NEPC’s Head of Investment Manager Research & Partner, Sarah Samuels, has been named to Institutional Investor’s 2024 Most Influential Women in Investment Management category. View excerpts from her interview below or the full interview on the Institutional Investor site here.
Sarah has traversed the industry, alternating between asset management, investing as an asset owner, and her current role in consulting. After she earned her bachelor’s degree in German and Business from the University of New Hampshire, she spent six years at Wellington Management Company and one year at Boston Advisors.
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II: What is the biggest challenge facing the industry today?
Sarah: The biggest challenge facing the industry is the required shift in mental models to adapt to an environment where cash and fixed income are viable options to invest in the face of inflation. These are things that anyone under 38 has not had to develop a skill set for. There’s a whole swathe of investors who need to re-map how their brains work to build portfolios, and it may change some long-standing assumptions.
The other is, do the map: Model out what the deals are today.
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II: What is the most exciting part of the job that gets you up in the morning?
Sarah: It’s early-stage investing, as well as lending with the right GP partners, so being a lender with smart underwriting: There’s a lot of interesting things, and valuations are very interesting.
I didn’t know this industry existed. I started out as an admin at Wellington. I thought I’d be a lifer as an admin until I saw a woman who was an admin like me. Jean Hines was very commanding and picked healthcare stocks. I watched how she carried herself and the credentials that she got.
I had some other mentors: One was Michael Even, MassPRIM Board Investment Committee member, and the other was Erinn King then Vice President at Wellington Management Company, currently Chief Strategy Officer at Income Research + Management.
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II: If you were not an allocator, what would you be doing today?
Sarah: I would be teaching people how to ski out in the west or in Europe.
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II: If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be?
Sarah: I wish that people could stay focused on to the capital that we oversee and the responsibilities that we have as stewards of capital and that what makes the world go round, remembering the members whose capital we are managing.
Click here to read the full interview on the Institutional Investor site.