francine: if i can ask everyone the same question, the answer is because we are custodians and responsible for the savings and pensions of real people, like my

mom and dad and your mom and dad, then we do a better job every day. francine: it is the world's largest listed hedge fund manager, and now man group has a woman in charge for the first time. robyn grew was promoted last september. it is the high point of a 15-year career at the firm. the former barrister entered the world of finance three decades ago and never left. robyn: the speed of change impacts the global nature, the challenge of it just never stopped getting more and more infectious for me. francine: and this episode of leaders with look while, i speak with robyn grew about diversity, purpose, and what the future holds in an ever-changing world. robyn grew, thank you so much for joining us on leaders. the world is strange. there are so many crises. it is difficult.

robyn: yes, if this year has taught us anything it is that prediction is not her strongest suit, perhaps, and that is perhaps not just in relation to markets, but in relation to these big geopolitical events that we are still living with. francine: it is quite incredible to think we are in another place. i feel like every six months, it's doom and gloom, interest rates, we have to evaluate them and yet the economy holds. robyn: that's right. when we talk about higher for longer, which i still say out loud and cross my fingers in some way that may be i'm going to be entirely wrong, but higher for longer, i think one of the nuances in that message is what we are unlikely to see is your percent. we are probably unlikely to see 2%. we may see some 50 basis point

adjustments for sure, but i think what we have been signaled clearly from central banks as they are not frightened of using policy to control inflation or to try and respond to inflation, and i think that is the messaging we should all kind of get used to. last 10 years, 0%, free money. next 10 years, higher for longer with what i described. francine: and i imagine that 2024 could be difficult because of volatility. so it makes it harder to manage money. robyn: i think it does, think the effect that we saw because of the hiccups in the system with the banking crisis, that put a premium back into liquidity, so what is your duration risk? what is your liquidity risk? how do you manage these different economic cycles? and are you ready for hedging?

let's remember what that means. it means your clients are going to do well in time she will not do well with the entirety of your portfolio, and that is ok. that actively managing your portfolio for these changing economic cycles or behaviors is what you are supposed to be doing. francine: does it change how you lead robyn grew? -- man group lead? ? robyn: we have different engines doing different things whether it be on one side or the other side. we have products in the macro space, equities come along only, long/short, but we are seeing clients are interested in more customized solutions, solutions that answer the problem they have got or the challenge they have rather than here is a product, by that or nothing else, so it changes the way you

deliver it to an organization, changes the value that your driving towards is not just about here is a product, but here is a solution. francine: what does it mean in terms of how you're focusing your energy in 2024? you want to be in the private credit space but hiring is something you need to think of carefully. robyn: we have highly talented individuals focused on being the very best they can be in the workplace and delivering what they do and that can be alpha our engines but our operations in our legal department. it is about a war on talent, so hiring the best people, retaining, keeping those people and giving them opportunity in space where they can be the best they can be is incredibly important, so it is tech, talent, vision, about knowing that when people come to work every day, every single person

man group at adds value and is valued. that is important. it is that moment if i can have everybody answer same question what do you do when you come to work every day and the answer is because we are the custodians and responsible for the savings and pensions of real people, like my mom and dad and your mom and dad, then we do a better job every day. francine: how do you hire? again, there is a war on talent or battle to get the very best, so what do they want? robyn: it depends. it is not one-size-fits-all. who doesn't want to be around smart people. who does not want to be in a place that values your input, that doesn't seek to be better today than it was just a day and better tomorrow than it is today who doesn't, want to be around a place which is actually interested in you as a person and interested in being capable of making you better?

so where do we go? we go abroad. wego wide. we look for difference, energy, excitement, that person who can get energized. francine: you don't always hear that from a big finance chief executive. robyn: ok. francine: is there a perception problem for finance. robyn: i don't think finance has done as good of a job in explaining the value we bring to society more generally. i don't cure cancer. i wish i was that smart and capable to do that. what we do is protect and enrich the savings and pensions of people, people who have worked incredibly hard all of their lives and diligently put their money aside in their 401(k) or wherever it may be, and we are entrusted with that them, and we can give if we do our job will, financial security. we can revise something that enables legacy investing,

enables access to health care, education, roof over your head to pay the bills, all those things. that is a pretty important thing to do. francine: you seem to be filled with a big sense of purpose which you do not often get from hedge fund managers. robyn: i have a big sense of purpose. i run a firm has a big sense of purpose and i think that energy is something that we should put to work. when i sit down with big allocators and we talk about what it is we are both trying to do, i think the day we forget that, and our numbers in the institutional size numbers we'll talk about, we lose a bit of that sense of what we are here to do properly. francine: coming up robyn grew, on adapting to change in an uncertain future. robyn: i'm not good at predicting what the next year or the next five years are going to be.

we need to do is be flexible and understand to be dynamic and to think about the impact of marke.

francine: from geopolitical risks, climate change, and a different working reality, the work that finance is adapting to change. i continue the conversation with man group chief executive robyn grew. do you worry about what the future economic footprint looks like the world? robyn: our job is to say how do we think about what could happen? how do you stress your portfolio? how do you think about what your outcomes are today? people drawing their pensions today, 50 years from now. man group is 250 years old. our clients are not thinking about just returns for one year from now, but are trying to

think about what they're planning for 30 years from now. we are not good at predicting. i am not good at predicting what the next year or five years will be. what we need to do is be flexible and be dynamic and to think about the impact of markets and changes. francine: are you worried about geopolitics or market functions? robyn: we've now changed geopolitics to geoeconomics and it is something of an impact point. as we think about what happened when russia invaded ukraine in the impact on our fossil fuel pricing or you think about the worries and concerns around supply chains post-covid and the fact these buffers when you think about corporate real estate and the refinancing it is inevitable -- it is not a 30 year mortgage with these things are coming up for refinancing within the next three, 4, 5 years. that is a lot of money being put to work.

we are in an environment where we look out onto the city and office buildings are in a different place and have a different level of occupancy than we have seen before, that these are big changes in geoeconomics and things that we have to take into consideration. francine: what do you worry about the most? do you have a ranking or it is one and the same is huge transformational change? robyn: it is the transformational change. i think we will see credit markets playing a role. i think that is a long term thing. i think he was see lending tightening, a need for financing, but it is not all things are created equal. i am a big proponent of active management and a big proponent of credit but not every active manager, not every credit expert is going to be able to deliver these environments. there is expertise and skill need. how do i think about prioritization? i think about capabilities. i think being as skilled as we

can be in data, analytics, in tech, in credit and multiple asset classes and then being able to pivot those. i think that is where i think about things, but do i think about that is the number one thing i'm focusing on? i don't have the luxury of that. we have to think about all these things. francine: are you looking at for acquisitions to move into certain spaces? robyn: we have said we will grow the firm organically and look for acquisitions to increase our capability on content for clients. we completed our acquisition with private credit management in the u.s. what is interesting is the multiples look more interesting. we have been talking about consolidation. we have been talking about consolidation since the gse. this is one of those points i want to laugh about in a few years from time now, but i actually think as we look at the

space, the cost of running our businesses, the scale we need to operate at, and i think the multiples we are starting to see coming down, i think this could be an interesting time for consolidation. francine: why has it been a long time coming, regulation, no appetite? robyn: when cash is free, it softens that. the moment where people need to deploy at scale in liquid markets has been something if you look at the trends, the trend has been impassive, private equity. if you think about the assets among guards sit in the public domain, that has been our theme the past 10 years. i think when private equity does not have as much cash and that raising is harder and bending is harder with these opportunities for niche spaces and expertise to come about, and they want scale. they need to be able to operate at scale, and having an

organization that can deliver the amount of scale we put in play, the bit perhaps that is less sexy and exciting, but that infrastructure and the ability to take them and grow them, that is what we do. francine: what about the city of london? what do you see in five years? metal robyn: i could not be more interested in it. i think we have held such an expert in a position in financial markets and generally, so anything we can do to keep that shine i think is important but competition is high. and we should not end the way we should not in our firm sit on our hands and think all our history will count for long if we don't keep running, so i am a great believer that we continue to drive it.

there is such a lot of innovation, creativity, growth, and expertise that sits in the small shores was so anything we can do to keep it alive and keep it at its top game, i am all for, but we operate as a global organization and i will go where there is strong capability to invest in but the markets are deeper and where the clients need us to be and where we can find opportunity, and i will continue to look for that, but i am a u.k.-this is ceo that once this to be great too. francine:, robyn grew on being a female leader in an industry traditionally dominated by men. robyn: i am hopeful we will see a better reflection of difference at the top of every organization, be at financial services or broader than that. ♪ the first time you connected your godaddy website and your store was also the first time you realized... well, we can do anything. cheesecake cookies? the chookie!

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francine: women make up less than a quarter of employees in thousands of hedge funds and other alternative investment firms globally, and even more of a minority in senior positions, so when man group appointed an all-female leadership team, it marked a milestone in the industry. i continue the conversation with robyn grew. 240 years old. robyn: not me.

francine: you are the first female of an institution 240 years old. should it have happened earlier? are you optimistic about the future for females in finance? robyn: i am hoping we will see a better reflection of difference at the top of every organization , be it financial services or broader than that. it has been a long time coming. i can't help but say it would be terrific to have seen more female ceos before me. i hope we will see a lot after me. the difference is important and when you put the top people at the top of organizations and bead organizations with enthusiasm and capability, that is what we are after, so i am hopeful that i am knocking down some doors, barriers, ceilings. francine: the first time someone meet you, it is the infectious

energy people notice. is that how you lead? robyn: yes. yes. it is one of those things. i have been accused of being many things, but that slight ever ready bonnie, just keep it going, i am a bit of that. i have enthusiasm for what we do and passion for what we do. it is sometimes like i am a big person in the room but something incredibly important. you don't do this job 98%. you do this job, this is where mathematicians hate when i say anything larger than 100% but it is 100%. francine: were you always like that? robyn: yes, it forged my career, that willingness and excitement to learn and be part of fixing things and doing things better has been somewhat of a hallmark. i have the ridiculous enjoyment for learning and doing things.

i walk into any organization or any of our offices and in this short journey thankfully in london you have from the zero to the fifth floor, if there's somebody in the elevator with me, i'm asking 1000 questions. they can't wait to get out by the end of it in some ways but it is interesting what is going on and what is happening. it is an interest in people. fundamentally, driven by the interest in the people i work with and the people who we are here to work for. robyn: so you started as a criminal barrister? robyn: i did. francine: what made you switch? robyn: i'm still an advocate in many ways. i was in the criminal and civil bar and i said i would do this commerce thing, i thought to myself and i will go back and become a commercial barrister. and it sucked me in and i'd

never went back. the speed of change, the impact, the global nature, the challenge of it just never stopped getting more and more infectious for me, and so that legal training, has it been useful? yes. has the advocacy thing been more useful? probably. it is just the best journey. do you have bad days, and if you do, who do you call? i have always been a half-full kind of person. every belief i have is that you make the best out of those tough days. of course there are tough days. of course there are days when you have a challenge in front of you where your performance is not great or where i feel like we could've done a better job. those are moments where you have got to move forward, take the next step forward, and that is

what i do. i think it is resilience. i think it is part and parcel of perhaps my makeup, to be resilient. you know who i turned to? friends, family, and take a break up her either, although normally not a very long breather because i get too excited by other things, but i fill my life with the things that are really positive around me. i have a great family around me. i have an extraordinary wife, son, parents, and friends, and i am enriched by that, so that enables me to take the next step. francine: do you think there's a difference being a leader in 2020 42 what it wasn't 2010? robyn: i think that i don't know a different way of doing it then i do it, with a sense of purpose, for sure. when you speak and you are in charge of an organization, i think it is incumbent upon leaders to be enthused and to be

passionate and be engaged. i think when times are tough, when things are tricky in the world, i think it is important that you know that, and that you acknowledge that in your organizations. we have had some tough times in the world, markets in the world, for people to live their lives. we run global organizations with people who come from places that are now in war zones, or too close to borders where there are war zones, where the challenges have been very real post-covid, or where the issues are being felt materially in politics, and

not to acknowledge that, i think feels inauthentic. -- it is about setting our stall out, and how do we do that the best we can? my view is you do it by creating extraordinary and exceptional teams that have a focused and understand the humanity of that, and that is important. to do that, you need different people. different people come with different backgrounds and different flavors of their experience of life. it is not easy. it is something we should do. -- francine: how much do you think of that? robyn: it is critical. if i have people around me,

their excellences needs to be something i hear. it is less likely, it is really not the most likely pool of people, from which the next brilliant idea is going to sprout and germinate. it is going to be levels and other people within the firm. we need to hear that and it is important i am seen as capable of listening and changing my position. there are times when i will be less willing to change my position. having somebody come from any part of the organization say hey i feel this way about this issue and i don't think i am being heard is important. francine: where is robyn grew in five years? robyn: still doing it, but perhaps renewable rechargeable basis. i hope i'm still leading man

group. i hope i'm looking back on the past five years and thinking how i can do it better and hope driving things with the same passion and enthusiasm and i hope with the same brilliance around me. francine: c'mon, we're right there. c'mon baby. it's the only we need. go, go, go, go! ah! touchdown baby! -touchdown! are your neighbors watching the same game? yeah, my 5g home internet delays the game a bit. but you get used to it. try these. they're noise cancelling earmuffs. i stole them from an airport. it's always something with you, man. great! solid! -greek salad? exactly! don't delay the game with t-mobile 5g home internet. catch it on the xfinity 10g network.

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♪ francine: welcome to the best of the earthshot prize innovation summit 2023.