Episodes

  • Heather Kennedy Miner, COO – Advent International (EP.55)

    Heather Kennedy Miner, COO – Advent International (EP.55)
    Jul 8 2025
    Heather Kennedy Miner is the COO at Advent International, one of the largest private equity firms in the US. I enjoyed sitting down with Heather to talk about her career path beginning with investment banking and then her 20 years at Goldman Sachs evolving into a variety of positions giving her a unique combination of technical and soft skills well suited for the COO role. We discuss Advent’s 40-year evolution and why its doubling down on its commitment to being a pure play private equity firm when many others are diversifying asset classes. Heather shares how the firm is thinking about strategy, growth, where they are with AI adoption and why developing top investors to also be great leaders is a priority to the organization. Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@tseides⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠mailing list⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Access transcript with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Premium Membership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
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    56 mins
  • Kent Collier, CEO – Octus (EP.54)

    Kent Collier, CEO – Octus (EP.54)
    Jun 24 2025
    Kent Collier is the CEO of Octus, the leading voice in data and intelligence for the credit markets. It was exciting to sit down with Kent to hear about his role as an investor and how he saw an opportunity in the market to create something bigger with the way Wall Street accessed critical information. Kent shares his experience on how they expanded from a single product to developing a full product roadmap, the tradeoffs of organic versus inorganic growth and why he is particularly excited about their recent acquisition of Sky Road, a market-leading order management system.We then discuss the importance of their rebranding, the current state of GenAI in the credit markets and why today’s CEO must also act as the Chief AI Officer. Learn MoreFollow Capital Allocators at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@tseides⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠mailing list⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Access transcript with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Premium Membership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
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    43 mins
  • Reena Jashnani-Slusarz, COO & GC – Juniper Hill Capital Management (EP.53)

    Reena Jashnani-Slusarz, COO & GC – Juniper Hill Capital Management (EP.53)
    Jun 10 2025
    Reena Jashnani-Slusarz is the chief operating officer and General Counsel at Juniper Hill, a multifamily office based in Menlo Park, California. I had fun sitting down with Reena to talk about her non-linear career arc to find herself in a GC and COO role. This was a wide-ranging conversation touching upon some of the legal and operational complexities of investing in crypto from a VC perspective and how one gets up to speed on new asset classes like catastrophe reinsurance. This is all about the intersection of traditional operational frameworks on new and emerging asset classes. We then discuss the current state of multi-family offices today and how investors want a higher touch experience and the implications for those in operations and beyond. Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at ⁠⁠⁠⁠@tseides⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the ⁠⁠⁠⁠mailing list⁠⁠⁠⁠ Access transcript with ⁠⁠⁠⁠Premium Membership⁠⁠⁠⁠
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    43 mins
  • Letti de Little, CCO – Grain Management (EP.52)

    Letti de Little, CCO – Grain Management (EP.52)
    May 27 2025
    Letti de Little is the Chief Compliance Officer for Grain Management, a private equity firm that invests in telecom, infrastructure, and wireless spectrum assets. Today’s LP is focused on finding uncorrelated assets more than ever. But doing so often requires an understanding of the operational nuances which are different from buying traditional, tradable securities. I spent some time with Letti to unpack some of the common legal and operational elements for investing in this asset class. We cover how wireless spectrum auctions work and how Grain manages the dual regulatory oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. We also talk about what ODD practitioners should know about with this lesser-known strategy. Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at ⁠⁠⁠@tseides⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the ⁠⁠⁠mailing list⁠⁠⁠ Access transcript with ⁠⁠⁠Premium Membership⁠⁠⁠
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    45 mins
  • John Fitzpatrick, Sr. Managing Director & CTO AAMT – Blackstone (EP.51)

    John Fitzpatrick, Sr. Managing Director & CTO AAMT – Blackstone (EP.51)
    May 13 2025
    John Fitzpatrick is a Senior Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer of Alternative Asset Management Technology at Blackstone. These are exciting times in technology with a lot of moving parts so I was excited to sit down with John to get his perspective on where we are today and where we’re going. John shares his thoughts on the big picture with trends in data acquisition, automation and process improvement. Whether you are a technologist or someone accountable for technology there are some great takeaways. We also discuss common challenges of technology selection and adoption, budgeting, and how one can effectively manage expectations with non-technical leaders. Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at ⁠⁠@tseides⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ Subscribe to the ⁠⁠mailing list⁠⁠ Access transcript with ⁠⁠Premium Membership⁠⁠
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    41 mins
  • Melissa Dickerson, MD Operations & CFO – Genstar Capital (EP.50)

    Melissa Dickerson, MD Operations & CFO – Genstar Capital (EP.50)
    Apr 29 2025
    Melissa Dickerson is the Managing Director of Operations and CFO at Genstar Capital, a private equity firm based in San Francisco and founded in 1988. In today’s competitive market, a common road map to revenue diversification is product expansion or adding a new office overseas. This conversation is a case study on having one strategy and one office. Melissa shares her thoughts on how the industry has changed and how their operations, reporting and service provider model have evolved while expanding their LP base globally. We then go further down the chain to explore the current state of portfolio companies and how go-to-market playbooks have changed from an all-in-one approach to using a specialist model on things like talent management, capital markets and finance. Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at ⁠@tseides⁠ or ⁠LinkedIn⁠ Subscribe to the ⁠mailing list⁠ Access transcript with ⁠Premium Membership⁠
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    44 mins
  • Scott Farden, COO – Nonantum Capital (EP.49)

    Scott Farden, COO – Nonantum Capital (EP.49)
    Apr 15 2025
    Scott Farden is the COO of Nonantum Capital Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm that spun out of Charlesbank Capital Partners in 2018. Launching a first-time private equity fund has a myriad of challenges from leaving your old firm, raising capital, finding talent and activating operations, so I turned to Scott to share his experience. We also cover topics like proper preparation and common pitfalls when pitching LPs, building a team that can evolve with future organization complexity and things one can do to proactively build culture for firm durability. After our sit down, Scott shared that he believes that Operations can add alpha to a PE portfolio by running it so well that it leaves the investment team out of the back office. Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access transcript with Premium Membership
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    48 mins
  • Kathleen Servidea, GC & CCO – Gallatin Point Capital (EP.48)

    Kathleen Servidea, GC & CCO – Gallatin Point Capital (EP.48)
    Mar 18 2025
    We can’t ignore the fact that AI is playing an increasing role in our day-to-day lives. But the question is how do we do it properly? So I turned to Kathleen to get her insights on bringing AI in house. We cover a range of topics like how to develop an AI policy, how do we identify and assess the growing list of AI service providers. Once selected, how does one perform proper legal and technical due diligence? As an ops or legal professional what can you do yourself and when to bring in third-party vendor due diligence providers. We also discuss the state of legal tech today and how things like ChatGPT and Perplexity AI can play a role in the fast-moving pace of investing in our highly regulated world. This information provided is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. For specific legal guidance, please consult your own legal counsel. Learn More Follow Capital Allocators at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access transcript with Premium Membership
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    47 mins