S04E03: Stephanie Szymanski, CIO, Lakeview Capital Management

(upbeat music) - I'm Eileen Mancero, co-chair of P.E. Wins Communications Committee. For those of you joining for the first time, moments that made her is a production of the Private Equity Women's Investor Network, also known as P.E. Winn. We are the preeminent organization for senior-level women investment professionals in private equity. P.E. Winn provides its members with opportunities to network, share ideas, make deep connections with peers, and empower each other to succeed. Our mission is to increase the profile of women in private equity, and our members represent institutions with over $3 trillion in assets on your management. To learn more, please visit P.E. Winn.org. The host of moments that made her is Kelly Williams. Many of you know Kelly is the founding chair of P.E. Winn, as well as the founder of the legendary private market solution business, known as Customized Fund Investment Group, which she and her team grew to manage $30 billion of assets on your management, until she let it sail in 2014. She is the CEO of the Williams Legacy Foundation, and serves on the board of Green Briar Companies. Thank you for joining us for today's episode. Welcome to the latest episode of moments that made her. I'm Kelly Williams, your host and the founding chair of the private equity women investor network. I am so excited to have as my guest today, Stephanie Samanski, who's the Chief Investment Officer at Lakeview Capital Management, and we were just talking about the lake that she has a view of is in a very cold place right now, but anyway, Stephanie, welcome to moments that made her. Thank you so much. I am normally covered with multiple layers here at the office, but I'm doing okay now in just my jacket and shirt. It's a little cold in today. Well, you know, it's funny often when I'm on screen, I have layers and sweaters and people are like, "Don't you live in Florida?" But the thing is the air conditioning is always cranking everywhere you go here. So anyway, I'm excited to have this conversation, and you are from our outperforming Chicago chapter. So we'll talk a little bit about that 'cause you guys are amazing and have really set the tone for PE win, but I wanna start where I always love to start, which is asking you to tell us all a little bit about how you grew up, where you grew up. Give us a little bit of that grounding information about you. Love it, yeah, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be on here. I've listened to other people, and I'm happy to be sharing my story here with you. So I grew up in South Bend, Indiana, home of the Irish Notre Dame. I do bleed blue and gold even though I didn't go there, but my first sports everything was probably Notre Dame, and very close with my family, my parents, and three siblings are nieces, nephews, all still in South Bend area, but I moved to Chicago 31 years ago this year to go to DePaul and study finance, but that's sort of skipping ahead of it. Like I have this very close relationship with my family. We, I like to say we travel as a pack, and that's how I grew up. Six of us piled into a station wagon driving to Pittsburgh or Florida or Colorado for vacations, stay at home mom. I was very, very lucky to have that. My dad who worked at a credit union for his entire career, and just supportive parents who always let us try whatever activities might interest us and always encourage us that college was the next step after high school. And so as you grew up and you, you know, had conversations about what you might be when you grew up, what was that? So I wanted to be an attorney, and my mom said there are too many attorneys in this world. Still a little dream of mine. I occasionally, Loyola University here in town has a weekend law school program. I occasionally check how much tuition is, try to, try to work that into my life haven't yet. So too many attorneys. So then I said, well, I'll be an architect. And she pointed out that that required extra schooling, and I always knew a close family, big family, but not enough, not enough income from my dad to pay for all of us to go to school. So it was like sort of known from the start that we'd be paying for our own college. So I was like, well, I can barely afford four years. I don't think I can do five or six to be an architect. Okay, what do I like? I took an accounting class in high school. Hey, did it? Love, love my math classes, and love to stock picking exercise we did in an economics class my senior year of high school. So I started telling people I was going to be a financial analyst, and I was going to major in finance, and I didn't even know what exactly that meant at the time. I just knew that I needed something analytical with numbers and financial analysts sounded great and stock picking was fun. So I had a few very unrelated jobs throughout my high school career, including dairy queen and hallmark, the hallmark card store at the mall. But I had, at one point during the summer, I worked for an insurance company on it as a temp, and that's where I started testing out, telling people I was going to be a financial analyst. And when somebody asked exactly what that meant, and I realized I wasn't sure, I realized I needed, I needed those classes in college to figure out exactly what it meant and what I liked about the analytics. So came here to Chicago to go to Nepal and hit the ground running with finance and accounting classes right away. My freshman year. Wow, well, for those of you who regularly listen to Moments of Aitor, you know that my first job was at dairy queen, so we have that in common. Now, did you have to wear the really chic brown polyester uniform, stunning stunning. We had visors at least, so like, you know, our whole head wasn't covered, but it was great. My favorite was the drive-through, so that I didn't have to actually really face people most of the time. I found that customer service was not my skill set. Not your thing. Well, but I still eat dairy queen as often as I can. That's so funny. Yeah, I love a blizzard, but I'm very proud whenever I go to somewhere that has soft serve that I can still do the dairy queen curve. I show that off to people, so. I want to try. Yeah, a skill, a skill learned. Well, that's that great. Well, so first it was dairy queen the very first job. My very first job, that was job number two. My first job was I worked at a outsourced mailing company with my grandmother and my great aunt. And we stuffed envelopes and we collated Girl Scout handbooks where we just walked down the line. That was my first. I probably made four something an hour at best. I was 14 years old working with grandma and auntie. It was a blast. And yeah, right. I mean, how many people can say they got to do that? And it was a lot of fun. Then dairy queen, then hallmark, and the real world hit. Yeah. Wow, that's really cool that you got to work with your aunt and your grandma. Now, have they had careers as well? They had, so they were, well, I should say my grandmother did, when she got divorced, she worked at a hospital in the sterilization, equipment sterilization area. Just a very random job that you don't necessarily go through the wanted saying, that's what you want to do. But she found that job and loved it. And so that was her career. And this was sort of her retirement. Let me have a little bit of income going. And my great aunt, I think this was, I don't think she ever had a full-time job. But this was her foray into they were best friends. Let me do something with my sister. Let me work and make a little money. And it was just a blast. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah, my grandmother's, both of my grandmother's worked. One worked in a pocketbook factory. The other worked in a makeup factory. And then, and my mom was a career woman. She ended up becoming the town clerk of my town. But yeah, so I always had that model of the women in our family working, that was, you know, I didn't know a different model. And so at what point did you decide that absolutely finance was the direction you were going in? And then at what point did you kind of become aware of private equity? I was pretty sold on finance early on, because even before I started college, because I got a scholarship from the College of Business at DePaul. And with DePaul, you can apply right to the business school from the start, which is what I did. And that's where my scholarship came from. And I knew within the business program, again, it wasn't going to be accounting. And I wanted the numbers. And so finance just seemed like this is what I'm going to do. And it fit perfectly. It absolutely just, it worked out great. I loved it. I took electives in investing. So there was all that sort of financial analysis, financial statements, and all of that that we've all done. But then there were these great electives in investing, which were great for the time. Like we had, there was a class I took that was undergrad, grad combined. There were, I want to say, 10 of us at most. And we were given something like $100,000 from the endowment to pick stocks and invest. And so now you have students investing far more than that. You have huge programs at all these universities with a lot more focus on investing that that was sort of the-- that was the big deal at DePaul to get into that program. And so I did that. I think it was my junior year. I absolutely loved it. But the private equity didn't end up on my radar until about 10 years after graduation. I took a meandering-- I'll call it non-traditional route to investment management into private equity through sort of the priority of first coming out of school. I just wanted to have a job. And so I took a job in management planning and reporting at Bank 1. Like, sounds exactly like what I'm saying. I didn't want to do. But I was excited about it. It was a rotation program. Every six months, I got to see something new within the bank. And then I just-- I went and I took an opportunity at value equity shop. And then my favorite boss who was a powerful, amazing woman at Bank 1, she ended up taking a job at Aeon. And I followed her there. And it was sort of a new department starting where we were going to read-- I guess this was probably my first foray into private investing-- because we were reading pitch decks and PPMs for private opportunities that Aeon might want to invest in, sort of separate from their consulting group, but more from their corporate balance sheet. And that was that first foray into that type of investing. I started my CFA. Once I got through that, I realized the CFA program teaches you. There's this much in investing. And I liked that much. I liked the portfolio management piece. And so I started looking for portfolio management jobs. And I applied through the CFA website to a very short and nondescript job. It was for an investment team member at a small investment management firm in Chicago. It was close to what it said. There was maybe a few more lines. And I thought, well, what the heck? Long story short, I had none of the qualifications that they wanted, but got the job anyway. And that is how I ended up at Sawdust, a single family office. So my CIO there, Caitlin Burke, took a chance on me. She took a flyer. Like here's this person with none of the experience, but with that sort of passion and drive. And frankly, I formatted my memo, the nicest, for the homework. So she took a chance on me. And ultimately, that was my true introduction to private investing. The asset allocation was more ENF. So a lot of alternatives exposure and a lot of private exposure. And that was sort of where over time we worked, at the beginning alongside Cambridge, and then just us, the internal team, sort of molding this portfolio into what we wanted it to be. And a lot of the time ended up focusing on private equity, which was where we felt the portfolio ultimately needed. Now, I say maybe the most work is sort of honing that program. And so really had that first introduction there. And I was there for 11 years. And just had a lot of leeway, a lot of rope with what we could look at as a team, what Kate allowed me to look at on my own. And really got to see a lot about private equity investing across the spectrum, like even real assets venture by out. But then also how that fits into a broader portfolio of other asset classes as well, which was fantastic. Fantastic experience. So that's interesting, 'cause I mean, it was still relatively early in your career that you made that transition. That doesn't always happen. Although, as you were talking, I was thinking, it wasn't as similar for me. I started my career as a lawyer, and I was doing project finance, which, yeah, I know I'm sitting there going, she's like, you know, I always said, well, how did I become a lawyer? But I knew from the time I was a little girl, I wanted to be one. But I was a project finance lawyer, and I never really thought about it, but it's basically, it's private equity, right? All project finance is all private investing. And then I was moved into the private equity group to be their counsel, and like, I totally faked it. I, you know, I didn't really understand or know what I was doing. And, but, you know, the Lingo, the Lingo in the language was close enough, you know, read the documents, you figure it out. It was certainly private equity is a lot easier than project finance. And, yeah, but somebody, you know, as you said, took a flyer, and then I was going to leave, and they said, don't leave, we'll bring you to the business side. And so, again, you know, sort of figured it out. So I guess we were both kind of lucky that early on in our career, people took flyers on us. Do you tell young people today to just go for it and apply for the job, even if they don't have all the qualifications? - I certainly do. - Yeah, I do. In fact, I had a conversation with someone today who just was asked to do something that they haven't done before, and basically create a whole new business line, and they were a little nervous, and I was like, you know what? Men walk right through that door. So women should not hesitate. You will figure it out. You're a smart person. You'll figure it out. That's right. It's just an adjacency to a year experience. It's not a complete, you know, novelty. But yeah, I definitely tell people, go ahead and take the risk. - Absolutely, absolutely. - Yeah, but I will tell you when I've told the story before on Moments that made her, that when I was first asked to move to the business side, I was recruited away by one of my clients, and I was a little nervous about it, because I said, look, I've spent my whole life preparing to be a lawyer since I was a little kid, and my friend who was recruiting me said, aren't you tired of keeping idiots out of trouble? And I was like, you know, kind of am. I call that my Oprah Winfrey aha moment, but it was really kind of scary, because again, I had spent my whole life preparing myself for a career as a lawyer. And I, you know, I just hadn't thought of myself in that way. And he's like, and he had been a lawyer. I weird worked together as lawyers. He's like, you don't figure it out. You don't have to do the spreadsheets. You'll have people to do the spreadsheet. I mean, I can read the spreadsheet. I was a math major in college, you know, I'm not afraid of numbers. But I realized that it is so true that women feel like you've got to have 80% of it, 90% of it locked down, and you really don't. You really can figure it out if you're a smart person and a dedicated person. And most of what you get asked to do is truly an adjacency to the experience you already have. Over the years, as I've been interviewing to bring younger people on to the various teams I've been with, when asked what I want from a candidate, I want analytical and detailed oriented. I can teach the rest. It's not rocket science what we're doing. I can teach you how to do things in Excel. I can teach you how to think about an investment. I need to know that you have the mindset to want to do that. Yeah. Anybody can learn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I tell people about two. So are there, you know, kind of defining moments that you think helped you position yourself for more senior roles in the industry? I mean, obviously Kate, as you said, kind of took a risk on you. But, you know, maybe talk a little bit about how you got to the position you're in now. Sure. I will say spending 11 years with Kate at Saundust. And for quite a while, we were just the two of us. We'd add a person. They'd leave add a person. We were a very small team and she had joined two years before me. So I had the opportunity working with her to help her institutionalize that program. And we came up with, like side by side, as I'm learning what venture capital is, what's a purchase price multiple. All of these things were also working on our internal process to do this analysis. And so I was sort of learning all of it at the same time. And just that ability on a small team to see every part of the process and not just be sort of head down. I'm only looking at the spreadsheet and then I'm passing it on to the associate or the VP to do the analysis and do the presentation. Like I was involved in every step of the process. Kate wanted every person on her team and it's still to this day. Every person on that team is involved in meetings and I was allowed to take my own meetings. I was allowed to seek out funds that were interesting to me and sort of when you build that passion and you're given that level of trust and respect, it makes you want to work that much harder and that much more. And so really, I feel like it was that the small team and the openness allowing me to see so much of the process and be involved from start to finish on making private investment commitments or doing the due diligence and having to learn how to pass on a re-up. Those sorts of things, like seeing that very early on through that 11 years, like I can't think of necessarily one defining moment as much as like that whole experience really brought me. I still use the same due diligence checklist. I have carried it around with me. And ultimately, I could have stayed there. I would have happily worked with her for the rest of my career. But there was also that sort of in the back of my mind, like what else could there be out there? She's not going anywhere as CIO, nor should she? Where did that leave me? And we had a lot of really open honest conversations about this and when an opportunity at another Chicago family office opened up. An office I knew, the family office community here is very close, I knew the people there, I knew the family involved. This opportunity opened up and she encouraged me to do it, to consider it. And encouraged that family to talk to me because families never want to steal each other's employees. So encouraged us both to talk to each other. And ultimately, I made that move. And it allowed me to see a whole new type of investing. So I shouldn't say a whole new type of investing, but private investing from the standpoint of a family with multiple generations instead of one, with a lot higher risk tolerance, rather than some risk aversion. And with a background in a lot of riskier private investing. And just seeing how that portfolio was built, how that team worked together, how that family thought about investing, when I open my eyes to how, I mean, you hear it, but it's true, every family office is so different. And so absorb everything you can from your network to learn about what their offices are doing because the next one you end up at could be very different than where you are. And ultimately, after four years there, I was contacted via recruiter about this CIO opportunity at Lakeview. And I was happy where I was at at Gore Creek. We had a great team, we had a great portfolio. We had, I probably shouldn't say how much was allocated to private investments, but a very significant amount. And that's where I spent almost all of my time was on our private portfolio there. But I had to give it a chance. I never felt like I needed to be the chief. I was always happy to be second in command. But I decided you should always take the meeting. And so I talked to the recruiter. I ultimately ended up meeting with the lead family member, or CFO, my two outside investment committee members. And it just felt good. I wanted to make a move where, again, because every office is so different, you want to make a move to the right office. It's so easy to make that mistake. And so I really sort of honed in on culture and the people here, it's an even smaller team than what I'm used to, was four. I was the fourth person when I joined. And I just felt like I would be set up for success because I have a really smart investment committee. A family whose background is in investing. And that's how the money was made. A very supportive CFO, who I call the saint. And so it was that chance I was willing to take because I felt like I was being set up for success and given this opportunity to take my skill set to the next level. Yeah, that's a great story. And you're very right. It's a very different form of investing, working with family offices. And it is a bit unique to Chicago. I mean, there are a lot of family offices in Chicago more so than in other parts of the country. But you're sort of subject to the vagaries of the family and their style, the generation you're working with, the plans for the wealth. It seems to me that to succeed in that role, you have to be a really good problem solver. That is absolutely true. In my case here, I have three clients. And they have different interest levels in what I'm doing, different sophistication levels, related to investments and family office management. And so there's always the variety of questions you will get from each person, the needs of each person, how to solve those needs while also keeping the other two family members in mind. There's a lot to juggle. And this is where I'm lucky to have my Saint of a CFO Alisha here, who helps with that juggling because there's always something new every day. And I think you can probably say this about a lot of allocator roles. But you walk in and you think you have your to-do list and you get a question and it could sideline your day. And I actually love those days. Those are all that go by the fastest. There's definitely a lot to always consider. Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree. And I think what I find is that if you enjoy that, and if that is a skill set that you have, it transitions over into other things you do. I often tell people, now I spend a lot of time with nonprofits, I feel like I'm using my powers for good. All the skills I learned on Wall Street, I can now apply to nonprofits. And it's very often the fact that very quickly I end up in the senior ranks of the nonprofit on the board. And I think it's because I'm a problem solver and I enjoy that, I don't shrink from that. My guess is, that's you as well. She gets involved in philanthropy. That's often what happens is they're looking for people who are willing to wait in on the big problems. And is that part of how you spend your time or are you involved in nonprofits or charities? I love it. I've been talking a lot about Career 2.0 and what that looks like for me. I turned 50 this year, so it's even more top of mind with how much longer do I want to do this versus what I call Career 2.0 and what does Career 2.0 look like. And so over the years, I mean, for many years now, I've been involved with philanthropy in a number of ways. And the principal at Sawdust has his own foundation and is extremely philanthropic. And I learned so much from him about philanthropy that it's become a huge part of my life. So 17 years later, I've been on multiple boards. I've led a couple of giving circles for women, focused on women's charities. And I've overextended myself at times. I've had to figure out that in COVID, when I had nowhere to go, I signed up for everything. And everything was virtual and it was fine. Then when life started to get back to normal, I realized that maybe I needed to step back from a couple of things. But I'm on two boards and I mentor a young woman who is a sophomore in college and then sort of unofficially on the side. I also like to mentor young people in our business and talk to them about just sort of my journey and what their journey can look like. And I try to assure them it's OK if they didn't do investment banking out of school. But definitely, that's how I get energized is by doing these other things as well. Yeah. I say yes to way too many things. But as they say, give something to a busy person. And that's how you know it's going to get done, right? And it's what I enjoy doing it. So you have kind of a unique path and unique organizations to work with. Are there times in your career where you feel like you've been particularly made aware of the fact that you're a woman? Month number two at my first family office. I attended my first private equity annual meeting by myself. I went to New York. I'd never been to an annual meeting. I'd never met with a private equity fund. I'd been to New York, but not by myself. And I walk into a room. And there's a sea of hundreds of men, all in dark gray or blue suits. And I thought, how do I feel alone and like a unicorn? And it's top. It's especially somebody new in the business, somebody who looks different than the rest of the room. And it gave me an appreciation for other people who deal with this on a day-to-day basis. And I got home from that trip. And I bought a bright red suit jacket. And I thought, well, if I'm going to stand out, I am going to stand out. And I would probably wear that jacket to rather annual meeting that I went to. It went to the dry cleaner a lot. Because I felt like if I'm going to stand out, I might as well have fun doing it. And I've dealt with over the years, too, the typical only woman in a room. And so the presenter won't make eye contact with me. And the expectation that I would be the one getting the coffee-- all of that. I get a lot of emails, Stephen, Stephanie. So there's all of that. And I was very lucky to have many women as my bosses throughout my career. And the men that ultimately or my bosses were fantastic to work for and supportive. But yeah, we're definitely the minority in this business. Yeah, although what's so interesting to me is that it just feels like an increasing number-- the number of female allocators is increasing across the board, whether it's at pension plans, foundations and endowments, family offices, the number feels like it's increasing. And so I remember a female CIO at a pension plan saying, well, there are a lot of women at pension plans because they don't pay. And so women will take those jobs where men might not necessarily. But there's a tremendous amount of power in those roles. And it's just interesting, as you say, you walk into a room and you're the only woman. Maybe that's diminishing over time. Because a lot of these shows also invite their investment bankers and their lawyers. But I think that the power of the purse is a really important one. And the best firms recognize that and adapt to that and realize that. But there's definitely still vestiges of that along the way. And the opportunity we have as allocators is to ask the tough question of a GP in a meeting when I'm looking at the org chart. And it's all men, or it's all white men, or it's all white people. What are you doing to bring diversity to your team? And I know this is a sensitive topic in these days, unfortunately. It's a question I still intend to ask. I want to know there is value in bringing in differing backgrounds, differing people, differing views. And so it's up to us on the allocator side to be pushing on the GPs to do better. Yeah, no, I agree. I talk about this a lot. It's-- if you're just looking at a very tiny wedge of the pie as an allocator or as an investor, you're not seeing the broad array of opportunities that are out there. And I certainly know from my portfolio, the portfolios I ran that are diverse portfolios outperformed, the rest of the portfolios. And I think many pension plans will tell you that. They're quote unquote diverse or emerging manager portfolios outperformed the rest of the portfolios. So it's not that it's squeezing out other things you're doing in the portfolio, but you're really doing yourself a disservice if you're not casting a broad net. I mean, that's really all that it comes down to is cast the broadest net, look at the broadest number of opportunities, and then you're really doing your job. Absolutely. And on a personal note, my personal portfolio-- that's how I like to think about when I get the opportunity. I want to back-- ma, frankly, my friends, who are women, and at the point in their careers where they're raising funds or running firms. And that's the exposure I want in my portfolio. Why wouldn't I try to be getting that into the portfolio or work as well? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can tell you as someone who does that almost exclusively-- I'm one of the view that my girlfriends don't ever want to let me down. And they certainly haven't. The performance has been outstanding, like off the charts. So yeah, I think that's-- I can definitely endorse that approach. It's definitely a fallacy to assume that you don't make as good a return investing behind a diverse talent. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Couldn't agree more. Well, we're going to take a quick break and come back very quickly with my guests. Stephanie Simansky. We would like to take a brief break to thank P.E. Wynn's founding partner, KPMG, as well as our gold partners, Asia alternatives, Dukeis-Linden public relations, Kane Anderson, Kirkland and Ellis, Prost-Gauer, Silver Lake, Toma Bravo, and TPG. If you are interested in sponsorship opportunities, please contact us at [email protected]. Now back to our episode. We are back with moments that made her. I'm here today with Stephanie Simansky, the Chief Investment Officer of Lakeview Capital Management. So is there something that you consider the pride point of your career to date? I feel like I'm at a high point now, and I don't say that because I'm sort of settled two years into the CIO role. I say that because I feel like I'm finally at a point in my career, where I can help give others the opportunities that I was given. I can take a fly around somebody, or I can help guide somebody in their job search, or they're thinking about grad school versus CFA, versus GPLP, all these sorts of ideas. And so I would say I hired an analyst. I was a team of one for the first 18 months here at Lakeview, and I hired an analyst. And I have a young person, first generation American. And he is a grinder, and he's passionate about what he does. And the level of work and interest and excitement he has for it, it's sort of reviving. And I'm sort of reliving through him, the excitement of learning how to be an allocator. And a couple of weeks ago, when he got to push send on his first set of sub-docs and his first shragantic wire, it was so exciting to see him nervous to push send, but also excited. And like, how did it feel to just spend X millions of dollars and reliving that through him was, that was exciting. I feel like this is the high point. I'm now where I can give that opportunity to other people. And it goes towards a lot of the young women that I've been talking to right out of school who want advice on where they should, a job market's been tough. Where should they look for a job? Who should they talk to? What are the different opportunities available to somebody who majored in finance and sort of guiding people and having that experience and having the experiences of my friends and network to draw from? That's exciting for me. Yeah, I agree. I really love that answer. In fact, today, my day was calls with two people who worked for me very early in their careers. They're accomplished, they're partners now. One of the things I love is when people who worked for me reach out to give me an update and tell me what's going on. And I love that they want to share that with me. And I love that they want to call me and ask for advice. Sometimes I tell them things that were going on that they don't know were going on in the firm and what I was going through. And they're like, wow, we had no idea that was happening. But I would agree with you. I mean, being able to share of yourself and share of your experiences, help somebody navigate and negotiate rocky waters, maybe making it a little bit better, a little bit easier for them and not having them have to go through the same thing you went through, I think that's a real gift. That's why you've gone through that experience to really share it with someone else and help make it easier on them. I think I've also gotten to a point as well where I've figured out patients and just sort of dealing with the different pressures we deal with in life, personal, professional, and sort of not letting it bleed into everything we're doing. And I think my analyst now is benefiting from the analysts of the past, where I learned that patience and that approach and how to be a better mentor and teacher and guide. Yeah. So is there something that stands out as a particularly fun or creative moment for you in your career? Oh my gosh. Kelly, the travel we've gotten to do in our lives. I think when I think about the most fun part of this job, it's been the people I've gotten to meet and the places I've gotten to see. And I've been to parts of the world that I would have never gotten to on my own out of intimidation and financial, right? And so we were able to, you know, I've gone to Vietnam. I always said I wanted to go to Vietnam. And I went and I had a guide there as part of a group. And it was amazing. And I just feel this sense of how lucky I have been to be a part of that. That's definitely the fun part. And I've tried whenever I go to a country for the first time to build in at least one day to be a tourist. If I'm going to go all that way, I'm not going to just do meetings. I have to do something fun. I'm going to go walk on the Great Wall. All right. Good for you. That's really why it's funny. Two weeks ago, we went on a trip with the Brooklyn Museum to Mexico City. And I hadn't been there in 30 years. And I had only been there for business. And I'd only been in a conference room. And I was like, well, what was I thinking? Now I'm sure maybe it's a better experience, 30 years forward. But yeah, I think I wish I had done more of that over time. I did make a point, as you say, like when you're traveling halfway around the world, like if you're there at an extra day on sea, you can really see things. But no, I agree. I mean, I always love the fact that when you're doing private equity, particularly when you're doing venture capital, you're getting a preview of what's coming, you know? You get to see it early on. And it is really exciting. That is, that I always say that venture capital funds are the best funds to meet with because that innovation and that excitement and all the possibility of what could come. I love, love, love those meetings. Yeah, me too. I am a, I'll call it a late adopter. Blame my parents. We got a VCR a decade after everybody else. But so I don't have that sort of mindset where I'm thinking I see a problem. I'm going to invent a process or a software or a product to solve it. So I love all these people who have that mindset and let me back them, let me back them. Yeah, although what I've learned when you learn over time is all these great ideas don't always pan out. So be careful, like don't get overly enthusiastic about it. But we were just talking about the barbell of venture returns yesterday at the office. Yeah, yeah. So obviously you've experienced great success in your career. Are there teachable moments? Are there blips along the way? Road bumps along the way that you would share that you think really taught you something? Yeah, I heard you kind of mentioned I'm a much more patient mentor and teacher now. And I want to say that that it was sort of an aha moment a few years ago. I had breakfast with a former analyst. And this was probably six years removed from us working together. And he brought up jokingly what I said to him when he broke my model one day doing something I told him not to do. And I thought this amazing person has carried that with him. And he brought it up as a joke. But that stopped me in my tracks. And I thought I am so glad I have learned to be better about the way I communicate things. And yeah, that really stopped me in my tracks to say that was an aha moment, like no, be kind, be professional. Absolutely. He kept that with him all that time. And even though he said it jokingly, it was still sitting with him. And so of course, I apologized. I laughed with him a little bit because what else do you do? But there's definitely something about treat people the way you want to be treated. And to me, that's huge. I feel much more evolved now. Six years removed from that situation. One of the other big lessons I've had is this is a relationship business. And I love talking to people. I love meeting people. It's really easy to, when you're doing two diligence and you get close to a fund team to sort of get emotional about the investment. And it can be easy to overlook some of the quantitative if you really buying into the people, the culture. And there was a particular investment, a Latin American real estate investment. And I went on this amazing site visit trip to the Dominican Republic Panaman Peru. And the team took me around. And I bought into building housing for lower income people in these communities. I love the idea of that. I love the government involvement with their loans. The team was fantastic. You get very close when you travel for that amount of time with people. And I came back pounding the table to invest in this and my investment committee at the time in my CAO at the time. There was a lot of push back. And it spread over multiple investment committee meetings this discussion. And ultimately, we didn't make the investment. And I was extremely disappointed. And now sort of removed from that reflecting back, you realize, you can't let those relations-- it was definitely a learning point where not every investment's going to get in the portfolio. There's so many funds out there. There's another opportunity to come along. Sort of don't get as tied to investments. You can like the people, but don't let it sway the decision. And I've definitely had that come into play over the past several years with other funds where I've established great relationships, but it's just not a fit for the portfolio for one reason or another. This one I'm talking about, way too high risk for the portfolio I was investing completely and appropriate. And I was very disappointed. But now looking back, I get it. I get it. And that's the lesson I want to teach to my analyst is here's how we think about the portfolio. Here's what's appropriate for us. Here's where we can take risk. Here's where we can't. Right. And also, you know, it's the flip side of that, too. Like the numbers can look great. You can do all the analytics. But then if you meet the team and they give you the HEBGs, or there's something about it that just doesn't feel right, you also kind of sometimes go with that and make that call, which is also not always easy to do. Absolutely. Although I strangely find that one easier. It's hard to be fair. It's definitely hard, but I'm sort of the optimist where which is funny because in the rest of my life, I'm not an optimist, but in investing, I'm more of an optimist. I'm definitely a bull where I would think, "No, these are great people and it's a great strategy "and they're smart and I know they're going to do great "going forward versus if somebody's not a great person, "I'm very inclined to say that there's another fund out there." Yeah. And that's the important thing is there's always another fund. There's always another fund. Yeah. Well, now we're going to go to my favorite part of a moment's the meter, which is I call the lightning round. So I'm just going to throw out some questions for you and just give me your response or your reaction. Is there a great book or podcast other than this one that you've read or listened to lately? Cool. Okay. So I can't stop talking about the Mel Robbins podcast where she interviewed Dr. Mary Claire Haver about menopause. And I will scream from the mountaintops, the amount of information that I heard for the first time on this podcast and the impact on women's body. Just shocking. So everybody, men and women need to go run out and listen to that podcast. And then I love books, I'm a fiction reader. And so I read remarkably bright creatures and it's about an octopus and an aquarium and I know it sounds crazy. I was hooked, page one, there are people in it. There's dialogue, I promise. It's not just an octopus floating around fantastic book. So well done. Yeah, great. Love that. What is your cell phone wallpaper? Ooh. I took a picture of a lavender farm in Maui 11 years ago now and it is still my background because lavender is just a scent and a flavor that I love and it's my calming picture because you know, when you turn on your phone, the barrage is there, but when I look at my phone, I see the lavender farm. That's so smart, I love that. I love that, that's a great answer. So if you didn't have your career in finance, what would it be if you hadn't got your career? You're gonna think I'm nuts, but constitutional law. Oh, I would, to be with like the Shriver Center here in Chicago or the ACLU Southern Poverty Law out there fighting the good fight. Like I would love to be a con law attorney. Wow. I say in my head because I can be, that could be career 2.0. You can still do that. Oh, and that'd be amazing. I have looked into paralegal programs too. Ah, wow. Well, there's so much to talk about that. I don't know if you've read the story. He's a recently, but I can't remember the guy's name, but the Supreme Court lawyer who got involved in like gambling and everything and blew his career. That was very interesting. But I agree with you. I think that that kind of law is fascinating. I was of course a corporate lawyer. And I always call the other lawyers like real lawyers. I don't necessarily think of corporate lawyers as like real lawyers. People who walk into a courtroom, but those are real lawyers. I have a lot of respect for them. So are you a dog or a cat person? If I had to choose, it would be a dog and it would be a golden retriever. But I want no responsibility at home. My partner of 15 years is old enough to take care of himself. So we have no pets. Ah, ah. Very good. Yeah, we're both in our house, but now we have a dog and she just runs our life. But of course, yeah. And so what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given? I credit this to Michael Criasney, who was the principal at Sawdust. And he had sayings all around the office. He had sayings all around CDW, which was the firm he founded. The one I still say to this day is start the rest is easy. Just get going. It'll come. That's no matter what you're doing. Start the rest is easy. Yeah, that's good. That's really good advice. Very actionable, right? And so my final question is, what's one thing we don't know about you yet? Oh, boy. Oh, the things we had to answer a question like this at a conference last week. I was on the flag core and palm squad of my high school because the marching band was going to Disney my freshman year, my best friend played trumpet, and I wanted to go to Disney with her. So I got on the flag core and went to Disney with the marching band. I love it. So can you still throw the flags and do all that? You know, when my parents moved 20 years ago, they threw it out. Otherwise, I bet I could still, like, whip it in the air and-- That muscle memory, right? You still got it. I am confident. The palm squad dancing, not so much. My niece tries to teach me TikTok dances and just has no patience for me. Yeah, that's very funny. OK, well, that is a great hidden skill. And at some P.E. win meeting, we may ask you to demonstrate those skills. I think we'll probably find out that you have other P.E. win members who also have those skills. We might have to do a P.E. win TikTok. Oh, my gosh. We could put together a little P.E. win flag core. There you go. Oh, my gosh, that's so-- I love it. Well, it has been such a treat to talk with you today, Stephanie. I really, really appreciate your being a guest today. I'm moments that made her. Well, thank you so much. I had a great time. I appreciate it. [MUSIC PLAYING] Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Moments That Made Her. I'm Scotty Wardell, co-chair of the P.E. win communications committee. As a reminder, the content in this recording is for general information purposes only and does not constitute advice. 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