20 YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE:
I had at some point of time to decide whether I wanted to have a career, or to be a mother whose children can recognize her.
Being a banker, I was really very risk averse, so starting my own thing was the last thing I thought I would do, but mothers do so many things that we wouldn't do in normal circumstances.
Institutions might come and go, but people stay.
Credit Suisse had the amazing ability to attract some absolutely brilliant people and then the amazing ability of losing them. So, this is the reason why then they don't exist anymore. There's nothing so surprising there.
ON TOPIC: ENDOWMENTS + Why am I so involved in education?
I consider education one of the biggest levers we have at our disposal, a universal lever for the advancement of society. And education is very important in fighting ignorance and as we can see around the world, ignorance could be used by people to manipulate the masses.
Volunteers are needed, because education is famously underfunded and as a result neglected.
Endowments are meant to be a “safety belt” for an institution that is supposed to be around forever.
Intergenerational equity is the main driving force behind how endowments are being overseen and managed.
There is a balance that needs to be achieved between what you're taking out of the endowment, where you're putting the endowment to get invested and what you plan for the endowment to generate going forward. This is more an art than a science over time.
Sometimes we end up getting the simple things wrong, because we think they're simple so they'll figure themselves out and unfortunately they don't.
Family offices and endowments could appear quite unconnected, but they are very much related in the way the (investment) strategies work for both.
Family offices in a way have a very similar timeline as endowments - they are there forever.
Venture Capital is one of those places that is very exciting, where only three percent of your investment probably will give you any returns and where, even a smaller percentage would turn out to be the mythical unicorn.
With family offices and with the endowment, one of the most important things that we insist on is the investment committees, it's the structures, how one could invest, it's decisions by consensus, it's the things that you would see very much in practice in professional organizations but you might not necessarily feel you need in such areas like family offices.
A lot of the family offices that I see and certainly the one that I work with at the moment, are very much focused on the legacy of the family beyond the financial returns and more often than not, to my greatest pleasure and satisfaction, they are willing to support education.
ON ALL THINGS INSEAD
I'm very glad that INSEAD is where it is today and has an amazing endowment in terms of growth and in terms of also the speed of that growth
Endowments are exceptionally important for educational institutions and the fact that INSEAD has done such a good job over the past ten years is not accidental.
You really need to give INSEAD and everyone that is trying to raise an endowment outside of the US more credit.
For INSEAD to achieve so much with their endowment when they're out of that (the U.S.) system is really quite impressive.
References & mentions:
INSEAD, American university in Bulgaria (AUBG), Imperial College London, Mergers and Acquisitions, M&A, Credit Suisse, private capital, venture capital, endowment, family offices, Magnolia Advisory, Georgi Gospodinov, Angela Rodel, Time Shelter