Ellen Ellison – Playing to Your Strengths (Capital Allocators, EP.27)

Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry

Ted Seides – Allocator and Asset Management Expert

Investing, Capitalallocation, Business

4.8 • 806 Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2017

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ellen Ellison is the Chief Investment Officer of the University of Illinois Foundation, which she joined in 2013 as its first leader of the now $1.7 billion pool of assets. Ellen restarted a program and a portfolio from scratch at a time when longer-established University investment offices already had their chips carefully placed in the markets. Yet with a small team, she built a clever portfolio and is starting to reap its rewards.

Prior to joining Illinois, Ellen was the Executive Director of Investments at the University of Miami for five years, the leader of a small family office for a year, and a thirteen-year veteran of Fiduciary Trust Company. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Columbia University Business School, and currently sits on the Investment Committee for Mount Holyoke.

Our conversation starts with Ellen’s career path and dives into the challenge of starting an endowment investment program from the ground up, including establishing governance practices and figuring out when to put cash to work when markets feel pricey. Her favorite opportunities in the market, including a long discussion of agriculture investing, offers a very different take on the world today.

For more episodes, go to capitalallocatorspodcast.com/podcast

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Capital Allocators is brought to you by Ten East, an investment platform for sophisticated investors to access private markets.
0:10.5	Ten East brings benefits of having your own family office without the cost and headaches of doing so.
0:16.8	It's founded and led by Michael LaFelle, former deputy executive managing member of Davidson Kempner.
0:24.2	Michael and his investment team offer members the opportunity to co-invest by offering at their
0:29.1	discretion. Michael and his team source, diligence, and commit material personal capital to each
0:35.3	investment. The opportunities shared on the Ten East platform
0:38.9	offer exposure to private credit, real estate, niche venture and private equity, and other
0:44.5	idiosyncratic investments that typically aren't available through traditional channels.
0:49.2	The principles have over a decade track record of investing in these types of exposures
0:53.5	across more than 350
0:55.7	transactions. Post-investment, the Tennis team conducts ongoing monitoring and reporting,
1:01.8	just as you'd expect from an institutional investment organization. I've known Michael for about a
1:07.0	decade, and after becoming impressed by the quality of 10 East offerings, its research
1:11.6	process, and high-quality investment team, I became an advisor to the organization, an investor
1:17.1	in multiple offerings. You can learn more and join me as a member at 10-east.com. That's the number 10,
1:25.4	east.co.O.
1:33.4	Capital Allocators is also brought to you by SRS Aquium.
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