Episode 36: Former Fund Manager at a $27B Shop Turned Boutique Founder Greg Dean of Langdon Partners on Entrepreneurship | Why AUM Isn’t the Only Measure of Success

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Success as a founder is about more than impressive AUM. It’s about maintaining autonomy and connection. It’s about taking pride in what you do, the team you’ve built, and most importantly having fun along the way.

Take it from today’s guest, Greg Dean, founder of global small-cap specialist firm Langdon Partners.

In this episode, he and Stacy discuss:

Greg's backstory:
o From Fidelity Investments to co-founding a $27B investment firm
o How his passion for connecting people and numbers drove him into small-cap investing
o His big leap from the shallow end of co-foundership to founding his own firm

• Why AUM isn't the only measure of success in small-cap investing
• Strategies for maximizing return on time in small-cap investing
• The challenges of climbing the ranks in the fund world
• Key advice for fund managers considering leaping into entrepreneurship

About Greg Dean:

Greg founded Langdon Equity Partners, a firm that believes in making investment excellence through smaller company investing available to all clients.  He is the Chief Executive and lead investor for their smaller companies strategies.
 

Previously, Greg was a Partner and Portfolio Manager at Cambridge Global Asset Management, where he was the joint recipient of the prestigious Morningstar Breakout Fund Manager of the Year in 2015. His funds also won numerous industry awards.


Greg has a degree in Mathematics from the University of Waterloo and a Bachelor's of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University. He is also a CFA charterholder.

He considers himself more of a thermostat than a thermometer, is a father of 2, can find the best coffee in any city, and a life-long Raptors fan.

Transcript

Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.

[00:00:00] Greg Dean: I am measuring this journey, learning from the previous journey. It has to be fun. And so I think the pride is more on the inputs. I don't necessarily have an association of, with pride and the assets because small caps by their very nature, we're never going to raise 10 billion. I am proud of the team. I am proud of our partner and proud of the work we put in before we got going, because that infrastructure, if you lay it incorrectly, It's a headwind the rest of your career.

[00:00:31] Greg Dean: And if you lay it correctly, it can be a massive accelerant to your, your success over the longterm.

[00:00:38] Stacy Havener: Hey, my name is Stacey Havener. I'm obsessed with startups, stories, and sales. 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 follow on assets for investment boutiques.

[00:00:56] Stacy Havener: You could say against the odds. Yeah. [00:01:00] understatement. I share stories of the people behind the portfolios while teaching you how to use story to shape outcomes. 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.

[00:01:23] Stacy Havener: 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.

[00:01:35] Stacy Havener: Asking lots of questions might cause friction in the classroom. It can be the source of success in the fund world. Just ask my next guest. Greg Dean, founder of global small cap specialist firm Langdon Partners. He started his career at Fidelity Investments, then joined some colleagues as they built a [00:02:00] 27 billion investment firm, Cambridge Global Asset Management, a boutique within CI Investments.

[00:02:08] Stacy Havener: All along the way, he asked questions of the companies he was evaluating, yes, but the big pivot was the question he asked himself, when will it be your turn to become a founder? The answer was 2021, when he founded Langdon. This is a story about entrepreneurship, about owning your different and redefining success.

[00:02:36] Stacy Havener: It's about challenging limiting beliefs and running toward the hard things. It's always seeking out. the slope. If you are a founder on the journey, grab a notebook. You'll need it. Meet my friend, Greg Dean. Greg, thank you so much for being here. This has been a long time coming. I don't want to put any pressure [00:03:00] on you, but this is a lot of buildup about Greg Dean and Langdon.

[00:03:04] Stacy Havener: So I'm honored to have you in the studio today. Thank you for being here.

[00:03:09] Greg Dean: It's a bit surreal. It's cool because, uh, early on in my journey of the crazy decision to go build a firm, I thankfully came across your material and it has been very helpful. So I'm excited that we get to chat live.

[00:03:19] Stacy Havener: Perfect. And that's the end of the podcast.

[00:03:21] Stacy Havener: Thanks for being here, Greg. Um, I appreciate it. Thank you. That really means the world to me. And I hope today we get to just even do more exploration around authenticity and storytelling. Cause I know you've got. A special one. And that's actually where I'd like to start. So backstory to me is something that's missing in our industry, like the people behind the portfolios.

[00:03:45] Stacy Havener: And you said, you know, you made this decision to launch your own firm. Let's talk a little bit, let's go back before we kind of come present and, and then we'll go forward. But what's that journey like for you? And you can go as far back as you want. Like, did you always know you wanted to [00:04:00] be in the investment?

[00:04:01] Stacy Havener: Space, I'll let you kind of take that wherever you'd like to go.

[00:04:05] Greg Dean: Well, I feel very lucky because I think just a straight into the deep end would be paralyzing with the amount of uncertainty you go from a, you know, certainty and structure and resources to just. Nothing unless you do it yourself, right down to locking the door, turning the lights on sweeping the floors.

[00:04:26] Greg Dean: And so I've been asked that question, obviously, from clients and allocators. And I realized quickly, I go two steps back. So leaving fidelity and joining a relatively unknown person. Multi affiliate here in Canada with four people, including myself, that I'd had years, I built trust and respect and enjoyed working with was sort of my, like into the shallow end.

[00:04:51] Greg Dean: And you can imagine at a firm like Fidelity, not a lot of people leave a lot of people who leave maybe don't have the success that they [00:05:00] maybe had at the platform that they had prior. And so that was sort of the narrative running through the halls. It's like, you're crazy. If you leave, this is the place that will enable your success.

[00:05:09] Greg Dean: And, you know, I'm in my 20s at this point. So I certainly thought long and hard about that decision. And it was harder than leaving the firm I left to start something from scratch, because we were literally taking an embryo. It was like a former colleague that had raised a billion dollars, but was taking on way too much and needed support.

[00:05:30] Greg Dean: The four of us left to join that former colleague and take what was there and shape it into a company. A 27 billion investment management firm with 13 strategies and 27 people that took 10 years and helped me build the confidence in myself to try, if that makes sense.

[00:05:49] Stacy Havener: Totally. Okay, let's unpack. There's a lot there.

[00:05:53] Stacy Havener: So, Fidelity household name, people will get that. When you left, you basically went to [00:06:00] CI. Right and how big because you had a boutique within A big like were they a big firm when you went there? Give us a little more color

[00:06:10] Greg Dean: Yeah, so they 2011 they were Circa 90 billion.

[00:06:14] Stacy Havener: Oh, wow. Okay

[00:06:15] Greg Dean: 14 different managers They wouldn't call themselves a multi affiliate but I think that term has kind of standardized and would very much apply to what And the team that we were really, I called it not a startup, but a scale up was Cambridge Global Asset Management, which was, you know, one individual and a billion dollars and three strategies.

[00:06:36] Greg Dean: So we jumped into that and brought a lot of depth and experience and capability. And we actually also didn't join him. He's in Boston. Allen Radlow was the sort of founder of Cambridge and had spent, you know, 25, 30 years at Fidelity. for having me. We said, we're not moving back to Boston. So you gotta make sure we can all work in Toronto.

[00:06:59] Greg Dean: And so, [00:07:00] uh, he agreed. And part of that was his personality. Like, I don't know if I would have survived in the same room as him for 10 years, but I knew I could learn a lot and wanted to. The 800 kilometers away.

[00:07:11] Stacy Havener: Yeah. I love that. And because, you know, that's one of the things, and I'm sure we'll talk about this when we get to, you know, now you've hung your own shingle, so to speak, but entrepreneurship has a lot of amazing elements to it and a lot of challenging elements.

[00:07:25] Stacy Havener: But one of them is, you know, you're not just building a business, you're building a life. And so that decision for you of, Hey, I don't want to move back to Boston. I mean, yes, it was Alan's firm and you had to kind of get his blessing, but like, that's part of why I think entrepreneurs and founders are attracted to starting their own thing because they can do it their way, both the business and the life piece.

[00:07:52] Stacy Havener: Okay. So you're there for how many years before you leave to start Langdon?

[00:07:56] Greg Dean: 10 years.

[00:07:57] Stacy Havener: Okay. So you were there for 10 years [00:08:00] and you joined it was a billion to 27. Did you say?

[00:08:05] Greg Dean: Yeah,

[00:08:05] Stacy Havener: that's massive. Okay. So then what happens? I feel like I've got my popcorn and I'm like, what's what happens next?

[00:08:11] Greg Dean: Well that journey was its own experience and I think what we all The four of us joining allen really all looked at each other and said like let's all go do this together And then every single day was a roundtable discussion on the most important things like it was very flat I was fortunate that the people more senior than I at that time You They just wanted to build something and they weren't super fussed on who got credit and who took the responsibility.

[00:08:37] Greg Dean: And so it was really just jump into stuff and add value. And so I quickly found myself supporting the. Larger cap strategies as an analyst, but wanting to kind of incubate and then eventually launch a small cap fund that would be in the same investment process as what we were establishing at Cambridge, but where I wouldn't have to go meet the big companies and I could just focus on these smaller [00:09:00] ones.

[00:09:00] Greg Dean: And so it took time because you had to make sure you did right by them and supported the PMs. And the other thing I realized very quickly was I need to be close to people. Like, so I ended up being in charge of recruiting. We had 60 interns in 10 years.

[00:09:13] Stacy Havener: That was just interns.

[00:09:15] Greg Dean: 60 interns came through the door over those 10 years.

[00:09:18] Greg Dean: And every single one of them I hired, interviewed, went to the schools or had them come to Toronto and, and it became one a one B what's the most fun part of your job is like finding investments, but also finding people. To help you find investments.

[00:09:31] Stacy Havener: Oh, I love that. That's super cool. So when you launched Langdon, which obviously is a specialist in small cap, was that part of the reason like this was your time to kind of make that vision for a small cap specialist real?

[00:09:48] Greg Dean: I'm sure many of the guests you've had on have come to some similar realization, but it was years before I left that I realized I would leave. I realized I would leave. What I joined was an [00:10:00] embryo. It was a scale up. It was autonomy. We had like every single person we hired. See, I never met them was very, very good at saying like independent business unit, make your own decisions within your domain, had great respect and enjoyed working with the executives at CI.

[00:10:18] Greg Dean: One of them is actually on our board. So the CEO Who hired us is actually on the Langdon board, but the problem with getting big is it all of a sudden becomes like the business plan. Maybe it gets a little hijacked or the you have to start compromising or being asked to compromise on things that you don't think.

[00:10:34] Greg Dean: You're willing to compromise on. So, you know, at some point call it halfway through two thirds of the way through that journey, we realized number one, dumb us, but this is not our firm. We work here, but it is not our firm. So that was like one humbling insight into entrepreneurship. You can feel like an entrepreneur, but not have the control.

[00:10:52] Stacy Havener: You're doing all the work. Yeah. You're doing, you've got the rollercoaster.

[00:10:56] Greg Dean: Yep. And then two, it was sort of just this, like, [00:11:00] how can I come to work every day? If I can't look the people I work with. In the eyes and tell them what is true. If we say, this is what's important to us. And this is what we need you to go do.

[00:11:11] Greg Dean: If ultimately that becomes usurped by external forces, it became this, like, I don't, I can't wear that for much longer. I don't want to wear that for much longer. And so, and then you just decide, well, it has to make sense for everybody. You know, on the right terms at the right time. And we ended up having a performance challenge in our global small cap strategy around the time I thought.

[00:11:31] Greg Dean: Initially I would leave and I wasn't leaving during that. So, yeah, so it was maybe a couple more years of thinking and really decided if I'm leaving, I want to get the structure right and I want to get the people right. Because those were the two things that really helped accelerate our foundation when we got to Cambridge.

[00:11:49] Stacy Havener: I love that. I'm going to stay on backstory a little bit more because there's an interesting thread in your materials and on your website and even just like I've listened to you talk about [00:12:00] Langdon. One of the things you talk about in small cap is it's under researched. It's under followed like in some ways, and maybe I'm just saying this because I cheer for the underdogs, but small cap is kind of the underdogs of sort of the equity market, if you will, right?

[00:12:15] Stacy Havener: Like No one's really paying attention. Some of the bigs can't because they just can't invest in them. Where does that come from for you? Where does that value around these are misunderstood? And I feel like I'm the one to be the guide for investors in these types of businesses.

[00:12:35] Greg Dean: It's a really good question.

[00:12:37] Greg Dean: Certainly in the, the common view of small caps being under followed under relevant, like why bother? I'm not, I don't, I'm not a customer of these products. I don't know what these businesses do. I like, where is Koblenz? I've heard of Berlin, but I've never heard of the small town in rural Germany. So why bother is definitely a reasonable.

[00:12:56] Greg Dean: Statement for me, it was actually, I started at [00:13:00] Fidelity in large cap and the way that whole firm operates is like, get your large caps, right? You'll have a great career here because we move big dollars and we need to be able to make decisions and move big dollars and add value. And then they kind of tell you on your first day, like if you're looking at small caps in your first three years, like someone's going to be upset.

[00:13:18] Greg Dean: So just be really careful. And if you're going to go off script, then you better be right. Cause you're not going to have the support of the institution. And so I didn't really spend much time on them initially, but it was before even graduating, I couldn't decide between math or business. I was like, this is your words are numbers and narrative.

[00:13:38] Greg Dean: Like it resonates for me so much because I said, I love numbers and the clarity and the transparency of like, you are right or you are wrong. But then I also felt like I enjoy people. I enjoy working with people. I enjoy learning from people and interacting with people. And I grew up on autobiographies.

[00:13:58] Greg Dean: So like, how do I [00:14:00] marry numbers and people? And I think what happened was I made that decision as a teenager that I want to spend the rest of my life intersecting numbers and people. And then when I got to small caps at Fidelity, I was like, that's what this is. It's numbers and it's people. And I didn't really feel that when I was, you know, trying to chase down mega cap CEOs and you had to go through four, like I'll never forget SAB Miller.

[00:14:25] Greg Dean: Which is no longer public, but they told me you have to go meet all of our regional IRs, North Africa, Europe, US, Canada. And once you've met the regional IRs, you can meet, you can meet the global IR. And then, and I'm like, okay, let's set this up for Tuesday. I'll do back to back five hours. And they were like, no, no, no, it doesn't work like that.

[00:14:46] Greg Dean: And so. Anyways, random tangent, but those sort of situations don't happen in small cap.

[00:14:52] Stacy Havener: No, I would imagine you're much closer to the actual people. It's not a huge IR department with 10 locations around the globe. [00:15:00] That's very interesting. And the autobiography thing, I hope we come back to that later on in the conversation.

[00:15:06] Stacy Havener: There's a quote, which I was going to Safer later, but it's so aligned with this narrative and numbers thing. So I'm reading Morgan Housel's new book, same as ever. I don't know if you've read it. It's, I mean, it's fantastic. He's an incredible, incredible storyteller and an incredible mind, but there's a quote in there that says every market valuation is a number from today multiplied by a story about tomorrow.

[00:15:33] Stacy Havener: And the stories change much faster than the numbers. And I can imagine That that's even more true in small cap.

[00:15:44] Greg Dean: For sure.

[00:15:44] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:15:45] Greg Dean: Hindsight narrative is a real thing and it can cost you a lot of money if you're not intellectually honest about the information you have at the time you're making the decision and the things you're expecting from the future. Because down the [00:16:00] road, if it works out, you'll tell yourself a whole different story.

[00:16:03] Greg Dean: And if it doesn't, you'll just go back to that initial decision and say, well, I actually made it for this reason. So we were big on like decision journals and documentation because, you know, as humans, like we're all valuable to that storytelling and getting carried away with our storytelling. But that was actually another great story from growing up at Fidelity.

[00:16:22] Greg Dean: You're surrounded by people. Telling you about what they did in the past and why, but Fidelity's note taking system is second to none. And so in my evenings and weekends, cause I'm a Canadian kid who moved to Boston. I don't have any friends. I don't have any family there. I'm reading. About what we thought about all these like legendary situations, AOL Time Warner, for example, I was maybe 15 but reading about what the analysts thought and what the PMs did, and then being able to talk to the PM about what they said they thought or [00:17:00] said they did, like there were gaps.

[00:17:02] Greg Dean: And it's just not about being dishonest. It's just about being human and probably misremembering what happened or the place you were in all those years ago. And for me, it's I fall victim to that too. But how do we shrink the gap? It's by being very deliberate in documenting and sharing with others. Like we have two people that do research on every investment idea.

[00:17:23] Greg Dean: So that it isn't you versus you

[00:17:25] Stacy Havener: to mitigate. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I totally see what you're saying. And maybe that was the intention of the quote. Was that sort of the bias that the narrative can spin you in? I don't want to say wrong direction or misdirect you. But for me, maybe it's because misdirect Just an eternal optimist.

[00:17:44] Stacy Havener: I was like, Oh, it's numbers and numbers, times narrative. So in other words, when you're analyzing a small cap company and you say we meet with management, there's like some crazy stat on your website about how many management meetings you've done. To me, I would think that [00:18:00] that's part of why you do it is because yes, the numbers.

[00:18:03] Stacy Havener: Tell one story, but when you meet the people and the qualitative research that you do tells another story and in my mind, maybe that's where the alpha potential is because everyone knows the numbers, but it's sort of like, how are you going to process the cross of the narrative and the numbers together in a positive way?

[00:18:23] Stacy Havener: Not so much that it could hurt you, but could it help you? Could it unlock alpha for the future?

[00:18:28] Greg Dean: So it's a good point for me. The training over the years has come from avoiding good stories.

[00:18:35] Stacy Havener: Oh yeah.

[00:18:36] Greg Dean: And cause small cap is littered with great stories that are not rooted exactly in, in reality or data. And so I think the best investments are what we would call observations, not predictions.

[00:18:51] Greg Dean: When you're saying this is the situation today, but it's such an embryonic stage for this business. It's going to be this wonderful thing in the future. Like, I have [00:19:00] a hard time until we can prove that as opposed to hope that we're not going to invest.

[00:19:06] Stacy Havener: So I like that because that's the cross, right?

[00:19:09] Stacy Havener: That's that cross between narrative and numbers. So talk about that because you mentioned, I watched another interview where you said, like, that's one of the things that differentiates you. And I think as a boutique and as an entrepreneur, that's really what allocators want, right? Not that I need you to be better.

[00:19:28] Stacy Havener: I want you to be different. So talk about that a little bit and what you think your edge is or what differentiates you?

[00:19:36] Greg Dean: Yeah, that intersection of numbers and narrative would be a very good thread to pull on because a lot of, I think if you look at what other people are able to do, they'll either sell you one of two things, army of individuals, offices around the world, resource coming out the wazoo, or we're super narrow or super focused and our conviction leads to magic.

[00:19:58] Greg Dean: And great [00:20:00] outcomes. And I think while both could be true, the power comes from being able to say, we observe, we don't predict, so we don't have the resources of humans in the thousands and billions of dollars to deploy in operating costs, but also like, how do we not just read a great piece of research and say, we agree and spend somebody else's money because that technically is the bar.

[00:20:22] Greg Dean: Like there are firms that operate at that bar, but that bar would keep me up at night with my own money. So it better keep me up at night even more with other people's money. And so I think one of those differentiating aspects is what can you prove versus what do you think? Or we call it trust, but verify.

[00:20:40] Greg Dean: And so that verification process has to be independent from the company. Like I always love when allocators ask, like, aren't you worried about getting sold by these executives that you go meet? Wouldn't it be better to kind of just say behind your desk and then you're independent and able to keep that, you know, not fall in love with the investments you're making.

[00:20:58] Greg Dean: And, you know, so what we do now is [00:21:00] whenever we invite clients to anything, we also invite executives. Of stuff we own, but, or of stuff we used to own.

[00:21:06] Stacy Havener: Cool.

[00:21:07] Greg Dean: Yeah. Then we say, don't ask us.

[00:21:09] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Tell me, wait. You have to explain that. So you're, you're doing something at your office. Let's say, wait, just tell me what that is.

[00:21:16] Stacy Havener: That's so different.

[00:21:17] Greg Dean: If we were to say, which we do trust, but verify is an integral step in our process. But then we were to meet with allocators. And their trust, but verify is just as important. So if they're only meeting with us and hearing from us, everyone sounds amazing. Everyone's great at what they do, but what other avenue can we give them to potentially verify?

[00:21:42] Greg Dean: They're going to go and do behind the desk research of their own. They're also good at interrogating managers, but why don't you also talk to the CEO billion company whose shareholders could be anybody. And, and we're not paying this person to speak on our behalf. So everything they say is probably true.

[00:21:59] Greg Dean: The good, the [00:22:00] bad, the mediocre. And so we just found that to be a more powerful statement around, like, you should verify what we're telling you about us. And we need to get that from the companies we're investing with. So when we go meet them. We don't just write it all down and then assume it's going to happen.

[00:22:16] Greg Dean: We, that's the starting point. Management said is the starting point for four months of work, if that makes sense.

[00:22:23] Stacy Havener: Yeah, absolutely. Do the allocators like that? I would imagine that would be really cool for them.

[00:22:29] Greg Dean: I wish we could get more in front. Of when we host, it's something that we do. We offer it to the ones that will meet in their offices, where you can't just kind of bring a Russell 2000 CEO alongside or along with you for the ride, but they do.

[00:22:44] Greg Dean: I think they just appreciate the transparency and have that conversation with us not in the room. We'll make the connection and then let us know how it goes.

[00:22:51] Stacy Havener: That's so cool. So one of the other things that jumped out to me, mostly because I, I've heard it with value investors. But I [00:23:00] would say probably more, I don't know, mid cap, large cap, is this idea of compounders.

[00:23:06] Stacy Havener: Because I think in small cap, you do get a lot of take outs, and there's a lot of ways you can create value in small cap, certainly in an environment where M& A is, is hot, there's lots of ways. But you actually talk about compounders in small cap. Can you unpack that for us a bit?

[00:23:24] Greg Dean: Yes. So again, with my call it academic or math background, in theory, the return on invested capital that a business earns would be what you would earn as a shareholder.

[00:23:36] Greg Dean: If you held it forever, because almost no one does, most people don't, you end up getting a totally distorted return could be better, could be worse. It just depends on the time horizon and the time period in which you own that investment for. And so just remembering that when you're doing work on a business.

[00:23:53] Greg Dean: Can really help improve your return on time. Something that we talk a lot about in the office, everyone talks about return on capital. That's the job, [00:24:00] but return on time is just as important in small cap because you got 4, 000 things you could look at and you want to make seven great investments this year.

[00:24:08] Greg Dean: So in large cap, you can meet every single company every year and it just wouldn't take you very long. But in small cap, that's not possible. So return on time and having some of these, we call them just like quick nose can really help you triage, you know, where and how you're spending your time. So that's been something that has just become even more important.

[00:24:29] Greg Dean: As we scale, because we are talking to 500 different companies a year doing a thousand meetings, like these are the things that you're not supposed to be able to do as a group of six, but we're all kind of wired that way. And that's obviously the direction we've chosen.

[00:24:43] Stacy Havener: Fascinating. There's another piece I wanted to talk about in kind of setting up the firm that's unique.

[00:24:51] Stacy Havener: So I think we touched on a couple of differentiators on the sort of philosophical. Side, which I like, and if there are more, we can come back to that. But you also made a [00:25:00] decision as an entrepreneur to partner with Pinnacle. And was that right at the start? Or is that something that built later? Can you talk about that evolution?

[00:25:12] Greg Dean: Yeah, it wasn't that long ago. It was three years ago, but what a crazy time. Leaving the place I'd worked for 10 years, basically not able to work for 15 months because of, you know, restraints. And like, the world was closed. I was having calls with them, and they couldn't come to meet me, and I couldn't come meet them.

[00:25:31] Greg Dean: Just due to restrictions, and so they were one of 18 different, I'll call it business plan accelerators that I met with or 1 to 7 meetings, you know, I was running what I called a dual track process. I knew I was leaving. I've left, but I don't want to attach anybody to this business plan unless I feel great about the value they're going to add at the beginning and the middle and the end.

[00:25:57] Greg Dean: I'd rather keep going in alone. [00:26:00] And part of this was, you know, coming out of a work relationship, work marriage that didn't end up as you'd hoped. Like when I left Fidelity, I thought this is the last job I'm ever going to have because it's with people I've always wanted to work with and we're working closely together.

[00:26:12] Greg Dean: And so just the baggage that comes with. Like that. Wow. As a group, we couldn't make it work. And now I'm going to go try to make it work. And currently it's just myself met 18 different firms and had great conversations. And it went to every single one of them and said, we need three things. We need seed capital, working capital, and global distribution, because the dynamic in Canada is that banks have 70 percent of the distribution.

[00:26:36] Greg Dean: Market and that has only been going up over time. I know it's crazy in the U. S. That like ended 20 years ago and we've got a lot of independent avenues for distribution, but that isn't the reality here. And so we were the first company. This was told to me by our lawyers at the time of startup. We were the first company to go after the retail market in [00:27:00] Canada out of the gate.

[00:27:01] Greg Dean: In 17 years, 15 at that time.

[00:27:05] Stacy Havener: And by retail, you mean the bank channel?

[00:27:08] Greg Dean: Banks. Yeah. So lots of like firms had started, of course, hedge funds and high net worth accredited investor boutiques, but nobody had said we are going to launch with a 5, 000 minimum available to anyone. Straight out of the gate because it's expensive and you got to get these big counterparties to co sign on your credibility as a counterparty.

[00:27:30] Greg Dean: So global distribution was our hedge. It was like, what if no one in Canada cares? Like, we had 22, 000 clients and 27 billion dollars from Canadians, but what if nobody wants us back? And so, you know, had those conversations and probably by meeting three realized, oh, there's a fourth thing. Minority stake only will not sell control and that shrank the list like

[00:27:52] Stacy Havener: I was just gonna ask how much did that shrink the list?

[00:27:55] Greg Dean: 18 to 3 Yeah,

[00:27:58] Stacy Havener: I mean I shouldn't laugh but [00:28:00] I mean that's the dynamic good for you

[00:28:02] Greg Dean: Everybody wants to be your partner if they can control it

[00:28:05] Stacy Havener: Absolutely.

[00:28:06] Greg Dean: Yeah.

[00:28:07] Stacy Havener: Wow Okay. So now you've narrowed it down to three and of course pinnacle is are they in australia? And so Was that part of the distribution?

[00:28:18] Stacy Havener: Because Australia has a pretty unique distribution channel as well, right? With the superannuation. I'm not as familiar with Australia, but was that part of the vision?

[00:28:28] Greg Dean: There was, as there always is, there was a lot of serendipity along the way. So that, when I maybe realized this journey at CI was going to come to an end, but not imminently, I was approached, they had just bought a distributor in Australia.

[00:28:42] Greg Dean: Yeah. In I think 2016, 2017 called grant Samuel funds management, and they did 9 billion. They distributed 9 billion. Their biggest client was Epic, the build priests firm based in New York that was bought by TD and they. Had bought this [00:29:00] business. It's their first investment outside of Canada. And I guess they were looking for a synergy because one day we had these Aussies in our office in Toronto at CI and they said, we want to take your global small cap fund to Australia.

[00:29:12] Greg Dean: And it was maybe only three years old at the time. And I saw that as an opportunity to build a business. That was going to be fun and interesting. And what do I know about Australia? And, and so, and see, I didn't know anything about Australia. So I would be sort of an important part of the decision making architecture.

[00:29:29] Greg Dean: And so we got, you know, three years into that and then I left. And so it was actually a, an asset consultant in Australia after I left said, if you want to keep doing what you were doing and you maybe want to find a great partner, I have a couple of recommendations that I'd love to make. And so credit to this.

[00:29:48] Greg Dean: Person for making two connections, both of which offered us, gave us term sheets and I knew from the first meeting pinnacle was the best fit because it felt like talking to entrepreneurs as opposed to a [00:30:00] logo and they are a big firm with 100 billion and almost 20 year track record, but they still run it like it's a small firm and so long story short, we ended up signing with pinnacle in the fall of that year.

[00:30:12] Greg Dean: So roughly six months after I left. And we get to say three years later, like we're even happier, their motto, which isn't just Kumbaya, their motto is supported independence, which is really easy to say, but very hard to offer because they trust us to build the business. They don't have some sneaky oversight or, or multi vote or any of these things.

[00:30:33] Greg Dean: Like they have put their capital. In our business, they have transplanted two individuals who now work in our office in operations post settlement, like post trade, and also risk and compliance. So they don't just write checks. They actually do the hard thing, which is help you build your business. They've got a world class distribution organization that's helped us raise a lot of money and get global consultant ratings and things that we would never have been able to achieve on our [00:31:00] own at this stage.

[00:31:01] Stacy Havener: But that is so nice to hear because not all of those partnerships work out as planned either. And I'm always floored when I meet like bigs that still somehow have that founder vibe, that entrepreneur vibe. There's not a lot of them, but there are a few. And like, it just always twists my brain because I'm like, wait, but aren't, don't you have like 50 billion?

[00:31:30] Stacy Havener: How are you still, how do you still have that vibe?

[00:31:33] Greg Dean: I get chills hearing you say that because it's so true. Like they have all the potential to help in the world and they don't have the ability or they aren't organized to support entrepreneurs in an intellectually honest way. They'll call you an entrepreneur, but they have super majority voting rights on basically every important decision except what color you want to paint your office.

[00:31:57] Greg Dean: And it's like, that's not really, [00:32:00]

[00:32:00] Stacy Havener: that's not what I signed up for.

[00:32:01] Greg Dean: Yeah. So, and you would think going from like startup to where we are today, which is not very far, that's going to be the rockiest period. In my view.

[00:32:10] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:32:10] Greg Dean: Are you going to do what you said you were going to do? Are you going to be as advertised?

[00:32:14] Greg Dean: Cause the whole courtship was virtual because it was COVID.

[00:32:19] Stacy Havener: That's right. Let's just back up for a second. You have three strategies, right? Of global, tell me how many strategies you have. Global small cap and then.

[00:32:27] Greg Dean: And domestic smalls. Two strategies, three vehicles.

[00:32:30] Stacy Havener: Okay. Two strategies, three vehicles. I'm assuming you seed with your own capital.

[00:32:35] Greg Dean: Yep.

[00:32:35] Stacy Havener: Plus pinnacle. So the seed capital was how much, let's say?

[00:32:40] Greg Dean: So, roughly, them 10, employees 10.

[00:32:44] Stacy Havener: Okay, so you have 20 million bucks, and you're like, game on, let's go. Who cares about COVID, we're gonna just do our best. Where are you now?

[00:32:51] Greg Dean: About 250.

[00:32:53] Stacy Havener: That's pretty amazing. Do you feel proud?

[00:32:56] Greg Dean: I'm happy. Like, we are having fun.

[00:32:59] Greg Dean: I am measuring [00:33:00] this journey, learning from the previous journey. It has to be fun. And so I think the pride is more on the inputs. I don't necessarily have an association of with pride and the assets because small caps, by their very nature, we're never going to raise 10 billion. That would be the worst thing we could do for clients.

[00:33:19] Greg Dean: So if we wanted to go hang our hat on the size, we would have launched a totally different strategy. So. I am proud of the team. I am proud of our partner and proud of the work we put in before we got going, because that infrastructure, if you lay it incorrectly, it's a headwind, the rest of your career.

[00:33:38] Greg Dean: And if you lay it correctly, it can be a massive accelerant to your, your success over the longterm. And I think I got great advice along the way. One of which was make sure you want these people around at the beginning, middle and the end. And so being in that now three years, I can very much say, I want them around.

[00:33:55] Greg Dean: We want their help. We benefit from their knowledge and experience. We were just in the UK [00:34:00] meeting in Ireland and London meeting with a whole heap of clients that we would have had no shot meeting. We're talking about launching a usage in Q3. We had no following in that market. It's their reputation.

[00:34:11] Greg Dean: They only back a manager a year, maybe. So that has given us like, I joke, it's like Intel inside. You know, you got whatever laptop. It's like pinnacle, pinnacle inside. It just goes a long way for these very large counterparties to say, okay, if they stamped you guys, I'll take a meeting.

[00:34:28] Stacy Havener: Whoa, there's so many, like, I had to literally, like, keep my mouth from saying a word because there's so many mic drop moments in that little riff right there.

[00:34:40] Stacy Havener: My favorite has to be, like, that you're, you're measuring sort of your pride and your success, not just by the dollars, but by the fun. Oh my God. If that's not a reason to become a founder, I don't know what is. That is so good. Good for you. I'm proud of you for saying that because I know it's true. I don't [00:35:00] even know what to say next.

[00:35:01] Stacy Havener: Okay. That's amazing. So wait, we have UK listeners, so that's good. They'll be jazzed that you're going to maybe have a use it. What about the U. S. investors? What about the rest of us? Do you have anything for us?

[00:35:14] Greg Dean: Yeah, potentially the real interesting thing. And this happens in our market too. The difference between Canada and the U S is Canada's 5 percent of the world's investable assets, the U S is like North of 50.

[00:35:26] Greg Dean: So the way allocators think and act is I want my domestic exposures and then I want my non domestic exposures. So this global small caps is not really a tried and true category for most investors in the U. S. Yeah, they want domestic smalls and international smalls and international ex U. S. And I think the additional challenge we face is you're going to carve up your capacity.

[00:35:52] Greg Dean: Every vehicle, as you know, is a certain amount of dollars a year to manage. And we're not, by launching International Smalls, it wouldn't [00:36:00] necessarily unlock capacity.

[00:36:02] Stacy Havener: No, because there'd be too much crossover. So what is your capacity?

[00:36:05] Greg Dean: I think it's in that two to three billion U. S. range. So CI is a 50 year old company and they've capped one fund in their life.

[00:36:12] Greg Dean: And it was my domestic small cap fund. And I can tell you that was a fun one. Clear it with marketing and sales and senior leadership. Like most big firms don't want to cap one of their best selling strategies.

[00:36:24] Stacy Havener: No,

[00:36:25] Greg Dean: but it was the right thing to do.

[00:36:29] Stacy Havener: It is the right thing to do. And that pushed me pull you between sort of the investment side who says I have a process and I have a philosophy and I want to execute it to the best of my ability for my investors. And the, so the investment side and the business side, that friction. I can't imagine what it's like, but it is, in some ways I'm grateful for it because that is the spark.

[00:36:56] Stacy Havener: That's the catalyst for so many talented boutiques [00:37:00] to say, I'm out.

[00:37:02] Greg Dean: Yeah, there's a better way.

[00:37:03] Stacy Havener: I'm out of the big, I am starting my own thing because those are not the rules I want to play by. Well, okay. So two to three billion. All right. That's the journey so far. I want to talk a little bit about qualitative due diligence, which we've talked about with companies.

[00:37:19] Stacy Havener: We've talked about it even with pinnacle because that was a very big part of your decision to partner with them. How does that show up for you when you're meeting with allocators? I'm sort of talking my own book here because I think that's sort of the missing piece, especially for boutiques. So much of the qualitative due diligence when you work for a big shop is beat out of you.

[00:37:41] Stacy Havener: Like it's not about you. It's not about the people. It's about the firm and the process and the numbers. So how have you worked through that?

[00:37:51] Greg Dean: Well, this is probably the first major topic. lit me up that I heard you speak on kind of at that early stage of [00:38:00] my journey to leaving. It was like, it's about them.

[00:38:03] Greg Dean: It's about the allocator and the problem that you might help them solve. And so having sat at two bigger firms and done plenty of marketing, the best meetings were the ones that were dynamic and two way dialogue. We're looking for this. Tell us about that. How can you do it like this? What are your guys thoughts on that?

[00:38:23] Greg Dean: When it's like, thank you for coming to my office. And it's almost like someone's kind of pulling the, the string and just going to get you to go to what slide one, slide two, slide three. No one enjoys that. The allocator probably doesn't enjoy that. I don't, the manager doesn't enjoy that. And so I think just credit to you for, for helping people focus on making sure you're adding value for the customer.

[00:38:45] Greg Dean: And so I think I've always been a curious person. And so I'm at my best when I know why I'm there, what problem am I. Potentially able to solve, or where is there a fit or not a fit? I think [00:39:00] that's part of the issue is some people go in a room and think they have to win every room versus the first 10 minutes where you're like, this person owns, you know, preferred securities and basically only invests in private credit and has never bought a mutual fund.

[00:39:11] Greg Dean: So what are the odds that Langdon is going to become a big supplier to them? Like it just isn't going to happen. So I think the qualitative due deal. That we, because I'm not the only one on the team that meets with allocators. Everybody understands that it's okay to say, I don't know, let me get back to you.

[00:39:27] Greg Dean: Or that's a good question. Let me think about it. And I think we're trying to come across as honestly as we can and help painting that picture for like, what is the experience you're going to get when you invest with us? The good, the maybe not so good. And so a lot of that is, can be helped by who helps you get in the room, right?

[00:39:46] Greg Dean: Cause the distribution team, if they're sending you pre notes and helping you get like this person is like this, and they've made these other types of investment decisions in the past and really talk about the concentration of the portfolio, talk about your [00:40:00] willingness to, one of the things we realized very quickly at Cambridge was there's not a lot of people in the investment business that are willing to take career risk.

[00:40:06] Greg Dean: Yeah.

[00:40:07] Stacy Havener: Understatement of the year. Century.

[00:40:10] Greg Dean: They will put impairment of capital risk on their clients. To avoid career risk.

[00:40:16] Stacy Havener: Yes.

[00:40:17] Greg Dean: And so we, again, flip that on its head and say, actually, we're here to take career risk and save you from impairment of capital risk. You might not believe us. And so let's go through the details and the pack and the discussion and the data.

[00:40:28] Greg Dean: Every data collection process is different, but I think having been trained as a, like we are professional interrogators. That is our job. We can do math, but we also interrogate executives for a living. And so it's totally reasonable to allow allocators to interrogate us.

[00:40:46] Stacy Havener: And yeah, and it probably doesn't make you uncomfortable because you're like, I get it.

[00:40:50] Stacy Havener: We do the same thing. You probably want them to interrogate you and have that back and forth. That is what makes a meeting fun. I also love what you said [00:41:00] about not every dollar is the right dollar for you. Not every investor is the right investor for you, which by the way, when you're running capacity constrained strategies becomes even more critical.

[00:41:12] Stacy Havener: Because you said like if we launch a use it that takes capacity if we do a u. s Thing that takes capacity. So now you've got to weigh all the elements Around that

[00:41:24] Greg Dean: I wanted those decisions like this is how I knew early on choose your problems wisely I wanted to be in the conversation on what is our capacity and where should we set the fee and what is the right?

[00:41:35] Greg Dean: composition of high net worth institutional family office wealth these are just Interesting For me again, everyone's different, but I mentioned this to somebody actually yesterday, who's probably two years behind where we are in terms of just like, they're at that stage where they know it's not, if I leave it's when I leave and like, that was the hardest thing to get to, but once you get there, you know, what's going to happen.

[00:41:58] Greg Dean: You just don't know exactly the [00:42:00] circumstances. And my advice to them was don't, um, don't overvalue things you don't understand. Go spend some time thinking about or looking into whether it's, you know, because this person was saying, you know, we want to find a partner like a pinnacle for our asset class and, and just based on that early discussion, it was like, I think you might be overvaluing what you need.

[00:42:23] Greg Dean: I don't think you need as much as what you think you need. And you might regret. What you give up for what they'll provide and then you're going to be unhappy at some future state And I think I think what happens is and i'd be curious your thoughts. Yeah, when you're At a big company. It feels like people Undervalue stuff.

[00:42:43] Greg Dean: They don't know like all this stuff just happens

[00:42:46] Stacy Havener: Yes,

[00:42:47] Greg Dean: then you end up on your own and maybe out of fear or Anxiety or whatever. You're like, who is our auditor? How much does an audit cost? How much is a vehicle to set up? You don't know. [00:43:00] So you're like, oh, if this person or group is going to take this off my plate, like we'll pay this for that or we'll give up this for that.

[00:43:05] Greg Dean: But it's like,

[00:43:06] Stacy Havener: we'll give up 51 percent of the firm for an auditor. Yes. Like exaggeration. But that is that's a great point. I think you're right. I agree with you. We talked a little bit about this in the green room. It's one thing to be a portfolio manager and that has a whole set of challenges. You know, it's like, that's your craft.

[00:43:27] Stacy Havener: When you become an entrepreneur, that's a whole nother thing. That's a whole nother thing. And those of us who are good at our crafts usually aren't also good at entrepreneurship. Like we have to figure that out. And so once you get out there in the wild, so to speak, you're like, Oh shit, I either have to do it.

[00:43:47] Stacy Havener: Like I have to turn the lights out every night, or I need someone else to, and every person's different how they react to that. That's interesting. You would give them that advice. We won't go too much into it, but I [00:44:00] agree with you. I have found to your point about different investors and kind of finding the ones that are right for you.

[00:44:07] Stacy Havener: I always talk about that adoption curve and you have the early adopters and then like the laggards. There are a lot of early adopters who are willing to take career risk. I sort of say career risk with quotes because many of them are founders themselves or family offices who've built their wealth by being a founder.

[00:44:26] Stacy Havener: They're willing to invest in your strategy. Often without economics, like there, if you know, they meet you and they're like, wow, Greg, your story's fantastic. And you said, oh, hey, I want to do something in the U. S. There are allocators that will be like, I'll be day one with you. I'll be day one with you. And I don't need economics.

[00:44:48] Stacy Havener: And so I share that as a way to say there are lots of ways to get there. And I think as an entrepreneur, you have to figure out what's the right one for you.

[00:44:57] Greg Dean: Yeah. And I think the risk and the reward has to [00:45:00] make sense. Like you can't get greedy. And I think some people think I want the uncapped upside of entrepreneurship, but I also can only take a 10 percent pay cut from this amazing job that I have right now.

[00:45:13] Greg Dean: And it's like, you're not ready.

[00:45:15] Stacy Havener: No. And that is something. So going back to my earlier question about how do you feel about where you are today. Here you are at 250 and you've got an amazing firm and you made the great comment of it's more than the AUM and it will always be more than the AUM given the specialty that you have.

[00:45:33] Stacy Havener: I think it's There's also a bias when you leave a big firm that everything should happen like that. Like, Oh, I'm going to set up my shop. I'm going to launch my strategy. I'll have a billion in a year, anything less than that, I'm not going to be happy. And you laugh and I laugh too, because I'm like, okay, I don't want to be the one to burst your bubble, but that's probably not going to happen.

[00:45:55] Greg Dean: My, again, the humbling experience of leading a business [00:46:00] as someone who also for a living invests in other people's businesses. We hold these executives to such micro, like they guide 10 to 14 percent on revenue this year and it comes in at 9. 4. And the whole quarterly call is like, well, you missed. And how come you missed?

[00:46:17] Greg Dean: And what, why'd you get it all wrong? And, and here you are being like, I don't know if we'll have four clients next year or 40. I hope it's 40, but thank goodness. There's not some transcript that somebody can read about what I was saying two years ago about what was going to happen in three months. And so that just is a constant reminder for myself to be like, have grace and patience and understanding and empathy for these people who run companies for a living.

[00:46:44] Greg Dean: It's hard.

[00:46:45] Stacy Havener: That is such an interesting. So do you think becoming an entrepreneur has changed? How you I won't say how you evaluate companies, but just kind of maybe it has how you evaluate them [00:47:00] or kind of the grace that you give these executives. Now that you know a little bit more about what it's like,

[00:47:05] Greg Dean: it's been a game changer for me personally.

[00:47:08] Stacy Havener: Wow.

[00:47:09] Greg Dean: Because you just have a much broader array of things in your aperture as a business leader than you do as a fund manager and fund managing is by far the biggest, most important thing that I stay close to because I enjoy doing it and I think it's, you know, what our clients hire, hire me to be doing, but when you're talking to companies, it's both, you have more empathy and maybe more grace, but you also have less, you're less willing to placate what I'll call like hyperbole You're like, tell me what that actually means.

[00:47:40] Greg Dean: We own a hotel chain in Ireland and they were onboarding a revenue management tool that was going to help them figure out what to charge, what, how to price their inventory more accurately and ultimately lead to improved outcomes. And I'm like, well, how long did you demo that software tool before you decided to buy it?

[00:47:57] Greg Dean: And they were like, oh, well, no, they said [00:48:00] it's going to be 5 percent is the targeted revenue improvement that we'll get from implementing it. And I'm like, well, if they said zero, would you buy it? And like, as someone who has to think about every dollar we spend, I can picture someone coming saying, Greg, this AI tool is going to make your team a better investment firm.

[00:48:17] Greg Dean: And on average, we improve your batting average by 3%, 2%, 1%, 5%. I would be going through a whole host of like AB testing and I can put myself in their shoes more easily, I think in the good and the bad.

[00:48:31] Stacy Havener: Yes, that's such a fascinating insight. I love that. I could talk to you for another hour, but people might be annoyed that the call is going that long.

[00:48:41] Stacy Havener: So maybe we should switch gears a little. You shared some advice that you gave a friend who called you, who's kind of, like you said, two years ahead of you. But I want to stay with that advice piece a little bit because here you are, you're three years in, you've obviously been very thoughtful about how you're building the firm.[00:49:00]

[00:49:00] Stacy Havener: Today and sort of looking towards the future. What other advice would you give founders on the journey?

[00:49:07] Greg Dean: One is make sure you have a network, like really invest time into not just like transactional networks, but really, like, I've spent probably it's step changed in the last 3 years because you lose all this inherited infrastructure.

[00:49:24] Greg Dean: And you're really like, it's just me right now. And you can be more deliberate with who and how you spend your time, but make sure that network you're investing in it, like be a great steward of other people's thoughts and feelings and needs and ambitions, but also like, don't be afraid to tap that network for advice.

[00:49:44] Greg Dean: You don't have all the answers and it's okay, but somebody else probably does. Cause. None of us are going down a path that someone else hasn't already gone down. Like that apprenticeship mindset should always be top of mind. And so that would be one big one. And I'd also probably say [00:50:00] run towards hard things, not away from hard things.

[00:50:04] Greg Dean: And that has really, that was its own journey. It's still a journey, but was a journey for me. Like I've made some very expensive mistakes. I bought a domain for 15, 000 that we abandoned 60 days into our Langdon was not the first name that we started putting money behind, but, uh, was going to be hard to back out of that.

[00:50:27] Greg Dean: Cause of the costs and because of the things that you'd started to lay, but it was the right longterm thing to do to avoid future problems. I think someone was probably going to sue us. So, or we'd compromise which markets we could be. Relevant in and like what IP did we have at that stage? Just run leave let it go But that would be the other thing I would say it's run run towards hard things

[00:50:49] Stacy Havener: so good We've all had those mistakes where you're like, you know what fail fast fail fast just okay.

[00:50:56] Stacy Havener: That's not the name We're moving on. We don't need to fight that battle [00:51:00] Great advice. Just such great advice. Such thoughtful advice. I would like to transition to some questions patterned after Proust's questionnaire, which is designed to sort of let us get started. See a little bit more of of Greg so to speak and I'll start with an easy one now You mentioned you like autobiographies you said at the at the beginning, so I'm very curious what your answer is gonna be here No pressure first question What book inspires you

[00:51:29] Greg Dean: that has been the genre of choice for at least the last 20 years But the book I recommend To everyone, anyone must read before you join us on our Langdon mission is actually startup nation, which is Dan center.

[00:51:45] Greg Dean: It's about how flat the work environments are in Israeli companies and how a lot of that comes from the IDF experience that you basically have to have as someone growing up there, challenging up and challenging [00:52:00] down. And for me, that just resonated. It's probably why I didn't do well in high school, but I did well in university.

[00:52:05] Greg Dean: It's like, I have a lot of questions. I like to know why things are the way they are, but feeling comfortable challenging up and challenging down and how required it is in that culture was, uh, I probably read that book once a year.

[00:52:19] Stacy Havener: Okay, I'm reading that. Also, I love how that ties back to you said, I'm a professional interrogator.

[00:52:27] Stacy Havener: Apparently that was also, there were signs of that in high school, it sounds like.

[00:52:31] Greg Dean: Yeah, grade school.

[00:52:35] Stacy Havener: I love it. Okay, next question. What place inspires you? What's your happy place?

[00:52:41] Greg Dean: Nature and fitness. It's tough to pick. Sweating is just like a, it's a cure all, very grounding. Some people, like even my wife, like for her, sweating is uncomfortable.

[00:52:54] Greg Dean: For me, it's like oxygen, just need it.

[00:52:56] Stacy Havener: And it's so good for your mind, isn't it? Especially like as an [00:53:00] entrepreneur now, you've got tons of stuff swirling around in your head, I can imagine. So what's your fitness of choice?

[00:53:07] Greg Dean: Cardio is Peloton. For sure.

[00:53:09] Stacy Havener: Okay! You didn't give it up after COVID. You're still going.

[00:53:13] Greg Dean: Yeah. I used to ride outdoors and if you live in a city and you're spending half the time getting out of the city on the bike or getting in the car to drive the bike to where you actually want to ride. I got two little kids, so my windows are Unpredictable.

[00:53:26] Stacy Havener: Yes. And

[00:53:27] Greg Dean: short.

[00:53:28] Stacy Havener: Get in where you fit in. Yeah.

[00:53:30] Stacy Havener: Okay. Next question. We're going to music a little bit, so we're going to pretend it's three years from now and you've been asked to give a talk to a thousand of your true fans. You're about to take the stage. What is your walkout anthem?

[00:53:49] Greg Dean: Oh man, I love music.

[00:53:52] Stacy Havener: Okay. It

[00:53:53] Greg Dean: is very contextual. My answer to this would be very contextual.

[00:53:57] Greg Dean: How I'm feeling, where we are, [00:54:00] who's in the room.

[00:54:01] Stacy Havener: How about today? What would it be if we did it today?

[00:54:04] Greg Dean: 22 twos, Jay Z.

[00:54:08] Stacy Havener: I feel like people come on my podcast because they really want to say that they're rap and hip hop fans. I think that's the driver.

[00:54:16] Greg Dean: You might be self selecting. Wrapping house for me or if my kids aren't in the car, that's where we're going for sure.

[00:54:24] Stacy Havener: So good Yeah, my daughter had an issue at school because of a lyric and I was like, okay, my bad

[00:54:31] Greg Dean: Don't know how that happened.

[00:54:33] Stacy Havener: I don't know how that happened. I'm not sure where she heard that fantastic answer I'm, not biased at all What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

[00:54:43] Greg Dean: I think the ingredients you need to have I don't want to be selling my time You I decided I had like 15 different jobs before I graduated.

[00:54:52] Greg Dean: And it was all some version of. Restaurant or dishwashing or whatever. And it was like, this is not [00:55:00] going to be for me. So I think there aren't many jobs where you're not selling your time. So I kind of feel like I've lucked out and I have the best job for me. I have also thought about if my skill is analyzing financial statements and interrogating executives, I think I would really like to apply that in the government.

[00:55:17] Greg Dean: Let's go look at some of these crown corporations where. They say they're doing okay and they're not making any money. And let's just start asking why until we save a billion dollars. I think I could have some fun in that sort of realm, but I'd also love to be a detective.

[00:55:32] Stacy Havener: That's where I thought you were going to go with it.

[00:55:34] Stacy Havener: I'm like, he's going to say you want to like solve crimes, like a true crime. Yeah, I could see it. I could see either one of those.

[00:55:41] Greg Dean: Yeah.

[00:55:41] Stacy Havener: Okay. Flip side. What profession would you not like to do?

[00:55:46] Greg Dean: Probably the one I mentioned about going into the government and just asking why I'd maybe last a day. So

[00:55:54] Stacy Havener: it'd be fun for the day and then yeah.

[00:55:56] Stacy Havener: Over it. Yeah. Okay. Last one. And I realized that [00:56:00] you're nowhere near this. What do you want people to say about you after you've retired or left the industry?

[00:56:07] Greg Dean: Oh, man, we talk a lot about I talk a lot about slope versus elevation. I credit a former colleague for helping me be able to articulate it that way.

[00:56:18] Greg Dean: I want to be able to say there was slope for as long as I was breathing air, like, just always trying to get better. Learn, improve, and also then ask that of everyone that you come into contact with, your family, your friends, your colleagues, it's really about like, test your limits and try to see how far you can get.

[00:56:37] Greg Dean: I think that's what gets me up every day at whatever the thing is that I'm doing, and I'm bad at a lot of things, so it doesn't have to be a super high bar, it's just about that slope. But I would say that if I was someone who encouraged other people to do that as well, it would be, The nicest thing anybody can say.

[00:56:54] Stacy Havener: Fantastic. The limiting beliefs element is very [00:57:00] real and encouraging people to think more about the slope than the elevation. I love that. Greg, thank you so much for being here. It has been a pleasure and I know our listeners will feel the same. We are all cheering for you on the journey.

[00:57:13] Greg Dean: Thank you, Stacy.

[00:57:14] Greg Dean: It's fun to be part of your body of work. Appreciate it.

[00:57:17] 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.

[00:57:32] Stacy Havener: Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance. All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm. Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Havener or Havener Capital Partners.

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