Ian McKnight is a long-time asset management CIO who currently holds a portfolio of roles, including as Chief Investment Officer of Tontine Trust, Senior Adviser of Cartwright, Hineni Capital and Giants Shoulders Capital as well as a series of other roles. He previously was Chief Investment Officer at Royal Mail for over 13 years.

Our conversation starts with Ian’s start as an actuary and how he found himself gravitating towards pensions – his affinity for working with people and problem solving made him a natural fit. We discuss some of his core investment beliefs including how to take calculated risks, and use examples of some of the innovative strategies he employed while CIO at Royal Mail. We discuss how government regulation (and attitude to risk) can hamstring investment opportunities and what can be done to avert this.

Ian explains Tontine Trust's potential to disrupt the annuity market by offering income for life with better returns. Ian also stressed the importance of networking, mentorship, and entrepreneurial spirit, advocating for a cultural shift in the UK to foster innovation and risk-taking.

Series 5 of 2025 is kindly sponsored by Diamond Hill. Diamond Hill invests on behalf of clients through a shared commitment to its valuation-driven investment principles, long-term perspective, capacity discipline and client alignment. An independent active asset manager with significant employee ownership, Diamond Hill’s investment strategies include differentiated US and non-US equity, alternative long-short equity and fixed income.

Deanne Stewart is CEO at Aware Super, an Australian superannuation fund with over 200 billion AUD in assets under management and the third largest superannuation fund in the country. She has held this role for close to seven years, and was previously Chief Executive Officer at MetLife in Sydney, and prior to that, held a series of financial services roles.

Because Deanne is no stranger to podcasting (you can see a range of her other appearances below) we wanted to pick up where some of the other podcasts had picked up and we start by asking what it was about her varied roles - what she calls a "grab bag of experiences - in asset management, life insurance and management consulting that shaped her leadership style and approach at the helm of Aware Super. We reflect on what she seeks to channel as a leader, and Deanne highlights the importance of curiosity about her team, ideas, approaches, and about listening and plugging in to "learning mode".

Moving to discuss the priorities now at Aware Super, we discuss their strong ethos around essential workers, and how this translates into a twin focus on achieving the required return but also channeling the responsible ownership ethos that is important to their mission. We discuss recent acquisitions and the consolidation going on within the Australian superannuation fund environment and the need to find global investment opportunities as the funds under management grow.

You can find more podcasts featuring Deanne here:
Leadership Series with Helen McCabe https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deanne-stewart-on-the-pivotal-moment-that-shaped-her-career/id1469503665?i=1000703776587
Top CEO Series, The Mentor with Mark Bouris https://open.spotify.com/episode/0R0hHl3Q6wfdaBb4JI5WNd?si=K5CBUkSiRSGyfE8dMGQ2qA
Blenheim Partners https://blenheimpartners.com/episode-109-deanne-stewart/

Series 5 of 2025 is kindly sponsored by Diamond Hill. Diamond Hill invests on behalf of clients through a shared commitment to its valuation-driven investment principles, long-term perspective, capacity discipline and client alignment. An independent active asset manager with significant employee ownership, Diamond Hill’s investment strategies include differentiated US and non-US equity, alternative long-short equity and fixed income

Have you heard about the fraud triangle? Do you know what graduate trainees look for in an employer?

We are delighted to launch Series 5 of the Fiftyfaces Podcast this week. Featuring a range of voices from the Australian Superannuation Fund Aware Super to a legend of the UK local government pension scheme, we hear what drives their leadership styles, their insights on the dynamic backdrop to pensions the world over as well as novel approaches in which they see interesting opportunities.

We dive into key investment topics - like the opportunity in healthcare and how to do real operational due diligence. We hear about the European emerging manager scene and why the UK should not be written off as an investment destination.

We listen to a CIO who risked it all, lost it all and bounced back in an institutional setting that proved just the right combination of support and challenge and from a Brazilian institutional investment adviser as well as a leader in modern diversified financial solutions in the alternatives space.

Tune in starting this week to hear from our guests Deanne Stewart, Ian McKnight, Pilar Gomez-Bravo, George Graham, Lindsey Bass, Rebecca Heun, Jo Natauri, Jamila Osman, Everaldo Franca and James Clarke.

Series 5 of 2025 is kindly sponsored by Diamond Hill. Diamond Hill invests on behalf of clients through a shared commitment to its valuation-driven investment principles, long-term perspective, capacity discipline and client alignment. An independent active asset manager with significant employee ownership, Diamond Hill's investment strategies include differentiated US and non-US equity, alternative long-short equity and fixed income.

As we prepare for Series 5 of the Fiftyfaces Podcast, we are delighted to bring you this preview from Series 5, a joint podcast between Fiftyfaces Productions and Alvine Capital. Alvine Capital is a specialist investment advisor and fund placement boutique.

Nate Kirk is the co-founder of Everside Capital Partners, a private credit fund focused on the lower-middle market based in New York City. He founded the firm together with Moritz Poehl in 2016, and was previously a portfolio manager at Third Avenue Management, where he focused on stressed and distressed credit, special situations and flexible credit, and prior to that worked as a Trader and High Yield Credit Researcher at J P Morgan.

Our conversation starts with Nate’s early education and the passion that he developed for rowing in his teens and beyond. While he admits that he didn’t always have the “best form” as a rower, his passion, discipline and dedication to the sport distinguished him and taught him the characteristics of grit and perseverance that proved to be useful in the corporate world. We hear about how he had to channel that grit to find his first entry into the world of finance, and about the lessons that the volatility in the financial world presented.

These lessons related to client treatment – particularly in times of challenge, dealing with counterparties and seeking pockets of return along the road less traveled. We conclude with reflections on how personal setbacks can lead to a reckoning of what it is that truly matters in life and on the challenges – and rewards of finding a solid work/life balance.

Alvine Talks Podcasts are co-hosted by Tom Raber and Aoifinn Devitt and aim to bring a deeper understanding of the people and processes behind the strategies that drive differentiated returns.

In this latest episode of our Latin American Voices Series we are joined by Uwe Schillhorn who featured in our main series in early 2024, in which he described his period living in Chile and the insights gained from all of that time on the ground. That podcast is here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4wiSyXvKN9eccFEXDiK9Sm?si=0qwkL-1jSQGaPMFdDyA62g

We move then to mapping the Chilean institutional investor landscape, and Uwe details the pension fund landscape, the insurance companies and family offices that comprise the investor base. We chat about the economic backdrop and the preferences that this has led to when it comes to portfolio construction. We then move to the focus on Yupa Fund Services as a placement agent serving the Chilean institutional landscape.

This latest installment of our Latin American Voices series is intended to shed more light on the Chilean economy and its institutional investors, particularly of interest to international managers seeking to diversify their investor base into the region.

Sam Garetano is Senior Vice President at Brookfield Asset Management, where he works in the infrastructure area with a particular focus on data centers. He has spent his entire career in various roles in finance including at Blackrock and Adams Street Partners.

Our conversation starts with Sam’s somewhat unconventional path into finance. He initially thought he would pursue a career in sports broadcasting, after pursuing a degree in broadcast journalism. While that career path was not to be, we reflect on how a love of statistics and an eye for detail can align with a flair for financial analysis. We move then to his move to Brookfield and into the infrastructure area and speak about the opportunity set in the burgeoning field of data centers.

In this dynamic area, staying up to date is key and Sam mentions the evolution of data centers from small, single-purpose structures to large, power-consuming facilities. This naturally has led to a surge in demand for power which is a further source of infrastructure investment opportunity.

Our discussion spans the importance of global reach, local investment and the evolving financial ecosystem around infrastructure and data centers.

With thanks to Baillie Gifford for sponsoring Series 4 of 2025. Baillie Gifford is a long-term investment manager, dedicated to discovering the innovations and changemakers that deliver exceptional growth opportunities for its clients.

Karl Scheer is Chief Investment Officer at the University of Cincinnati, a role he has held for over 13 years. He previously worked in a series of consulting and other financial roles. Karl gave a wonderful overview of his career in this Capital Allocators Podcast with Ted Seides, so we wanted to take up where that left off, and hear about his evolution in the CIO role since that interview.

We start by asking about what, from his rich background, Karl continues to draw upon in his CIO work and ask what has changed, both about the market backdrop and how he perceives the role.

We discuss the constraints that come with size, and how the venture capital and private equity ecosystems are evolving. We also tackle the shifts he has made in managing the fund from a material hedge fund position and active management in public equities to a focus on private equity, growth equity, and real assets.

With thanks to Baillie Gifford for sponsoring Series 4 of 2025. Baillie Gifford is a long-term investment manager, dedicated to discovering the innovations and changemakers that deliver exceptional growth opportunities for its clients.

Cesar Collier is Managing Partner and Head of Latin America at Siguler Guff & Company. Based in Sao Paolo he previously worked in a series of private equity roles, as well as in retail at Wal-mart and Carrefour Brasil.

Our conversation starts by tracing Cesar's early inspirations, the long history of army service in his family and the lessons that he learned in a setting that was at times tough, requiring team work and endurance. His foray into retail was so less strenuous - although it was an area that he thrived in and gained senior experience quite early Cesar is open about the relentlessness of retail's pace of problem solving. This volatility, need to adapt to trends and need to trouble shoot proved to be a good set of training tools for a switch into private equity and finance.

We turn then to discus the current Brazilian financial backdrop - where high interest rates (at around 15%) and a weak currency are currently factors and how this affects the appetite of the domestic investor as well as presents opportunities for external ones. Cesar is passionate about the opportunities to invest in Brazil, and describes some strategies in particular, such as legal claims, in which he draws upon his legal roots but also flexes a complexity premium and the benefits of "patient capital" to find a fertile area of return.

This podcast is full of the unexpected, from unexpected areas of opportunity in Brazil that other investors may overlook to inspirations and life events that forced either a pivot or a change of style. We are delighted to bring you this additional insight from our Latin American voices series.