Episode 14: CEO of a $400B Fund Admin Gary Tenkman Shares His Journey From Blue Collar Roots to White Collar Boardrooms | How Client Service Can Be Your Edge in Investment Management
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How did Gary Tenkman go from a first-generation college graduate who felt like a fish out of water in finance to CEO of Ultimus Fund Solutions, a $475+ AUI award-winning fund?
It sure wasn’t easy. It took grit. It took being willing to get uncomfortable, fail, and learn (rinse, repeat).
Grab your headphones and get ready for a backstory chock-full of lessons from places you’d least expect.
Listen in as Gary discusses:
His backstory — from first-generation college student paying his own way to rocking the CEO seat
The importance of being willing to get uncomfortable, fail, and learn (rinse, repeat)
What it looks like to be an introvert in a very forward-facing CEO role
How being an introvert is one of the things that makes him a great leader
The power of strategic scaling – why he considers culture first and profit second when considering acquisitions
More about Gary Tenkman:
Gary Tenkman is Chief Executive Officer of Ultimus Fund Solutions, the largest independent registered fund administrator and one of the largest private fund administrators in the U.S. As CEO, Gary works closely with the Ultimus executive team and board members with responsibility for providing strategic growth, financial, and operational leadership for Ultimus and its over 900 employees. Gary has over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. He joined Ultimus in 2014 as COO and was named CEO in 2019. Gary currently also serves on the Board of Governors for the Investment Company Institute.
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Resources mentioned in this episode:
Books: Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall: A Parent's Guide to the New Teenager, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong about the World--And Why Things Are Better Than You Think
Transcript
Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.
Gary Tenkman: [00:00:00] I got good grades in math and the wrestling coach at my high school was the guidance counselor and he is like, you're good at math. You should go into accounting. I'm like, that sounds good. That's what I did. I went into accounting and I enjoyed what I did in college and ended up getting a co-op, which is like a long-term internship that uc has with Ernst and Young, and that's kind of how I got kind of broke into accounting slash finance career coming outta college.
Gary Tenkman: What was probably the most interesting thing about my time at E N Y was, so I do these, it's called a co-op. You go to school for six months and you work for six months. So after my first six months, I was really a fish outta water, like I never had a suit before.
Stacy Havener: Hey, my name is Stacy Haner. I'm obsessed with startups, stories, and sales.
Stacy Havener: Storytelling has fueled my success as a female founder in the Toughest Boys Club, wall Street, I've raised over 8 billion that has led to 30 billion in. All along. Assets for investment boutiques, you could say against the odds. Yeah. Understatement. [00:01:00] I share stories of the people behind the portfolios while teaching you how to use story to shape outcomes.
Stacy Havener: It's real talk here, money, authenticity, growth, setbacks, sales and marketing are all topics we discuss. Think of this as the capital raising class you wish you had in college mixed with happy hour. Pull up a seat, grab your notebook, and get ready to be inspired and challenged while you learn. This is the Billion dollar Backstory podcast.
Stacy Havener: Not everyone in asset management comes from a long line of investment people. Some of us weren't born with a silver spoon. Maybe we were the first person in our families to go to college as a blue collar kid. This episode hits the heart for me. Gary Taman is the current c e O of Financial Services, powerhouse Ultima Fund Solutions.
Stacy Havener: The Ultimas team [00:02:00] represents over 400 billion in assets, serves more than 450. Investment management clients, represents over 1500 funds and has almost 1000 employees. Gary's got a big job at a big company, and yet he has stayed true to his roots. Gary came from humble beginnings. He learned the hard way that you don't order the french onion soup at a business dinner.
Stacy Havener: I have been there and he overcame some very relatable challenges on his journey to the C e O seat. His story is refreshing. And you know what else is refreshing? The idea that a private equity backed company at this size and scale believes to their core that client service is their differentiator. It's their edge.
Stacy Havener: This is exactly what we talk about on this podcast. People do business with people. Gary reminds us of an [00:03:00] important lesson. Never forget where you came from. But never let that hold you back from where you want to go. This is a special conversation with a special person. Meet my friend Gary Tank Man. Gary, thank you so much for being with us today.
Stacy Havener: This is a true pleasure and as we were chatting in the green room, I'm actually excited that I got to have the conversation with Bob Dorsey before you and I are sitting down in the studio, cuz it's really changed how I wanna take the direction of this podcast and I'm, no one can see me, but I'm like a kid in the candy store right now.
Stacy Havener: So thank you for being
Gary Tenkman: here. Yeah. No, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me, Stacy. Of
Stacy Havener: course. So, okay, well we have to start at the beginning. I mean, my favorite thing is stories. I love to hear people's backstory, and I think what's most interesting [00:04:00] for me and has been most interesting in the podcast interviews I've done so far is.
Stacy Havener: Not everybody, you know, sort of is a child dreaming about being an executive in the finance industry or whatever career they actually end up in. And I wonder if that was the case for you. So I'm gonna let you go as far back as you want to. What has the journey been like for, did you always know you wanted to be in finance?
Stacy Havener: No, I
mean
Gary Tenkman: I didn't, when I was in high school, I didn't even know what finance was. Same. I was the first person in my family to go to college. Ah. So my parents were pretty hard on me, wanted to make sure that I got good grades and ended up going to college, which I grew up in Cincinnati and went to University of Cincinnati, and I lived at home.
Gary Tenkman: I went there cuz I could commute and so I had to pay tuition myself. So I had like three jobs while I was going there. I mean I got good grades in math and the wrestling coach at my high school was the guidance counselor and he is like, you're good at math, you should go into an accounting. I'm like, that sounds [00:05:00] good.
Gary Tenkman: That's what I did. I went into accounting and I enjoyed what I did in college and ended up getting a co-op, which is like a long term internship that uc has with Ernst and Young, and that's kind of how I got it kind of. Broke into accounting slash finance career coming outta college, what was probably the most interesting thing about my time at E N Y was, so I do these, it's called a co-op.
Gary Tenkman: You go to school six months and you work six months. So after my first six months, I was really a fish outta water. Like I never had a suit before. Okay. I remember going to, like the first week, I went to this big orientation up in Cleveland and sat down and ordered a French onion soup, and I didn't know what that was and.
Gary Tenkman: I realized really quickly that you shouldn't order French onion soup, um, at a business dinner. It's not the easiest thing to eat, but you know, I was a fish outta water. I really had a hard time with it. You know, my last day before I go back to school, you know, one of the main partners sat me down and he starts talking and I'm realized like I'm about to get fired.[00:06:00]
Gary Tenkman: Oh no. And he was going down the track of firing me, and I just said, Jack, come on. Like, first of all, I got three reviews all like yesterday. The whole time I've been here and nobody's really given me a chance, and I think I at least deserve another swing at this. And I kind of made my case and he said, well, let me think about it.
Gary Tenkman: And he called me two weeks later and he said, look, we want you to come back in the fall. And I came back and just took what I learned, which, you know, a lot of it was just like, look, you're just the same as everybody else. Just because you don't have people that in your. Family that didn't go to college doesn't mean you can't fit in.
Gary Tenkman: And because it was even strange for me, like when I walked in to first meet partners, it was, Hey, how you doing Mr. Crowley? And they'll call me Jack. Well, it's like we don't do that where I grow up. You call everybody Mister. Mister Mrs.
Stacy Havener: Totally relate to that.
Gary Tenkman: Right. And so like I just took what I learned from those reviews and I had a couple really good kind of mentors that were bought, you know, kind of [00:07:00] oversaw me on some, some of the audits that gave me some feedback and they really wanted me to come back.
Gary Tenkman: And after that I always got excellent reviews. Um, but it, you know, coulda to repeat of my. Career pretty quickly. But uh, you gotta work through those things and take the feedback and try and advocate for yourself, I think is kind of what I learned pretty early on from that experience. And I was a staff too, actually working for e n Y.
Gary Tenkman: Somebody was sick one day on and I'm sitting in the staff room with nothing to do, so was sick. And they sent me, they sent me out to do on an audit of a mutual fund and then I got stuck on that audit and then suddenly, I became like the mutual fund guy at Ernst and Young, kind of in the Ohio area, and that's how I ended up really getting into the fund business.
Gary Tenkman: I did a lot of other things at Ernst and Young, but I really enjoyed that business just cuz it was so fast paced. It seemed so much more diverse than a lot of the other businesses that I worked with cuz I worked. In healthcare and insurance and all kinds of other manufacturing. It just seemed [00:08:00] really, really exciting and I worked a lot at Bsis, which was a big administrator up in Columbus, Ohio, you probably remember, and Oh yeah, sure.
Gary Tenkman: At some point they ended up asking me to come work for them, and so I left Ernst and Young to go work for for Bsis, and at the time I. Came over as, uh, you know, a director in their financial administration group. Shortly thereafter, they merged fund accounting in and ended up, you know, overseeing a fund accounting and financial admin group for a few years.
Gary Tenkman: And I think, you know, from a career perspective, my biggest challenge was naturally being an actual, an introvert. Yeah, I wanna talk about that. Was, you know, I'm fine like, you know, in smaller groups, whatever. I'm not the best at small talk like Bob Dorsey is. So I'll never blow up the Bo Bob Dorsey at that.
Gary Tenkman: But where I was terrible, it was just terrible. Was at at public speaking. Like I got one C in college and it was in speech and I basically got an F in speaking and an A in writing speeches. So it got me a c.
Stacy Havener: You [00:09:00] know, I wanna pause because first of all, thank you so much for sharing your backstory. And as a blue collar kid, I very, very much related to it.
Stacy Havener: And I did not know that about you. I didn't know some of the roots and, and the sort of feeling like a fish outta water, but not just because everybody feels like a fish outta water when they get their first job, but also just because you haven't grown up in that. Environment, and I think that's important for people to hear.
Stacy Havener: You know, that you made it happen. You fought for yourself, you got yourself a second chance. Like that was just an amazing story. So thank you for sharing that. I wanna pause on this whole idea of introvert extrovert, because you know, there's a perception, and I don't think it's wrong. I mean, there's a perception that the investment industry is all introverts.
Stacy Havener: That these are like math and science people. These are left brain people. They are much more comfortable behind a screen, a computer screen, and at their desk than they are sort of out in the wild, so to speak. Interacting with [00:10:00] people. And like I said, I don't think they're wrong. I think there are a lot of us that are introverted in the investment world.
Stacy Havener: What I find so interesting is given that you shared that that speech and presenting and those types of things were maybe your most challenging. Discipline in school, and then obviously you had to do it in your, you know, sort of day job. Now here you are as A C E O, which is such a, you know, a pivot from being kind of behind the scenes to now sort of having a much more external facing role.
Stacy Havener: How has that been for you? Well,
Gary Tenkman: I mean, look, a lot of it, I set the groundwork when I went to isis. I mean, I, I realized that I was never gonna make it anywhere pretty quickly. Like if I can't get in front of people and speak and I gotta be able to think on my toes. And, and so I consciously force myself, like if there's department meetings to, to talk about some kind of topic and get up in front of everybody and God, I.
Gary Tenkman: There's every, every fiber in my bean was like, do [00:11:00] not do this. Like don't run for the hills. I mean, it was really hard, but I just kept forcing myself to do it. And I worked on, hey, let's, I tried to use what worked for me, like, Hey, I'll use a little humor if I can get somebody to laugh, that'll calm me down.
Gary Tenkman: I'm talking about something. I know I'll be able to get through this. And then, It's just repetitive. You keep doing it. You keep forcing yourself to do it, and you just start getting better at it. And look, if I have to get up in front of a hundred people, I'm gonna be nervous today, you know, 30 years later.
Gary Tenkman: But I'll be fine At the end of the day, I'll be fine. I'll get through it cuz I just know the tools to try and manage my way to get through it. But you gotta, if you're willing to take the time and put that effort in and kind of push through the fear a little bit, then you're gonna be okay and you gotta do it.
Gary Tenkman: Otherwise, you'll just never be good at
Stacy Havener: it. Yeah, it's so true. You know, my, I have a six year old daughter and she's in kindergarten, and when we were meeting with the kindergarten teacher, they said to us, you know, one of the things that the kids [00:12:00] have to do is we do a, a morning meeting. And I thought, this is kindergarten.
Stacy Havener: You have a morning meeting like about, you know, I'm just, I'm tracking. And she said every child in the class has to do a little presentation. Like on Monday they have to say like what they did over the weekend. And the reason they do it is the exact thing you said. I mean, public speaking is on the list of most terrifying things for so many people.
Stacy Havener: But to your point, it's the practice. It's the doing it that actually gets you to sort of. Be comfortable even if you never love it. And so I was blown away by that. I thought, wow, what an amazing thing that they just get the kids comfortable speaking in front of their small little class. But just doing that every day because it takes some of the, you know, before it would be like you only did it once a year or like once a semester, right?
Gary Tenkman: Yeah. Yeah. Look, trust me, I found a way to hide for 12 years in school until I got to college and then I had to do it right. I mean, it [00:13:00] was just easy to hide, right? Yeah. So I mean, it's great that your daughter's school is trying to fear out early, cuz you know, it's kind of like skiing, you know, learn how to ski when you're six now when you're 30.
Gary Tenkman: Yeah,
Stacy Havener: exactly. So, I'm curious. We've both been chatting about Bob Dorsey here, and for people that haven't listened to that episode, the founder of Ultimas, we did an episode and interview where Bob shared some of his backstory and kind of how Ultimas came to be. But how did you meet Bob? I mean, obviously Ohio.
Stacy Havener: Cincinnati, I'm seeing ties.
Gary Tenkman: So I should probably go a little bit through my career and then I'll come back to that cuz it might help kind of round everything out. So I was in Columbus for three years and BI had done some acquisitions in Europe and they came to me and asked me to move to Europe to basically be the head of their fund administration group in Europe.
Gary Tenkman: Okay. And I didn't even have a passport by the way, so. And I said yes before I had a passport. So I might be crazy a little bit, but [00:14:00] I just knew, like, look, I was in my ear very early thirties and you know, my boss was in his late thirties. It's like, well I'm never gonna have his job. I gotta push myself.
Gary Tenkman: And I thought it would be fun. So I, I moved to Europe and lived in Dublin, Ireland for five years. You know, we had offices in London, Guernsey and Luxembourg. And um, it was a great experience, cuz again, I'm. In my early thirties, I went over there, you know, I had 12 direct reports, all of whom were from different countries.
Gary Tenkman: All of whom were older than me. Um, and I had to figure out, you know, how am I gonna deal with this? And then it was really great for me, just from a management leadership perspective, being able to have that opportunity to do that. But I spent my time doing that, and then I went to, I had the opportunity to come back to the States and Bais was looking.
Gary Tenkman: To do an acquisition. They ended up acquiring Rothstein Cash Consulting, which back then was a very large private equity and hedge fund admin. And so I ended up moving to North New Jersey and became COO of that [00:15:00] business and did that for three years, which obviously it was a business I really hadn't been part of, but one, something I really wanted to learn.
Gary Tenkman: And it was pretty fun doing that as well. And I met my wife during that time and got married, lived in Hoboken, and then. Citi Bank ended up acquiring bi and I spent seven years with Citi doing a lot of different things. But when I left, I was overseeing their North American, broadly speaking, their fund operations.
Gary Tenkman: Um, so middle office hedge funds, private equity, you know, registered funds in the US and then their Canadian Mutual Fund operations. And towards the end, I just wasn't having fun. Like, I just felt like it wasn't about clients anymore. It was, you know, we were, city's a big organization and there's a lot of great people.
Gary Tenkman: It's a great organization, but it just didn't feel entrepreneurial enough for me, and I didn't feel like there was enough focus on clients. So I started thinking about maybe doing something else and somebody told me like, Hey, there's this company called Ultima in Cincinnati. It's looking for a C [00:16:00] O O. And I was like, who's Ultimas?
Gary Tenkman: I had never heard of 'em. And I said, well, you can put my name in. And Dave Carson ended up calling me a couple days later. So you know Dave? Oh yeah, sure. I
Stacy Havener: love Dave.
Gary Tenkman: Yep. They've just retired after 10 years with Ultima. So, and spoke to him for a while and then he put me in touch with Mark Seger. And you know, as a, after I got done talking to Mark and I just doing some research, I was like, I know Mark and Bob.
Gary Tenkman: Like I know these guys somehow. And I realized that when I was at Ernst and Young. We did the SAS 70 SOC one audit of Lesner where Bob and Mark both worked. Oh
Stacy Havener: my gosh.
Gary Tenkman: And I was basically like a staff one or staff two, um, right outta college. And I remember Bob was gregarious and walking around the floor and talking to everybody and Mark was making sure the trains were running on time.
Gary Tenkman: And as they like to say, Bob would sell the donuts. And, uh, mark would make the donuts with his team. [00:17:00] So I realized I knew them from that and then ended up. Having an interview with Bob in, in New York City, which was the best interview I've ever been on, cuz I only had to say like two sentences the whole time.
Gary Tenkman: So I thought maybe I might get this job after all. But he ended up knowing more tank men in Cincinnati than I did. No way. Yeah. I went home and called my dad like, do you know John Tank Taman or Joey Taman? He's like, yeah, I think it's my third cousin's son and it's total Bob. Like knowing everybody in Cincinnati that he was introducing me to like.
Gary Tenkman: Distant family members. It's so good. Yeah, that, I mean, that's how I got to really meet them. They didn't remember me from back in the day, I don't think. Um, but I remember them for sure.
Stacy Havener: It's crazy to think that you're from Cincinnati. Your career takes you, my gosh, all the way to Dublin and then back to New York City and somehow all roads for Gary Tank Man lead back to Cincinnati, Ohio.
Stacy Havener: I mean, what are the [00:18:00] odds of that, that there would be this company, Ultimas that had these ties to Cincinnati where you were from? I mean, that is so crazy.
Gary Tenkman: Yeah, I mean, it's a small world. I mean, I told my wife about it and she's from New Jersey, and she's like, you just wanna go back to Cincinnati. I'm like, no.
Gary Tenkman: It has nothing to do with Cincinnati. Trust me. I like these guys and I think that they've built a great culture and I want to try and help 'em do something, help but last long term.
Stacy Havener: That is such an awesome story. And God, like I said to you, I'm just so glad we did, cuz now people have listened to the Bob story, have the context.
Stacy Havener: So this is just amazing, you know? What was it like? So when you started, Bob and Mark were still active in the business. Yep. And then as many people in our industry are going through, when we were chatting about this in the green room a little bit, you know, succession. Is really challenging for a founder led company.
Stacy Havener: As you're growing, you wanna grow, you wanna scale. You're thinking [00:19:00] about the next generation or g2, as I just learned today, is the phrasing apparently. And what was that like? Sort of like just, you know, they decide they're gonna pass the torch to you as c e O. Can you talk a little bit about
Gary Tenkman: that? Yeah.
Gary Tenkman: Well, I mean, I think Bob and Mark from the start had the right mindset. I think that what they would tell you is that, hey, we knew how to get. The company from nothing to here. Yep. We're not sure how to get it from here to 30 years from now, or 20 years from now, or 10 years from now. And you know, they kind of put their egos aside to some degree and said, Hey, we need some help to really be able to do this and make sure that Ultimas can survive long term.
Gary Tenkman: And I mean, that made all the difference because if I moved to Cincinnati and we did things exactly the same way Ultimas always did, we wouldn't be where we. Today, you know, I'm sure it'd be a good company, but you know, it's hard when you're 60 people and you're not, you're not growing because you want to attract really good people and you wanna provide them with opportunities to grow and do more things from a career [00:20:00] perspective.
Gary Tenkman: And if you're not continuing to grow the business, it's just kind of hard to do that. So I think they recognize that. And kind of let me do a lot of the steering of the ship and, you know, you know, occasionally we would bump heads, but we always came out on the same side. And the good thing is, is that, you know, I'm from Cincinnati.
Gary Tenkman: They're from Cincinnati, and it was like, just culturally we kind like, we could figure out a way to work it out and we got to where we needed to be and it's, it was a great partnership all around.
Stacy Havener: And so part of that next phase of growth, and you know, as you were talking, there's that adage or saying or whatever it is that what got you here won't get you there the next phase. And I think that's really difficult, as you said, for a lot of entrepreneurs and founders to. They know it intellectually, but actually doing it is a very different thing.
Stacy Havener: So I think it does speak to the partnership you had and to them as founders and to you as the g2, the next gen. So part of your growth strategy. [00:21:00] I'm guessing that you were involved in the decision to take private equity?
Gary Tenkman: The first private equity investment happened two years before I joined, and as part of that investment, you know, I think the PE firm was working with Bob and Mark and they understood that they needed to.
Gary Tenkman: Bring somebody else in and they were looking for some time. And so, you know, I interviewed with the private equity folks, you know, they had a really great partner, which was important to me coming into it. Cuz if you don't have a great private equity partner, you're just not gonna be successful. So I had great partners in the founders, but also with the key investor.
Gary Tenkman: That was important. So I didn't, I didn't play a lot in that. Now when we flash forward to our new partners, you know, I did have a lot of influence over that and you know, I talked to a lot of private equity firms and you know, had built a good, really good relationship with G T C R, well, prior to us doing a transaction with them.
Gary Tenkman: And I just felt really comfortable with kind of how they thought about the business. They have a leader strategy [00:22:00] where, It's like they support the CEO and really believe in kind of the industry vertical that you're playing in and give you the support that you need to be successful. And they've been an outstanding partner for us as well.
Gary Tenkman: So I mean, we, you know, we wouldn't be where we were if, where we are today, if it wasn't for them as a
Stacy Havener: partner. Yeah, and I think, I'm glad we're talking about this a little bit because again, it's sort of like no matter which part of the ecosystem you sit in, whether it's kind of the back office, FinTech ops kind of realm of ultimas, or it's more asset management or wealth management sort of.
Stacy Havener: All the firms that are scaling and growing are sort of facing a lot of the same challenges, right? Like, how am I gonna scale? Am I gonna accept private equity? What does that even mean? Especially again, if this is like kinda a founder led firm and you've built it yourself sort of concept, like that's a big leap I can imagine for people who are thinking about this decision.
Stacy Havener: And similarly, [00:23:00] I would imagine you have to do some of the same type of thinking when you're sort of. Exploring acquisitions. So what has that been like? Because you have made a couple key acquisitions along the way, other firms that have merged into ultimas, what was that process like? Was it still kind of that people first mentality?
Stacy Havener: How did those kind of play out, or what were the lessons maybe there? Yeah,
Gary Tenkman: I mean, we've done a number of acquisitions, like I just hit my nine year anniversary with Ultimas. Congrats. Oh, how many have we done? I think we've done six or something like that. So, you know, I think that, you know, I'm always just trying to step back and look at, and our focus has, um, has historically been really on the US and making sure that we can kind of provide all the back office services that somebody want to launch a fund could possibly need.
Gary Tenkman: And so, you know, one is, I was always looking at. Capability. And then I think too, I was looking at are there, is there opportunities to drive scale? You know, I think that, [00:24:00] you know, when I joined Ultima, our opportunity to kind of compete at, you know, with a 50, a hundred billion dollar asset manager just wasn't there cuz we didn't have the scale.
Gary Tenkman: Um, to give folks a level of comfort. But the third piece was like the cultural fit. Like, it's great if, okay, it checks a box from, hey, it's a service or product that you need to, maybe it gives you scale if it doesn't give you the first one. I mean, culturally it has to. Be aligned. And you know, I think that, you know, I feel like all the, you know, we've got a lot of senior management from all the acquisitions that we've done that are still with the firm because I think that we made sure that the acquisitions we pursued hard were once where the cultures were gonna align.
Gary Tenkman: And that's really, really important from my perspective.
Stacy Havener: I agree with you. I think especially in this space, and we won't name names, but there have been some other firms in similar businesses where the mergers and acquisitions as those firms have scaled, have not gone as well. And I think it shows at the end of the [00:25:00] day that this is still a people business.
Stacy Havener: Right? Because the problems that I would hear sort of sitting not in the middle of anything, were. More around client service. Like it was never people complaining about tech or capability or sort of product offering. The hard part in those mergers and acquisitions seem to be around the people.
Gary Tenkman: Yeah, I mean, a lot of the other acquisitions I've seen, and I kind of put 'em in two buckets, you know, there's.
Gary Tenkman: Public and then there's the private side. I think definitely on the public side, what I've seen is when there's been acquisitions over the years is that the focus has been largely on let's drive costs out. And even if there isn't an acquisition, that's been kind of the mo, it's like let's continue to try and drive costs out.
Gary Tenkman: And that's, you know, put us in a position where, you know, we, we invest in technology and our talent and, you know, we've been winning in the market over the past nine years, but particularly the past three years. And it's a lot of the investments we've [00:26:00] made over the past five years have come forward. I mean, three years ago we really didn't do ETFs at all.
Gary Tenkman: And now we're, we have, uh, the second most ETF sponsors that we service.
Stacy Havener: Wow. I didn't know that had grown that much. That's amazing.
Gary Tenkman: Yeah, I mean it's a big piece of our business and retail Alts is, as I'm sure you know, is, is a big piece of business for us and we have a lot of opportunities, but we're also collecting market share from competitors where they've kind of taken the eye off the ball and the client service, like you mentioned, you know, we still have to be competitive from a price perspective.
Gary Tenkman: So we try and leverage technology to be as efficient as we can and try and be smart about that. But we have great people and that's helps really. Take things over the top when you can say, I have great technology, but then also you've got a great team you can put in front of a
Stacy Havener: prospect. You need both, right?
Stacy Havener: You need that new school stuff, but you need the old school as well. And to me, old school's all about like, you know, people doing business with people. And we heard Bob talk about it and we've heard you talk about it and I know you've won so [00:27:00] many awards, but I believe a lot of the awards you win sort of year in and year out are about being one of the best places to work.
Stacy Havener: And I think that speaks to the. I mean, you're recognized for that.
Gary Tenkman: Yeah, I mean, I think that, um, I think that, uh, yeah, we are recognized for that. We try and make it a great place to work. We try and have as open communication as we can. I mean, I think my historical frustrations prior to Ultimas a lot of times was just not, not knowing what's going on.
Gary Tenkman: And I, you know, I try and I. Try and work with the executive team to make sure they have what they need to be able to communicate to their teams. Like, well, what's going on? What's going on at Ultima? I mean, we're almost a thousand people now, so it's not like, Hey, I can walk down the hall and just talk to somebody.
Gary Tenkman: We really have to have the executive team and the senior management team. I mean, we do regular huddles and kind of ensure everybody knows what's going on and so they can inform their teams and people feel like they know what's going on in the business. That's awesome.
Stacy Havener: So now I'm curious, the next phase of growth.
Stacy Havener: So [00:28:00] you're nine, you're nine right? At Ultimas. Like what is the next phase? Like how, how do you grow from here? I mean, is it diversification of product? Like you mentioned DTFs, like are there certain products you wanna be able to specialize in or develop expertise in? Are you gonna look, given your.
Stacy Havener: Background in overseas, are you gonna look to expand globally? Like what? What does growth look like for Ultimas from here and for you?
Gary Tenkman: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few different things that we're looking at. I mean, you know, on the public side there's not a lot of firms to acquire, but we'd always be interested in, you know, if it was the right fit and we could drive scale.
Gary Tenkman: I think it could potentially be pretty interesting. But, I think that we've made investments in retail, s in technology and people, and same with ETFs. And now we've done the same with middle office. So you know, if people are doing institutional SMAs and they need the stuff done, that's kind of post-trade execution out to reporting to your clients.
Gary Tenkman: Like we can do all that. Uh, we were just hearing that from a lot of our clients. We've really ramped that up over the past [00:29:00] nine months. So that's an area where we're making investments. I'd say on the private side, you know, we're continuing to look at building out. Like middle office capabilities around credit, but we have a really strong offering in the private markets and, and a strong offering from a hedge fund perspective.
Gary Tenkman: So we feel pretty good there. You know, potentially maybe working as a trustee at some point from a C I T perspective could be interesting for us. But I think. The bigger play long term is just diversifying and, you know, having some capabilities in Europe and Asia so that, you know, if an asset manager in the US needs to do something offshore, that they can do it with Ultimas versus going somewhere else.
Gary Tenkman: But there's uh, a lot of opportunities for us. I mean, I think that we don't wanna be become, so I mean, I look at it kind of in, you know, there's kind of three things I think as a business that you can probably be really good at one and maybe okay at it the second, but probably not very good at the other.
Gary Tenkman: And I think. You know, well, one is low cost, like we're not gonna be the lowest cost, but we're not gonna be super expensive. Two is you can have [00:30:00] a ton of products. So you think of a custody bank. I mean, they can sell you all kinds of stuff, right? We can't do that. I mean, I'm not doing SEC lending. I'm not doing lines of credit.
Gary Tenkman: Obviously not a custodian, but we can plug somebody in, they can do all that. So it's not really a handicap that we don't have that. But when you do all those things, then you know, the fund admin piece starts to get watered down. Like, what is it? You know, is it really what you do or is it just something else you do?
Gary Tenkman: And then third is client service. And so that's really where we're betting. You know, we're making our bet is around client service and trying to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace.
Stacy Havener: So interesting because I talk a lot about sort of owning, you know what you're uniquely good at, what niching down, being a specialist in something.
Stacy Havener: And I love hearing that even at your size and scale, you still think about that. So do you think you can still be a specialist and really, I mean you already have scaled, but that you can maintain that ability to specialize in something and continue [00:31:00] to grow from where you are today. Like you don't have to be a generalist.
Gary Tenkman: Yeah, I think that we can continue to do that. I mean, you know, we do have, you know, certain teams that focus on ETFs, so we build in some specialization and we try and work where we can to rotate, rotate people in there who maybe from a career opportunity, wanna see those things. But I think we can still.
Gary Tenkman: Provide good service even though we're getting, even though we're getting larger. I mean, that's, just because you're large in and of itself doesn't mean you can't do a great job for your clients and you, you don't care about your clients. It's about making sure we bring the right people into the organization and they understand that that's who we are.
Gary Tenkman: That, you know, when people call, you call back the same day, you don't call back. Two days later or whatever, simple things like that that, you know, we talk about as an organization that are really important. And I think you can do that at a larger size. Now, what's not gonna happen, like when I first joined Altimas, is that.
Gary Tenkman: Bob may actually be doing some work on a particular client as ceo. Like that can't happen anymore. Right, right. I [00:32:00] know a lot of our clients and have relationships and know what's going on, but I can't go to all the board meetings. It's just not possible. And I mean that's probably one of the biggest changes is that we have to have an organization where we have really great people and that we're scalable and they can do that work.
Gary Tenkman: They can handle the clients themselves. They don't need the CEO to be involved cuz we've got really good people. I
Stacy Havener: think that's very well said, and it's hard probably for the clients who've been with you the longest maybe to undergo that change. But I think if you build, I. A business with culture at the center, which you have done right?
Stacy Havener: That's been the roots of Ultima since the beginning. Then the people are all sort of aligned around those strong values. And one of the books I read talked about the fact that like values should actually tell you how to act. Values aren't just like jazzy little sayings. You hang on the wall. Remember that?
Stacy Havener: Those old posters, it'd be like some really pretty like beach [00:33:00] scene and some quote and it'd be like, Those are our values, you know? And that's not it. Like they should tell you how to act. So I love when you said like when someone calls, you call them back within a timely manner. Don't email them if they called you, pick up the phone and call them back.
Stacy Havener: Like values should tell you how to behave. And that's not easy to do. And I think you've done a very, very good job of that. Everyone in your organization has.
Gary Tenkman: Well, it's, yeah. I mean, I've got a great team. I can't take credit for it. They've kind of all bought in and have really just kind of taken it, and they work on it Every week.
Gary Tenkman: We have management huddles and we talk about our culture every week and what's important to us as an organization. We try and spend five or 10 minutes on that, like in our weekly huddles.
Stacy Havener: I love that. One of the podcast interviews I did was James Fletcher, I believe. He's an asset manager, emerging manager, actually at a firm called Ethos, and he was saying that from an investment process perspective, one of his differentiators, one of ethos [00:34:00] differentiators, is that they actually believe that culture is an alpha generator.
Stacy Havener: When they go out and sort of diligence companies to invest in, they actually analyze culture, and there have been studies to back that up. So I think that's just an amazing kind of intersection of something that you'd think would be so quantitative. I e, you know, return being sourced from something that's so incredibly qualitative.
Stacy Havener: Absolutely. Yep. Okay, so you ready for a little, uh, a little. It's not really a lightning round cuz we don't have to be lightning about the whole thing. But I like to end every podcast conversation with a version of Proust's questionnaire. And it's, I guess I've always loved James Lipton's inside the Actor's studio.
Stacy Havener: If you ever watched that show back in the day where he would interview people and he would end with some questions, and so I have a version of these.
Gary Tenkman: I have to admit, I like Will Ferrell's version better. So
Stacy Havener: wait. Is it true there's a new inside the actor studio? [00:35:00]
Gary Tenkman: No. No. He used to do an imitation of James Lipton on Saturday Night Live.
Stacy Havener: I was like, time out if I did not know. Yes he did. You are like one of the only people who knows who James Lipton is. He's so
Gary Tenkman: dramatic though. So dramatic. I would just watch him and laugh at the way he asked the questions. It was
Stacy Havener: so dramatic. I fell for I was in. I was in on it. Okay. All right, so the first one is what book inspires you?
Stacy Havener: And it does not have to be a business book.
Gary Tenkman: So I would say there's two books. I, I don't know the authors of either of 'em though. So one I'm kind of reading right now and that's why I'm gonna talk about it. So, a trustee, I went to dinner with some trustees and one of 'em mentioned this to me. So I have, I have a 13 year old, 15 year old daughters, and they're just a handful.
Gary Tenkman: I'll just tell you that much.
Stacy Havener: Yeah, I was just gonna say, nobody could see your face, but I saw your face as you said it. Yes.
Gary Tenkman: Yeah, but there's a book called, um, I wanna say [00:36:00] Get Outta My Life, but First Drive Cheryl and me to the mall. And so I, I got it on Amazon, like as I was walking outta the dinner, I just clicked on.
Gary Tenkman: I mean, that's the best thing about Amazon is like I immediately ordered it and so I take it on planes with me and it just gives me hope. Cuz when I read it I'm like, well, I guess everybody's dealing with this and maybe I'm not doing a bad job after all. There you go. It just, uh, kind of made me feel better about my parenting skills.
Gary Tenkman: So,
Stacy Havener: I love it. That's a great one. And as a former 13 and 15 year old girl, I can tell you that we get nicer. Yeah,
Gary Tenkman: yeah. Well that's what they say. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. I'm in the, I'm in the midst of the battle right now, so, and then you have a second one? Yeah, the second one is fact full and. There's a lot of tables in in this and the jux of the whole book is really like, if you think about opening the Wall Street Journal, financial Times, New York [00:37:00] Times on a daily basis, like you really, at least for me, like sometimes I wanna jump out the window.
Gary Tenkman: Yeah. Because it seems like every story is terrible. But this basically showed, you know, all these things that are so much better now than they were. Whatever, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. You know, whether it be just infant mortality, whether it be like people coming from, you know, completely poor to hey, now they're middle class.
Gary Tenkman: Just all these different kind of stats that just said like fascinating by every kind of measure that you can really look at the world. We're like in such a better place than we've ever been in the history of humankind, but when you read the newspaper, you think it's the end of the world tomorrow.
Gary Tenkman: There's a lot of charts to get through, but in like when you read it, you kind of feel a little bit better about everything. And you know, that's, I'm optimistic about the future and you know, and I'm really excited about the future a about the United States, about ultimas. And I think when I read that, I, I get even more, more pumped up about it.
Gary Tenkman: [00:38:00] So,
Stacy Havener: I love that. Okay. That's great. So we'll put those two books in the show notes. So we're gonna take it from books to places. So what place inspires you or what's your happy place?
Gary Tenkman: You know, I would say right now if like my whole family's around and we can have dinner together. Yeah. And, uh, we're not fighting.
Gary Tenkman: That's my happy place. Well, I mean, my, look, my wife's got a very good sense of humor. My kids both have a pretty good sense of humor and when we have a really good time, we're all laughing. That's my happy place. Like when that's going on.
Stacy Havener: Right? I love that. Yes. It's the place and the vibe, isn't it? I love that.
Stacy Havener: That's great. Okay, so now we're gonna pretend, well this, I don't wanna have you break out in a cold sweat here, but I'm gonna put you in a stadium. You're gonna walk out onto a stage in front of thousands of aduring. Ultimas and Gary Chaman fans. Don't think about the fact that you have to present to [00:39:00] them.
Stacy Havener: Just leave that to the side for a second. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And before you take the stage, they're gonna play a song to get the crowd amped up. And it's like your hype song. So what's that walkout anthem?
Gary Tenkman: Hmm. It probably should be like late eighties, early nineties. Rap but Dodge, I'm there. I'm trying to be a little bit more contemp.
Gary Tenkman: I'd probably do blinding lights by the weekend, I think. So you're picking
Stacy Havener: a current song. Yeah. But what if you did had to pick eighties or nineties rap? What if that's all they had that day at the stadium?
Gary Tenkman: There's so many good songs. I don't have one that's jumping out at me right now,
Stacy Havener: but I mean, are we going like Notorious b I G?
Gary Tenkman: Yeah. I mean I was kind of like, hypnotize was in my head for a minute
Stacy Havener: there. Yeah. I mean, hypnotize is a great hype
Gary Tenkman: song. Yeah. I mean, something like that would probably be up my
Stacy Havener: alley. Okay. I'm there, one of my all time faves. Okay. What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?
Gary Tenkman: It's really hard.
Gary Tenkman: I don't know. I [00:40:00] mean, I like what I'm doing right now, so. I think maybe being an investor in private comp, like somehow involved in investing in private companies would be kind of interesting for me to do. That would be so cool. In another stage of my career, I think that that would be fun. You know, get to know people and yeah, maybe help people along from the things that I've learned through my career.
Gary Tenkman: That would be pretty interesting from my perspective.
Stacy Havener: I love that. I relate to that very much. Okay. Flip side, what profession would you not like to do? I wouldn't wanna be a lawyer. That's the first time someone said that. That's a great answer. Because of the public speaking.
Gary Tenkman: Oh no, it has nothing to do with that.
Gary Tenkman: I just, I mean, it's, I don't know. I mean, I'm a good fake lawyer. Like, trust me, I've had, I deal with lawyers all the time, but I don't want to be one. I
Stacy Havener: love it. That's so good.
Gary Tenkman: I like what I've learned. I've figured out how to scale it so it's hard to scale being a lawyer.
Stacy Havener: Okay. And last, [00:41:00] what do you want people to say after you've retired or left the
Gary Tenkman: industry?
Gary Tenkman: I mean, I'm hoping that there'll be a number of people that say, you know, he was a good boss. Maybe he was my best boss. He was a good leader. He tried to do the right thing. I mean, those are the kind of things that I hope people. Say about me. I mean, I, I try and be as communicative as I, I can with my directs and with the organization to let folks know what's going on.
Gary Tenkman: Sometimes there's things you can tell people about as you know, uh, but we just try and shine as much transparency on it, and I hope people end up appreciating that. So, you know, I'll take that if I can get it.
Stacy Havener: I love that. And since I know some people who work for you, I can tell you that they're already saying it, Gary.
Stacy Havener: Oh, that's good to hear. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. It was awesome. And as always, I'm cheering for you and everyone at Ultima.
Gary Tenkman: Well, thanks Stacy. We, we appreciate it and we, we love working with you, so take care. All right.
Stacy Havener: Thanks so [00:42:00] much. You too.
Stacy Havener: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The information is not an offer, solicitation, or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products, or to adopt any investment strategy. Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance.
Gary Tenkman: All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not
Stacy Havener: necessarily reflect
Gary Tenkman: those at their
Stacy Havener: firm. Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Haner
Gary Tenkman: or Haven or Capital Partners.
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