now? Well, it's quite a shame because I do think this is a job that would be great for the women that would want to do it. And that's because the hours are not too bad. It's an intellectual stimulating role. There is some evidence of good decision-making paid by female fund managers, but in general, you know, women more broadly. But, you know, without trying to attach any labels to this, I think we have a lot of work to do in terms of bringing the numbers up. I don't think they should be done in a forceful way. So there has to be a huge element of meritocracy to how we pull up the numbers. But I would say huge influencers are role models. I'm a big believer in role models. I'm the eldest sister of four sisters. And I know how in a family role models play an essential component, right, in terms of how the siblings behave. But we also need supportive ecosystems. I find women tend to be far more sensitive to their environment from my experience at this, at this I have been. So we need to build the right sort of ecosystems. And it's not just a case of hiring. And it's not just a case of hiring graduates. We have to support and retain at the mid-level of the career, because this is where we have most of the problem, I believe. I think it's an achievable task if you can fix those components of role models that are especially important. If you see more women in these roles, and that's what you're seeing, for example, now across the media, you're seeing more representation. More women at an early stage might think about this as a career if they see others do it. Well, I'm really hoping that even this conversation might serve to encourage some women who hadn't thought about particularly fixed income investing into something as fascinating and as absorbing as you have found it. And clearly, you're a wonderful role model. We cannot do it alone. We need men to come on board with us and help and support us in this process. And that's extremely important. So we need to do it because it's better for all of us, because it's better for teams. It's better for clients. It's better for organizations. I mean, it's proven in terms of boards, for example, and in terms of team dynamics when you have much better representation of decision-makers that you have group decision-making becomes better. More diverse in general, not just in terms of gender. So understanding that it's for the greater good, rather than just for the purpose of pushing more women into the industry is extremely important. And I think we need men to be on board with that. You have any tips for younger women who might then find themselves in a largely male investing environment in terms of how they conduct themselves or ways that they can develop themselves to hold on to what makes them, as you said, who they are, not necessarily what their environment is asking to be. Are there any tips that you've learned that have helped? Yes. I mean, this grit and resilience is important because I find a lot of times the standard and what's expected of you will be that much greater. So you have to show grit and resilience. I would say, sit at the front row, put up your hand, ask questions and speak up. This may not be the flavor of everyone. I'm completely aware of that. It's not the style of every person. So you do have to obviously also be true to yourself. But true to yourself can also be someone that becomes more proactive and asks more questions and is more vocal, is more visible. I think that's probably tip number one. Tip number two, believe in yourself. We always have this little girl's voice. You don't have had it. I've had to fight it. Trust me. There are still times where I have to do that, but still sort of working with yourself and believing in yourself. And surrounding yourself also with people who believe in you is extremely important. And last but not least, do not stay in a toxic environment. That's probably one of the most important lessons I would say. Because as I said earlier, I think from my experience, at least you become a sponge, an absorber of that environment. And we are far more sensitive in a work set up. But so that can really affect how we produce output. And so I think if you realize that you are not in a healthy environment, probably the best thing to do is leave it. Thank you. And on your resilience point, if we could just drill into that in terms of resilience also from what you said earlier, sounds like it's acceptance you're not going to be right all the time. It's accepting and understanding that you can still be good at what you're doing and not be perfect. Yes. That's really tough, especially if you're a bit of an overachiever or competitive, as we were saying earlier, and sort of very results driven. The philosophy there, this is where this choices of part comes in and where it's super helpful for resilience building is to basically accept what's happened, learn and identify the triggers so that at least you try not to repeat them again. But also learn how you can improve more specific to invest, learn how you can improve to improve better and to improve your process. We talked about the process earlier. This would be a part of that journal entry. I'm saying, what did I learn? What could I have done better? What did I not get right? Being completely honest with yourself. There's nowhere to hide. It's just you and your journal. Then I think we spend the chance over time to get that little marginal benefit, which makes a huge difference. The whole concept of compounding is about that. So making sure that we are constantly improving. This is how I deal with it. But I have to say, there's been at least one or two episodes where I found it very, very tough. It's very difficult not to take it personally. But actually understanding that this things happen, they're mathematically probable, and that you are only human. And you can only do so much. And it's not just the case of what happened. It's the case of what you do with it going forward. It's all about the mindset, really. -Hugely insightful. And I'm glad you mentioned compounding, because the podcast about investing should not complete without a mention of compounding. We'll finish up here with our Quick Fire questions, Ella. And we're going to start with, is there a beloved film that you've seen more than once or twice that you would recommend? And why is it important to you? -Well, I think the Matrix is a huge one for me, because the first one probably left so the others. Because it's such a philosophy. And it was so ahead of its time, especially in the world of artificial intelligence that we're facing now going forward. It's a super interesting one and I do like. that a lot. I mean, I probably would not earn too far from saying Godfather Trinogy. That's fascinating by the characters and personalities in there. And then probably little missunshine, you know, for when I want to feel happy and bridges of medicine count to when I want a bit of depth and emotion. So those are probably some of the key movies that I love. Sounds like a nice balance in that as well. And do you have a favorite quote in why? Yes, it's a quote from Buddha and it's what you think you become, what you feel, you attract, what you imagine you create. And I try to, you know, whenever I'm going through probably a rough repage, I try to remind myself of that and to say that we create our realities and we have the ability to switch them a lot of times just by changing the attitude and stance we take towards them. So I love that quote. And finally, as a shout out to other podcasters, what is your favorite podcast and why? So I really love Desert Island discs. And from Desert Island discs, the one I've listened to the most many, many times is probably the one from Jared Diamond. It's a little old now. I believe he died. I hope I'm correct in that statement, but he's just a fascinating human being. And it's one of the most beautiful podcasts I've listened to. So the music composition that he wants to take with him in the Desert Island is so beautiful. Just love it and just love that piece. It's a wonderful way to discover meaningful music, isn't it? And learn about people's lives. So thank you so much, Ella. It's been fascinating to talk with you today. And I think all of our listeners are going to have many insights that they will take with them and can put to use in their lives. So thank you so much for sharing so openly. My pleasure. Thanks, Susanna and all the best. Thanks for joining me for this episode of Being Invested. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. If so, please subscribe and tell your friends. Also, if you know someone in the financial markets who would make a great guest on the podcast, please message me on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear from you. Many thanks to our sound engineer, Alexander Russell. Our art designer is Sophie Hardy and this fabulous catchy tune is from Tom McKeein. Thanks folks and see you next time. [Music]