ALO34: Building an Asset Owner Mindset in Modern Pension Investing ft. Dan Mikulskis
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 18 March 2026
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Alan Dunne speaks with Dan Mikulskis, CIO of People’s Partnership, about the evolution of large pension funds and what it means to think like an asset owner. Managing over £40 billion for millions of members, Dan explains how scale changes the way portfolios are constructed, managers are selected, and partnerships are built. The conversation explores the balance between passive and active strategies, diversification beyond equities, and the growing role of private markets. Dan also shares insights on governance, investment philosophy, and why humility is essential when making asset allocation decisions in complex global markets.
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Episode TimeStamps:
01:33 - Introduction to the global macro series
02:18 - Introducing Dan Mikulskis and his background
03:38 - From actuarial science to investment consulting
05:45 - The history and growth of People’s Partnership
08:18 - Auto-enrolment and the rise of large UK pension schemes
11:12 - What it means to operate as an asset owner
13:24 - Building the investment team and ownership model
18:34 - Scale advantages in manager relationships and partnerships
23:24 - How large asset owners select external managers
28:58 - Balancing core partnerships and specialist managers
34:25 - Macro insights and quarterly investment forums
37:34 - Portfolio construction and diversified growth strategies
43:19 - Concentration risk and global equity allocations
50:44 - Factor investing and style diversification
53:30 - The role of hedge funds and alternative strategies
56:08 - Total portfolio approach in pension investing
58:56 - Measuring performance and evaluating investment teams
01:03:18 - Career advice for future CIOs
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's quite a powerful thing to do. |
| 0:12.0 | So I do think it's worth deeply getting into it. |
| 0:14.0 | And a quarterly basis is kind of about right, but it's quite helpful to frame it with a little bit of humility to kind of say, |
| 0:20.0 | well, look, we better understand what the consensus is and better acknowledge that's probably priced in, |
| 0:24.6 | and has quite a good chance of actually being right. |
| 0:26.6 | So, you know, where do we actually have conviction in something that's differentiated from consensus? |
| 0:32.6 | It is the question that everyone's got to answer, really, isn't it? |
| 0:38.0 | Imagine spending an hour with the world's greatest traders. |
| 0:41.7 | Imagine learning from their experiences, their successes, and their failures. |
| 0:46.2 | Imagine no more. |
| 0:48.1 | Welcome to Top Traders Unplugged, the place where you can learn from the best hedge fund managers in the world |
| 0:54.0 | so you can take your |
| 0:55.1 | manager due diligence or investment career to the next level. Before we begin today's conversation, |
| 1:00.9 | remember to keep two things in mind. All the discussion we'll have about investment performance |
| 1:05.2 | is about the past, and past performance does not guarantee or even infer anything about future |
| 1:10.6 | performance. |
| 1:11.6 | Also understand that there's a significant risk of financial loss with all investment strategies, |
| 1:15.9 | and you need to request and understand the specific risks from the investment manager about their product |
| 1:21.3 | before you make investment decisions. |
| 1:23.7 | Here's your host, veteran hedge fund manager, Niels Kostrup Larson. |
| 1:33.1 | Welcome and welcome back to another conversation in our series of episodes that focuses on markets and investing from a global macro perspective. |
| 1:41.3 | This is a series that I not only find incredibly interesting, as well as intellectually challenging, |
... |
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