Episode 46: $500B Industry Think Tank CEO Dani Hristova of the Independent Investment Management Initiative on How Global Giants and Focused Specialists Co-Exist
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There's room for everyone at the table in the fund world—not just the bigs, but have fund buyers gotten the memo?
Thanks to champions like Dani Hristova, who are relentless about spotlighting the underdogs, fund buyers can thrive.
As CEO of the Independent Investment Management Initiative–a networking group representing 45 firms and $500B in assets–Dani gives small shop owners a platform to bring the specialized brilliance of small shops to the center stage.
In this episode, Stacy and Dani discuss:
Dani's Backstory – from earning a psychology degree to discovering her passion for finance at Schroders
Redefining the word ‘boutique’ – why Dani believes it’s not a dirty word but a superpower
Why ‘putting your cards on the table’ and sharing the story behind the performance builds trust from a human psych perspective
About Dani Hristova:
Dani Hristova is CEO of the Independent Investment Management Initiative (IIMI), the member-led industry think tank representing investment boutiques. In 2023, she was also appointed Non-Executive Director at Spring Capital Partners.
Dani began her career in financial services at Legal & General Investment Management in 2015 within the defined benefit pension scheme client team; she later joined Schroders Investment Management, with responsibility for some of the firm's largest pension scheme clients. Dani also worked for Nordea Asset Management, leading its UK insurance efforts until May 2023.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Transcript
Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.
[00:00:00] Dani Hristova: There can be this element of nervousness around, you know, smaller farms or startup farms. There can be a bit of a career risk element to it. And, and, you know, I think when you meet boutique firms and you get under the skin of what they're doing and you understand they're putting their money where their mouth is and you understand the culture within their firms and the reasons why they're doing it in a certain way, you can really get comfortable as to how that can be completely complimentary to other strategies that look nothing like that.
[00:00:26] Dani Hristova: Or they can easily stand alone.
[00:00:29] 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.
[00:00:47] Stacy Havener: You could say against the odds. Yeah, understatement. I share stories of the people behind the portfolios, while teaching you how to use story to shape outcomes. [00:01:00] 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.
[00:01:09] Stacy Havener: 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.
[00:01:27] Stacy Havener: I am so excited to introduce you to my soul sister across the pond, Danny Hristova. Danny is the CEO of an incredible organization called the Independent Investment Management Initiative. The IMI is a member led industry think tank representing specialist entrepreneurial investment boutiques that are entirely focused on and aligned with the interests of their investors.
[00:01:58] Stacy Havener: Be still my heart. [00:02:00] The Emmy represents 45 member firms, 2000 members of staff, and over 500 billion of assets before Danny was a voice for boutiques. She worked for the bigs and that's part of her unique vantage point. She believes as I do that there is a place in our industry for all of us. Bigs and boutiques, passive and active generalists.
[00:02:25] Stacy Havener: And specialists today, we unpack the challenges and opportunities of building an investment specialist firm. Danny is going to light you up. Let's dive in Danny. Thank you so much for being here. I feel like this has been a long time coming. This is like a coffee talk, except we're going to invite people into the conversation.
[00:02:48] Dani Hristova: I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me on. I have been waiting all week for this. Oh, yay
[00:02:55] Stacy Havener: Good. Okay. So let's start with my favorite thing [00:03:00] Story and i'd love for you To tell us a little bit about your journey. So we sit here as two females in finance. We are a rare breed Talk to me about how you came into this industry.
[00:03:12] Stacy Havener: Did you always know this was your path? Take us back.
[00:03:16] Dani Hristova: Yeah. I, it probably looks a little bit different to some of the people that you have interviewed before on the podcast, but I mean, I graduated with a degree in psychology, which actually, you know, it's pretty beneficial as you know, in this industry, but not really knowing that at the time or what I would do with that at the time.
[00:03:34] Dani Hristova: And I sort of did the classic thing. I mean, in the UK, when you graduate, you sort of. One of the most popular things to do is to apply to graduate programs. So companies will offer out a graduate program and they take on 10, 20 people and they kind of put you through a couple of challenging two years.
[00:03:50] Dani Hristova: And if you sort of succeed at the end of it, they'll keep you in the company. And I did that and it's really tough and I applied to so many, but I ended up on a graduate scheme in aviation with easy jet, which is [00:04:00] a low cost. Airline in Europe and it was so fun. I mean, there were 17 of us and it was great and I was doing a lot of different things, commercial work, ground operations, customer engagement.
[00:04:10] Dani Hristova: But I had definitely felt as I was coming towards the end of that that it wasn't my calling in life and I was really lucky because my brother had moved into finance straight out of university with a degree in biology, so that's funny, and he was working with pension scheme clients, and there was just one day where I said to him, I was like, what do you do?
[00:04:29] Dani Hristova: I have no idea what you do, you know, and he sort of sat down and explained it to me, and I was like, I'd quite like to have a go at what you're doing, and he's like, okay, but you know, we should, you know, Probably have a chat about, you know, what, what that means and what we do rather than you kind of going into it blind.
[00:04:43] Dani Hristova: And he had also at that time, he was working for legal in general, which is, you know, the biggest asset manager of UK pensions and one of the biggest asset managers globally as well. And there was an opening that was in his firm. And I met with a lot of people. I still went through, you know, pretty tough interview process, but I came from an aviation graduate [00:05:00] program.
[00:05:00] Dani Hristova: And I just remember calling him the night before that interview and saying, You know, so what is the difference between defined benefit and defined contribution again? And what is the basis point? I just need to get this straight in my head. So I didn't, it wasn't like a natural course in, but as soon as I got there and I was dropped into like a brilliant team, I mean, I went from legal in general, working with What they call their core pension scheme clients, they would smaller pension scheme clients.
[00:05:26] Dani Hristova: And then I moved into a role at Schroeder's so big firms with more strategic clients. And they were brilliant training grounds, you know, really understanding the industry. And I knew really early on, I was in the right place that, you know, I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it when I got there. But yeah, I crept into moving out of the more client services and really wanting to be people and strategic focus and sales focus.
[00:05:49] Dani Hristova: Yeah, it was, it was an interesting start, but it was, uh, you know, it is where I am today.
[00:05:54] Stacy Havener: You're still here as we both are. And don't you feel like the psychology piece? [00:06:00] I mean, you know, I am obsessed with behavioral psych. I just think it's like the key to sales that is so underestimated. Don't you find that that training like adds something
[00:06:13] Dani Hristova: special
[00:06:13] Stacy Havener: to.
[00:06:15] Dani Hristova: It's so funny because. I mean, you always say like people do business with people and I think one of the, there are two things which really have changed things for me, I think in my earlier on career. One was the move from pensions to insurance because pension schemes are intermediated and you would typically face off to investment consultants in that relationship, whereas with the insurance market, it's much more B2B.
[00:06:38] Dani Hristova: And so my. People skills and my, the sort of people that I was interacting with changed completely overnight when I moved between from pensions to insurance and also because they're more complex. I mean, pension schemes have a much more straightforward end game than insurance companies do. And so shifting that conversation to say, you know, where you had to kind of take a back step and say, okay, so how does your.
[00:06:59] Dani Hristova: Business [00:07:00] work. What, how do you view risk? You know, what is your appetite for certain different asset classes? What is your, you know, your longterm strategic vision as a company, all of these types of things that you ask, it became much more interactive and much more get to know your business, I think. And the other thing that stuck with me, and I really enjoyed that.
[00:07:17] Dani Hristova: I think that was quite pivotal for me. And the other thing that really stuck with me is I had this, This is going to make you laugh, but it's so funny. I had this brilliant head of sales when we were at Schroeders and he said to me, I remember him sitting down with me one day when I was like, I just really want to get into sales.
[00:07:31] Dani Hristova: I'm really enjoying this, you know, give me a chance. And he said, Danny, sales is like dating.
[00:07:37] Stacy Havener: Oh God. He
[00:07:37] Dani Hristova: was like, when you go on that first date, you're not going to seal the deal straight away. You're not going to put a ring on it. He's like, you're going to ask all these questions about them. You're going to get them to talk about themselves because that's what people love doing.
[00:07:49] Dani Hristova: They just You don't sit there and say, like, I'm great at this and I'm great at that. And I can buy us a big house in the car. And we're going to have 10 kids and it's going to be great. You know, he's like, you need to, all you need to do is secure [00:08:00] the second date, secure the second day. And he's talking about meetings, obviously.
[00:08:04] Dani Hristova: And also what you build up in that is you build up a picture of that interest and what they're trying to do and what they're trying to achieve. It's when you get to the point where you're saying, okay, well, this product is probably suitable for you. From an investment perspective, you know, you can, you know, You have a much clearer picture of that because you've gone through that process of getting to know them.
[00:08:23] Dani Hristova: So that really stuck with me as well. And if I kind of fast forward to coming out of the bigger firms and doing what I'm doing now with boutiques. Insanely helpful, you know, to be able to build those relationships and also to understand practically speaking why the cultures in these firms are the way they are and why they have such successful client relationships, because a lot of that sort of intuitively makes sense to me.
[00:08:48] Dani Hristova: So the psychology thing, even though I knew it wasn't my calling from a, I'm going to be a psychologist perspective, 100 percent definitely helps.
[00:08:56] Stacy Havener: I love the incremental commitment. The [00:09:00] incremental commitment is so important to sales and that's something, and we're going to take this to boutiques in a second, but it's such a simple thing.
[00:09:10] Stacy Havener: And yet that doesn't mean it's easy because as salespeople, so many of us are like. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to talk to you, and you just like, you know, throw up on them everything you know, every stat, every piece of paper, every file, here's every file I have, and you're like, This is just too much. And like, you're not trying to close the deal in the first meeting, as you said, the put a ring on it.
[00:09:33] Stacy Havener: Yeah.
[00:09:34] Dani Hristova: It is. Oh my God. I think he said some, maybe slightly creative things about what happens on the first
[00:09:41] Stacy Havener: day, but the sentence we're going to go with, put a ring on it is the podcast version we embrace. Okay. So let's take, so here you've spent your career in finance at the bigs and now, Tell our listeners what you do today.
[00:09:57] Dani Hristova: Yeah. So I mean today [00:10:00] I am chief executive of the independent investment management initiative, which is an industry think tank, advocacy group, networking group, which represents the challenges and interests of independent specialists, asset and wealth management firms. And we represent about half a trillion dollars of AUM around 2000 members of staff.
[00:10:23] Dani Hristova: We have grown about 20 percent in the last year. I joined about just over a year ago, just had my anniversary. I coined that term, which is fun. And you know, really we exist. If I sort of take it back to how the firm was launched, which is in the wake of the global financial crisis, it was sort of existed as a lobbying group initially to kind of say, you know, look, there have been some, Failures of large organizations and now is an opportunity to kind of raise the voices of small firms and even out the regulatory playing field, you know, for smaller firms relative to larger firms.
[00:10:53] Dani Hristova: And if we fast forward to where we are today, we have three core pillars and one is still around, you know, evening out the [00:11:00] regulatory playing fields. We do a lot of work to help create a better and a more fair and a more competitive regulatory environment for firms. But our core pillar in the middle is around promoting the strengths of boutique firms and facilitating commercial opportunities where we are.
[00:11:14] Dani Hristova: So we will partner with like minded people in the industry. And many of them you've had on this podcast before, which is amazing. And yourself, you know, included in that we will partner with, you know, the likes of Mallow Street, for example, who are this incredible community for pensions and insurance who put on, you know, super high quality, super targeted.
[00:11:33] Dani Hristova: Investment events. And one of the things they do in that is they do sort of, uh, and they call them investment masterclass. I think you would really appreciate this because it's kind of a ditch, the pitchfork type thing. And it's naturally an opportunity to sit and get under the skin of the managers. And, and we were able to do that as a partnership with them outside of, you know, the normal firms that managed you would interact with and the normal.
[00:11:52] Dani Hristova: Kind of even known price tags that come with that. We've done a whole lot of academic research that we're working on at the moment, sort of lifting under the [00:12:00] bonnet of, you know, where we've seen the performance premium for European boutique asset managers. And what are the qualities of those firms to actually lead to that performance premium?
[00:12:08] Dani Hristova: So really, you know, that skin in the game, the alignment, entrepreneurialism, you know, the creativity and the culture of smaller firms, which is, you know, really important. Brilliant. And then so that's a super important pillar and we do a lot with that and that's sort of exponentially growing in interest in the last year as well, considering it's super tough to operate and run a boutique.
[00:12:28] Dani Hristova: And then the third pillar, which I think sounds a bit salesy, but I like it. It's kind of the backbone of the organization, really. It's, um, it's our sort of our best practice and networking pillar. And what we have done is, um, Where we were quite business development, C suite oriented and investment oriented in the past.
[00:12:45] Dani Hristova: We have made sure now that we captured the whole of the firm because we know that when you are starting on your operating when you're growing a boutique, your challenges from an operational perspective from a legal and compliance perspective from a people perspective, [00:13:00] you know, all of those are impacted and affected in some way.
[00:13:03] Dani Hristova: And so we're Mhm. We're taking a few to do a lot of seminars, webinars, workshops, interactive. Sometimes I just sort of, you know, sit down a coffee and a chat with all of those groups so that we can help them in that question with that mission to grow and flourish as boutiques. So it's. It's a super dynamic role.
[00:13:21] Dani Hristova: It's a super interesting role. I have the privilege of just sitting and interacting with, you know, incredible specialist firms on a daily basis, which is just, you know, uh, probably you're trying to compete with me on this, but I've landed like the best career basically. And we're growing with sort of, you know, getting reach outside of the UK as well, which is super brilliant.
[00:13:42] Dani Hristova: I think a lot of firms outside of the UK have seen that we've built. A pretty clever and interesting and helpful and valuable infrastructure to support boutiques. And if we can kind of apply that in other areas, that would be an incredible goal, you know, to have. So it's super fun.
[00:13:58] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Wait a minute.
[00:13:59] Stacy Havener: [00:14:00] Wait a minute. I hear something. I hear little bells tinkling in my ear here. Is that saying that there's a chance that Immy could go global?
[00:14:08] Dani Hristova: I think, I mean, I, if I, so long as I'm involved with the organization, which I have every, you know, ambition to be part of it, you know, I have no ambitions to not be part of the organization.
[00:14:20] Dani Hristova: Absolutely. I mean, we have, we already have firms outside of, outside of the UK. We have firms in France, we have a firm in Norway, a couple of firms in the U S as well, actually, and more interest. And through, I think. The amount of work that we've done recently with partnering globally with sort of like minded people and being able to sort of just share a common goal to sort of talk about the strengths of boutiques and Enable them to coexist alongside global giants.
[00:14:48] Dani Hristova: It has inevitably meant that there are You know, parts of the, the world where they are sort of super interested in what we've built and what we're able to achieve with firms. So, I mean, yeah, it's the world with [00:15:00] these things, it would be brilliant.
[00:15:01] Stacy Havener: Well, I am, you know, I'm going to be, you know, sort of running to wherever the launch party is in the U S so that's fantastic.
[00:15:09] Stacy Havener: So there's so much I want to unpack with you. Are you an investment boutique looking to grow your business and need a little help? If you feel like you're fighting for the spotlight and, well, still stuck in the shadows of the bigs, join us in the Boutique Investment Collective, Havener's new membership community dedicated to the specialist in the investment industry.
[00:15:31] Stacy Havener: In the collective, we'll guide you through the billion dollar blueprint we've used to help boutiques add over 30 billion in AUM. You'll refine your story, focus on your ideal target market, and practice your pitch. You'll rethink your marketing materials, rewrite your emails, and refresh your differentiators.
[00:15:49] Stacy Havener: We'll even help you step up your LinkedIn game and give your profile a makeover. You want to grow your biz, we've got your back. Learn more about The Collective, the curriculum, and the amazing coaches who will [00:16:00] help you on your journey. Visit HavenerCapital. com slash Collective. High five! Hope to see you in a coaching session soon.
[00:16:16] Stacy Havener: I have to ask this question though. So you're at the bigs or global giants. What is a great term? Yeah. What and how on earth did like, how did that even happen that someone said, Oh, here's an idea. Do you want to run like a, an organization of specialists and boutiques?
[00:16:32] Dani Hristova: Yeah. It's a question I get a lot. I know.
[00:16:36] Dani Hristova: I think when people In the kind of boutique world realize I have a large firm background. They're like, oh, okay But actually a lot of people end up, you know going from large not even just the farm from farm management perspective from other parts The organization go into boutiques, you know I think i've always had an admiration for specialist firms and I guess i've been in a situation where i've I've been at large firms that have bolted on boutiques or bought up boutiques because they want to, [00:17:00] you know, they want to be able to give more to their clients and expand their capabilities, you know, on the other side of the fence, what we see is that those businesses lose their independence.
[00:17:08] Dani Hristova: And, um, you know, maybe it is that, you know, You know, collectively, we're able to still offer those solutions to clients and that, you know, that's still done by a larger firms, but a lot changes, as you know, when that comes into a larger firm. And so I've always sort of had, you know, I've sat in organizations that that part of that business is doing stuff.
[00:17:24] Dani Hristova: It's pretty interesting. And I don't get involved in that in any way. And I wonder what they do and how they think differently. So I think seeds were planted pretty early on with that. And after I left Schroders, actually, I went and joined a company called Nordea. And You know, Nordea are not a boutique.
[00:17:40] Dani Hristova: They're not a smaller firm, but I was sitting in the UK team and it's based in Europe, so it was, it was a. We were sort of a small sales team that was based in the UK. And what I found was that they had some incredible strategies and, you know, being a Nordic company, they have, you know, ESG in the DNA of the companies.
[00:17:57] Dani Hristova: They had some incredible, you know, thematic strategies, which were [00:18:00] great. And other elements that they were doing certainly on the. Private assets side and because I was insurance focused at the time that was super interesting to me and I worked a lot with the team to kind of try and, you know, work with them on solutions for insurance clients and what I was realizing while I was in that position was that I then went and sat in the kind of conferences or with the clients that I've had before.
[00:18:21] Dani Hristova: With the bigs either side of me and I was like, oh, how are you doing? It's nice to see you again Either house so and so from the office and I was sort of thinking the strategies that I'm representing here Actually, you know, they are they're brilliant and you know, it wasn't all of the time but a lot of the time it was so much harder to speak to people in those situations because they were All into the brands that were already there and
[00:18:40] Stacy Havener: that
[00:18:41] Dani Hristova: was super frustrating.
[00:18:42] Dani Hristova: So that probably planted like a second seed because I think when you know that you're doing something in a, you know, in a different way or that might have a better outcome for a client ultimately, and it has that specialism around it, you know, you obviously want to be able to showcase that in your own way.
[00:18:58] Dani Hristova: And then the role [00:19:00] that came up with the Emmy, the, the, The person that was in the position for me had just naturally taken off at that time to go somewhere else. And so it came up completely at the right time. I think everything had gone from sort of big to slightly smaller, to slightly smaller, to getting, you know, more interested in the specialisms that were happening at the time.
[00:19:16] Dani Hristova: And when I started looking at some of the firms that had been part of the Emmy for a long time, I was like, this is my calling. I love
[00:19:24] Stacy Havener: it
[00:19:25] Dani Hristova: immediately. Immediately. Yeah. So it was a great, great move. Yeah, for sure.
[00:19:31] Stacy Havener: And I think it's cool that you've seen both sides, you know, if I'm a, a boutique, if I'm a specialist, that's part of me and I get a chance to chat with you, which is fantastic.
[00:19:41] Stacy Havener: I'm able to, like, you have perspective on both sides. Like I've only ever worked with specialists. So I'm like, you want to talk to me about the bigs. I don't know. I don't know what goes on there. I have ideas, but I, I've never been there. I can't say. So I think it's nice that you bring [00:20:00] both because I do think, and I know we share this view, There's a place for everyone, right?
[00:20:05] Stacy Havener: Like we are ands, not ors. So I don't think any, you know, organization or, or even a boutique themselves thinks, Oh, you know, the bigs shouldn't be in a portfolio at all. It should just be boutiques or passive. Shouldn't be in a portfolio at all. It should just be active. I think we're all sort of saying it can be both.
[00:20:26] Stacy Havener: It's not an or, and how can the ecosystem be better?
[00:20:32] Dani Hristova: Yeah, I mean, that is a huge part, I think, of what we try and do, and I certainly say this, and I know that there are, you know, many of our sort of mutual contacts who interact with you say this, that it's, it's not about saying that, you know, Boutique or specialist or active management is the best outcome for everybody just in the same way that it's you can't say that You know a large Simple low cost etf is going to be the the right outcome from everybody You know, there is the [00:21:00] end client type looks different across the board and with that in mind We just need to make sure that we are operating in an environment where we can coexist exactly as you said, and understand that it is about the best outcome for the client.
[00:21:13] Dani Hristova: And I think what the challenge is, certainly in the UK, is that it is just more tough to get that recognition and to build your brand and to have the opportunities to communicate your story when you are a smaller firm, which is why we do work so hard to find opportunities. And a lot of the time that is alongside.
[00:21:34] Dani Hristova: Bigger funds. So it should be, you know, and a lot of the opportunities, which firms want to be able to market their funds, for example, you know, it can be quite complicated in the UK to do that. So we take a view on where we can try and turn the dial on some of those elements as well, so that we can enable some of those funds to be available and accessible and coexist with the global giants.
[00:21:55] Dani Hristova: And, and, you know, like I said, my time at the larger firms [00:22:00] was, I think they do some brilliant work. I've obviously seen some brilliant things across teams. I've obviously also seen some things which I think boutiques do much better in their teams as well. But there is a place for these strategies to co exist.
[00:22:13] Dani Hristova: And I think sometimes as well, one thing I think we all see is that when it comes to sort of the mentality of fund buyers and intermediaries and things like that, there can be this element of nervousness around, you know, You know smaller farms or startup farms. There can be a bit of a career risk element to it and you know, I think when you Meet boutique firms and you get under the skin of what they're doing and you understand They're putting their money where their mouth is and you understand the culture within their firms And the reasons why they're doing it in a certain way You can really get comfortable as to how that can be completely complementary to other strategies that look nothing like that Or they can easily stand alone.
[00:22:49] Dani Hristova: And that's what it's about, really.
[00:22:50] Stacy Havener: That was so well said. I was like, biting my tongue because I'm like, this is good. This is like, just riff on it. It's so fabulous. I will tell you, culture [00:23:00] has been coming up in almost every podcast session I've done. Like, I always want to explore the, the quantitative versus qualitative, because I think it's an area that is.
[00:23:13] Stacy Havener: The allocators know that qualitative is important and the managers typically think that the allocators really focus on quantitative. So it's like a big disconnect. But what's so interesting is that the layer, I don't know, like the layer down on qualitative that seems to be coming up more is around culture.
[00:23:31] Stacy Havener: And it's so, Interesting to me so much so that I actually might take all the podcast episodes and pull all the culture conversations out into its own episode because allocators are saying like it is really difficult to evaluate. It's really difficult to evaluate. And to your point, it's a place where boutiques can shine.
[00:23:57] Dani Hristova: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And you know, [00:24:00] it is really difficult to evaluate, but if you think about it, I mean, like culture is one of the reasons why a boutique was started in the first place. An individual will have an ideology, an investment philosophy, something which they have, you know, worked and worked and worked hard on a really, really, really long time for.
[00:24:19] Dani Hristova: And they know what they're doing and they know the type of environment and the type of culture that they want to bring to that. They back what they're doing so much that they will invest alongside clients in that. And when you start building that as your own thing. You obviously want people who are going to be around you who share that common goal, who share that common interest.
[00:24:38] Dani Hristova: You want people to be able to have access to you as the senior person or the fund manager or the, or the CEO so that they can really understand what you're trying to do as a business and what your strategy is. And all of those things do make for a brilliant culture. I think we also have to be. You know, we also do have to understand that it has become much more part of the due diligence [00:25:00] process for fund buyers today as well.
[00:25:01] Dani Hristova: They are actively having it as, as a sort of a part of the process when they will go and sit down with asset managers and say, you know, talk to me about how your teams are structured and how you interact and what your, you know, what your philosophy is. And, you know, they want that part of it because it helps them to understand that if there is that, that culture and that transparency on the shop floor of what they're doing, can they.
[00:25:24] Dani Hristova: Sort of quantify that and see that it it translates into what is coming in the output and what is sort of You know good for the client And it's not until you sit down and you ask some of those questions and you assess that culture that you can be sure I think that those two marry up and I think Boutiques are in a really unique position on this because they are often unencumbered by legacy.
[00:25:43] Dani Hristova: They often have that flat structure They often have Smaller, more nimble, more creative teams. Ideas are, are shared. You know, I have multiple examples of firms where even at the very junior end, once a week, they will ask them to like talk about a stock in the portfolio to a senior member of the team. And they just built that [00:26:00] affinity.
[00:26:00] Dani Hristova: And I remember being a junior person and being like, God, I would kill for like, you know, airtime with somebody that senior. And in smaller firms, you get that. And then those people, that next level of talent, because again, like, you know, you can foster talent in a smaller, smaller firm. So, you know, this is where you really can start to build interesting and talented organizations with that kind of entrepreneur spirit, that smaller end and having those opportunities.
[00:26:26] Dani Hristova: All of it will feed into ultimately what you're trying to do strategically as a business and the output from an investment perspective and what the client is getting at the end. So having those conversations on culture, I think is really important. And I do believe that, and even though there are large firms who are doing incredible things culturally, I do believe that smaller farms are in a pretty unique position on the culture front to be able to sort of have some pretty significant differences and some pretty interesting things to say on that for sure.
[00:26:53] Dani Hristova: Yeah.
[00:26:54] Stacy Havener: It's like the specialists are the culture club right now. Really? Because they can, as you said, they [00:27:00] have the freedom. Yeah. They have the freedom. And I think what's, what's tough if we put ourselves in the shoes of the allocator, really just as a person, like if I said to you, well, tell me about your culture.
[00:27:11] Stacy Havener: You're like, yeah, without falling into platitudes and truisms and like, Oh, we believe in, you know, transparent and integrity. We believe in integrity. And it's like what the allocators have said. To me in conversation, even on this podcast is like, I have to see it. I have to see it. I will ask, but then I want to go to their office and I want to watch how the senior people interact with other members of staff, not on the investment committee.
[00:27:42] Stacy Havener: I want to watch how the investment people interact with each other. And what it says is like, culture is actually Action. It's action, because it's how those values show up. Mm hmm. Yeah, exactly. And it really goes to kind of this, like, people do business with people. I [00:28:00] mean, culture is, is Is about the people so I love I think boutiques are in an incredible Place of strength with culture.
[00:28:08] Dani Hristova: Yeah. No, I completely agree with you. Yeah, I think they are certainly Yeah, it will be really interesting to see how that evolves as well I think um, you know What will change and how firms start to find ways to maybe quantify it and you know? There are some brilliant things that certain firms are doing certainly in the uk At the moment, I should highlight City Hive who are, you know, they've created a framework that firms can implement, which will help them to assess and report on their culture that they can then, you know, demonstrate that they're being transparent about it.
[00:28:38] Dani Hristova: You know, it's really cool. And there are some smart questions being asked. And as you said, just a little bit more. Pulling people into their, their kind of family of the firm a little bit, which is, it's really good to see.
[00:28:49] Stacy Havener: It's awesome. For sure. Yeah. You mentioned something that you, you said in the UK, it's becoming more challenging for boutiques.
[00:28:56] Stacy Havener: Hence, you know, the important role that Immy plays. And I [00:29:00] would argue that that's true everywhere. I mean, I know we're feeling it in the States too. I think globally there's this phenomenon of the bigs getting bigger and the boutiques really, you know, facing. Odds of astronomical odds. Yeah. And then you have kind of these, the middle ground and they're struggling too.
[00:29:20] Stacy Havener: Cause they're like, it's like the middle child. I don't even know who I am. Am I a specialist? Am I a generalist? Am I a boutique? Am I a big, I don't even know who I am. Right. It's identity crisis. So I want to talk a little bit about the research that you're doing around what is a boutique. I think that is a really tough question for people.
[00:29:41] Stacy Havener: To answer because the perception is it means oh, you're just small and I disagree with that
[00:29:46] Dani Hristova: Yeah, completely. I mean, I remember having this conversation with you a little bit when we first spoke and I often get asked this as well I think I think a lot of people expect me to reply by saying, I know you, we have an AUM limit.
[00:29:59] Dani Hristova: Obviously, if you're [00:30:00] small, then you constitute as a boutique and therefore you you're in type thing, which is not what we do at all. And obviously you can see pretty clearly that if there is like, you know, a trillion pound firm, it's not going to constitute a boutique. There is a degree of, you know, being sensible about it, but it's not as straightforward as that.
[00:30:17] Dani Hristova: We would look for other qualities that make up that firm. And it is some of the things we've spoken about already. It is how you've decided to structure your business and why you've done it that way. It is the alignment that you have with your clients. It is from a, you know, are you investing alongside your clients?
[00:30:35] Dani Hristova: Are you saying I've, you know, I really believe in this and therefore we're investing together and we'll, we'll do this together. And I think. There's that trust that can be built up on that side of it. It's kind of, you know, your, your structure of your business, your client alignment. It is the entrepreneurialism and the idea generation and the creativity and those sort of elements that you get from, from a boutique mindset as well, and teams and culture.
[00:30:56] Dani Hristova: I mean, we've spoken about this already, but the ways in [00:31:00] which smaller firms can be more nimble and more adaptable and more flexible. And the other thing with that is, you know, you have, you Quite often with boutiques, it's single strategy or sort of no more than five strategies. And that sort of makes sense to me, because if you think about how that plays into a team, I mean, almost all of the distribution people that I have met in boutiques are experts.
[00:31:21] Dani Hristova: They have lived and breathed that, that strategy or those couple of strategies alongside that portfolio manager and bought into it so much, they can really step into any of those meetings, even though they're not doing the investment part and be. You know, very credible and very eloquent in those conversations.
[00:31:38] Dani Hristova: And like I said, I, I have had some brilliant client service teams at bigger firms, but typically you can get group, you know, large groups of, you know, managing clients and you have large amounts of strategies, which, which you're offering to clients. And there are positives to that part of it as well, but I can't be an expert in.
[00:31:56] Dani Hristova: 200 funds and I can't talk about [00:32:00] the story of 200 funds and I can't get under the skin of the investment philosophy of 200 funds, maybe in a lifetime I can, but I often find a lot of talent and Career appreciation and happiness in boutiques because people sort of, you know, the individuals that are working with them are so close to the investment side of it.
[00:32:21] Dani Hristova: And I would actually span that out, not just a distribution, but also unlike COOs and even responsible investment teams, they are in the thick of it in those firms. So I've gone off at a bit of a tangent, but really. Those are the kind of qualities that I think we look for when we're looking at a boutique and it's pretty obvious I think to us at the emmy when a firm kind of comes to us and they start talking about their business It's pretty clear when they are not aligned with some of those things and we can kind of see straight away So, you know, we I mean the smallest We started last year, which I'm so proud of, you know, having talked about this conversation about how challenging it is to operate, but we opened up our membership to give startup firms a two year grace period on fees, not [00:33:00] for profit anyway, but we're saying, you know, it's super tough and we want you to succeed.
[00:33:03] Dani Hristova: And we back what you're doing. Here's 45 COOs, finance directors, distribution professionals, fund managers, analysts, who you can just leverage your, you know, leverage their collective knowledge and share that institutional knowledge together. And that is going to like. Solve half of your problems get you to where you want to be a lot quicker You're going to have a peer group that you can kind of band ideas around with and you get that camaraderie, you know I think sometimes We wouldn't hand over commercial opportunities between firms, but I think sometimes a win for a boutique is a win for all.
[00:33:35] Dani Hristova: There's a bit of that mentality, which is like super nice. And so these are really the types of things that I think are exciting about these firms. And I think what we Offer I think at the me is that we are able to do something that is quite different and quite special because we're sort of Acting like them.
[00:33:53] Dani Hristova: We're sort of saying we're kind of a boutique firm. Totally We're trying to find all these opportunities in the same way as you we're trying to do it in a smart And a [00:34:00] high quality and a cost effective way and we are purely client focused on what we're doing And with that, I mean the alignment that I have with firms It's just incredible.
[00:34:08] Dani Hristova: So, you know, the, what is a boutique question? And there are actually some firms, I think, which also feel a bit like, Oh, I love the word boutique and prefer like specialist or independent firm, um, which I understand as well, because I think it can have connotations of like, I'm a small, you know, and that's it, which I do understand, but it's not as straightforward as just saying, Oh, what I was going to say with the startup thing was, yeah, we have startups, but then our, some of our largest members are around 20 billion.
[00:34:34] Dani Hristova: So yeah, there is a range there, and so, you know, it's not as straightforward as putting a number around it, and I think we would do a disservice to the specialist firms if we were, you know, as binary as saying, you know, you just don't hit the threshold. So, yeah, it's an interesting one, and I live for these conversations because I think the qualities of these firms are what make them so exciting.
[00:34:53] Stacy Havener: Yes. Boutique is a word that needs to be redefined. It's almost like some [00:35:00] people think it's almost like it's a bad word because if you say it, it means you're small and that's not it. It means you're special. And I love the focus on strategies. And I love that you said five because that's, that's my number two.
[00:35:14] Stacy Havener: I'm like, you can be really good, be expert, I'm like, you Ideally at like one thing but I get it you're building a business So maybe maybe there's like a handful of things that you could really say With conviction like we're expert at this. I think when you start getting up to like we run, you know We were in equities and we run fixed and we run all so we weren't real assets We were you know hedge strategies and option overlays and it's like really are you are you really an expert at all of that?
[00:35:42] Stacy Havener: Yeah, you know that's where I think if we have to try to quantify it And I wonder if you're going to work on this in your research, there probably are quantifiable things, employee ownership, percentage of employee ownership, percent of, you know, uh, partner capital that's invested in the [00:36:00] strategy. Like there are some numbers that you could put around it.
[00:36:02] Stacy Havener: And I think strategies is definitely one of them, but AUM is not in my opinion.
[00:36:06] Dani Hristova: Yeah. And I think from our perspective, we, I mean, we're working with, um, a university and an academic professional who is independent from the IMI in doing this, who did a piece of research originally a couple of years back on looking at the performance premium of boutique or independent specialist firms, however we call it, given that conversation, and that, that's super interesting.
[00:36:27] Dani Hristova: And that is a, you know, certainly something that we can share and that we can talk about, but I think given that, The broader mission to start trying to move the industry in a direction where we can coexist, which is what we're speaking about. Not be frightened of boutiques, but flip it the other way and be like, hey, they have really great qualities.
[00:36:43] Dani Hristova: And actually, this could be super complimentary. Let's investigate that a little bit more. It's those are the types of things that we want to really. I think get underway with this piece of research, but do it in a rigorous and independent and academic ways that we have some numbers around some of that, which will get parts of the industry more comfortable with it [00:37:00] because you and me and other people can speak about this coherently, hopefully, credibly and have some really exciting conversations with the right people, but just having that particular piece of work, I think, is going to be a brilliant addition to what we can do for some of the people in the industry or some of the groups in the industry.
[00:37:16] Stacy Havener: It's huge for all of us. So I can't wait for that research to come out. We all need that research. And yeah, I love the idea. The coexist is probably our theme of the day here. Actually, before we jumped into the studio, I was having a chat with a mutual friend of ours and he's doing really well. His firm is definitely starting to hit like the J curve of growth.
[00:37:41] Stacy Havener: And we were talking, I said, I'm going to give you one of my favorite playbooks. And he was like, okay, yes. And I shared with him our whole strategy on how we show that a boutique strategy, a specialist strategy can compliment some of the sort of the bellwethers, like the industry, like the go to [00:38:00] funds in a particular asset class.
[00:38:02] Stacy Havener: And. It changes the game for you when you stop trying to beat the bigs and you start trying to complement them. And we talked about a whole bunch of ways that you can do that. You know, sure you can show like correlations and performance patterns and things that, you know, they're zigging and we're zagging.
[00:38:23] Stacy Havener: You can also show composition and holdings and market cap. Ranges. And there's just when you put a boutique strategy and a big strategy together, it can be quite magical. And so it is that idea of and not or
[00:38:40] Dani Hristova: yeah. And I mean, I have a pretty good example of this. I won't name the firm, but there is a firm that I was speaking to recently who is.
[00:38:47] Dani Hristova: You know, they have a fund which doesn't hold the Magnuson seven and as such, their performance hasn't been exactly where they had, you know, they had endeavored that it would be, but they are a specialist [00:39:00] firm. They are brilliant at what they do. They have attracted long term investors that are doing that have been with them for a really, really long time.
[00:39:07] Dani Hristova: You get why they're doing what they're doing, who get their strategy, who know that I'm just going to go buy the Magnuson seven because that's not what they're about. And they've kind of sat there and said, well, We're kind of the anecdote if that all goes wrong. And so this is going to be how we're gonna, you know, approach this and play this, and we're now having some really interesting conversations where we can really talk to why we're doing what we're doing, why we stuck it out, why we believe, you know, that's.
[00:39:32] Dani Hristova: In the long term, this could be a really good complimentary strategy or a good strategy to start thinking about now at this particular point in time. And, you know, that sort of word around anecdote and things like, it's just so interesting that we even have that kind of language and those kinds of conversations.
[00:39:46] Dani Hristova: And that's exciting. And I think from an investment professional perspective, I would sit on the other side of that and be like, that's actually pretty sensible. And I think that's where we start to see interesting things like this coming out. [00:40:00] Also, you know, where, where strategies can just coexist because they look pretty different or, you know, in other ways, but that's just quite a fun, I think, example of just the creativity, I think, and the sort of, you know, the things that the smaller firms can do and them, you know, not trying to sort of commercialize or capitalize on other ideas because not in keeping With their investment philosophy, which they've honed for years, which is the important thing.
[00:40:24] Stacy Havener: It takes incredible bravery. I love that example. Thank you for sharing. It takes incredible bravery when everybody else is doing this cool thing over here and you're not. And to still, like we have, you know, somebody's come to us and go, ah, you know, we're out of favor. We got to stop marketing. And it's like, why?
[00:40:41] Stacy Havener: That doesn't make any sense. Really what you highlighted in that story that I love so much. Is that different is better than better because that's an example where their performance is probably really lagging and yeah, they're not going in there to talk about performance. They're going in there to say, well, we don't [00:41:00] hold what everyone else holds.
[00:41:01] Stacy Havener: And it's a philosophical reason. And let's talk about that. And all of a sudden, to your point. It sounds sensible where if you went in, if you led with the data, like here's my really atrocious performance, that doesn't sound sensible. So it's like you change the conversation.
[00:41:19] Dani Hristova: Yeah. I loved it.
[00:41:21] Stacy Havener: Great example.
[00:41:22] Dani Hristova: It is a good example.
[00:41:26] Dani Hristova: I know this is kind of the other way around, but I would be interested to hear your perspective on this because I mean, I lived through, I feel like I'm living through how, you know, The storytelling bit is evolving today. And I came from, you know, when I was sitting at Schroeders in particular, when I was stepping in on behalf of fund managers or investment teams and giving regular updates or pitching, and it was, you know, relatively flip book.
[00:41:47] Dani Hristova: And those were meaningful engagements. They were. Long time clients, there was nothing on to war, but that's the way we kind of did it when you do that. That's the kind of training ground, I guess, that I, that I has been brought up in. And I [00:42:00] think there is an expectation on the other side that that is what you're going to get.
[00:42:03] Dani Hristova: You are going to get kind of like a team update and your performance and your attribution and a bit on ESG when that was relevant at the time, more so now, obviously. And that was kind of well received because that was what was just expected. And that was the course of those types of meetings. And I just wonder how much that is.
[00:42:20] Dani Hristova: Starting to change in general in other firms and how we are the mindset of sad individuals, because I think that's a really comfortable place to be when you've done it like that for a really long time. And I wonder how, how easy it is for, I think, certainly for very technical minded people who have really, really done the work on the numbers for a really long time to sort of shift to say, I know this is the performance.
[00:42:43] Dani Hristova: I'm going to part that for a minute and talk to you about, you know, Where we are in the portfolio and why, and why this is kind of quite fitting in a good conversation to have now.
[00:42:51] Stacy Havener: Yeah.
[00:42:51] Dani Hristova: And I just think that could be, I don't know if you've seen that evolve and how there must be a spectrum of kind of shifting phases [00:43:00] than others.
[00:43:00] Dani Hristova: For some groups. I don't know, but it's
[00:43:03] Stacy Havener: an evolution, isn't it? And it's especially for very talented investment mind. Story is usually extremely uncomfortable, partly because it's how they've been trained, and partly because that's their unique ability, that that is where they feel most comfortable. And what I would say is, it kind of goes back to our and, not or.
[00:43:25] Stacy Havener: Everything you talked about is still important. The attribution, the performance, you know, what worked, what didn't, all of that is still important. The composition and what, where you're over underweight, you know, bench, all of that. And you can still do that and put that into a document and send it the place that I think.
[00:43:44] Stacy Havener: We all need to elevate the conversation is then when two people get together, if I've sent you the document and you've read it, we do not have to read it together. And instead of that, let's talk about [00:44:00] all the things underneath it. Let me tell you some of the stories of the things that didn't work so you can understand why we stuck with it or why we sold.
[00:44:09] Stacy Havener: So to me, everything that you said, it's still important. Data is still important. It's just. Does it have to be the only thing we talk about? And is there more to the, no pun intended, is there more to the story that when we're together we can unpack? And that's where I think the relationship, the conversation, all of it gets richer.
[00:44:31] Stacy Havener: But it builds trust, doesn't
[00:44:33] Dani Hristova: it? That's what it does. It builds trust. And that's super important. Yeah. And again, if you are a firm that is, that isn't running multiple strategies, you're not hiding behind many other strategies. You're not hiding behind other ideas. You're hiding behind the ideas that you have.
[00:44:47] Dani Hristova: And so you're not hiding. You're not hiding because those are the ideas that you have. You can't hide. And so your, uh, your. Approach to sort of talk to the story of those ideas and have an open conversation about it is just it's so [00:45:00] much more meaningful. I think it would absolutely need the room with a degree of trust.
[00:45:03] Dani Hristova: We all know that even another situation is humans. If we can, if we talk about sort of human psychology, it's It can be an uncomfortable thing if you're put in a situation where you're like, oh gosh, must not say that, you know, we inherently get a bit nervous about it. It's much easier for us if we say, look, okay, this happened, this is the remedial oxygen in that example, or this happened.
[00:45:21] Dani Hristova: And, and that is why I think it was interesting that that happened. And that's why I'm going to keep doing it, but maybe let's talk about it. I think it just builds that you are more comfortable in that conversation as well. And again, I think that is. That is the strength of specialist firms and smaller firms because they will have, you know, their cards on the table.
[00:45:37] Dani Hristova: They're backing everything they're doing. They have their reasons for it, their stories for it, and they can have those meaningful conversations about it. And they won't just shift to another strategy or another idea because it's not in favor.
[00:45:49] Stacy Havener: That's it. And so I think, you know, that it's trust and it's finding investors who are with you for the right reasons.
[00:45:57] Stacy Havener: And the right reason is not just [00:46:00] performance. And so if that's all you talk about that, you know, if somebody buys performance, guess what they're going to sell. Performance. And so you as the founder or face or team of this boutique, you have to be brave enough to change that conversation or you'll end up with hot dot investors who sell at the total wrong time.
[00:46:21] Stacy Havener: You're going to hate it, right? We all been there when it's like everyone's leaving at the exact wrong time. So we'll just change the whole conversation. I loved the comment about trust. I could seriously talk to you all day. We might have to have like a regular, we'll have to have a regular podcast with you on there.
[00:46:38] Dani Hristova: It's incredible. We're very aligned.
[00:46:40] Stacy Havener: Yes, we are. And I had like 18 different ideas when you were talking. I've lost them all, so I'll have to write them down and we'll have a second session with you. Can we end with some questions? About you to get to know you a little bit more. This is my version of proofs questionnaire Uh huh, and you've been very [00:47:00] forthcoming about your journey We're gonna like kind of end with a little bit of a deeper dive.
[00:47:06] Stacy Havener: Are you ready? Yeah, I'm so ready Okay, here we go. All right first question. We're gonna baby step into it. Yeah, what book inspires you?
[00:47:15] Dani Hristova: I have to recommend at the moment, and this is a funny answer, but bear with me, save your acorns by Rob Gardner, who founded Reddington, the investment consulting and monastery.
[00:47:25] Dani Hristova: So it's a book that actually he wrote for children to help them to understand investment and the power of, you know, saving your money. And then when you invest it, so you plant the acorns, they grow. And he has written a brilliant story. He thought it through. So well, in the sense that he did the research on how like the engagement time that a child will take and how many pages it should be.
[00:47:43] Dani Hristova: And I obviously have a couple of kids and he gifted this book to me recently and the funny thing was we already had a copy because my husband is in investment and he was like, obviously I bought that, you know, originally. And so we've had an amazing time sitting with my kids recently. Talking about this and I'm like, start them young.
[00:47:58] Dani Hristova: This is great. So [00:48:00] save your Inspiring. I hope it inspires my kids. Yeah, I love that
[00:48:04] Stacy Havener: We'll get a whole a whole second conversation about financial literacy and how important it is for kids. Okay, that's fantastic Okay, switching gears. What place inspires you? What's your happy place?
[00:48:17] Dani Hristova: I mean, I will get divorced if I don't say Bulgaria because my husband is from Bulgaria.
[00:48:23] Dani Hristova: My kids are half Bulgarian. I got engaged in particular in a place called the Seven Rila Lakes, which if you haven't been is just stunning. It's an underestimated country, Bulgaria, but it's just a little bit outside the capital. It's this beautiful area of lakes up in the mountains and each of them is shaped like an organ, which is super fun.
[00:48:41] Dani Hristova: And my husband proposed me on a ski lift and it has a, what you'll love about it is a beautiful love story. Embedded within these mountains about how these couple of giants and one of them like save the other one from the elements and now the face of the one of the giants is kind of a pictured in the rocks and it's stunning.
[00:48:57] Dani Hristova: It's a total happy place. I mean, being outside, being in nature, [00:49:00] being, you know, anywhere where you can get a deep breath of fresh air and be around nice people and talk and walk and get moving is great. But in particular, this Bulgaria has some great places, but the seven real lakes is stunning.
[00:49:12] Stacy Havener: That was inspiring.
[00:49:13] Stacy Havener: I'm inspired. That was amazing. I love that.
[00:49:16] Dani Hristova: For
[00:49:16] Stacy Havener: sure. Alright, now we're switching gears. Let's pretend There's an Emmy conference. Your numbers have, you've 10 extra numbers. I don't even know if there's that many boutiques in the world, but we'll just pretend. Okay. There's 450 specialists. There's, you know, 200, 000, 2 million.
[00:49:37] Stacy Havener: I don't even know. Like just, it's a stadium full of people. Okay. Yeah. You're going to go out there. You're going to talk to them. What is your walkout anthem?
[00:49:47] Dani Hristova: I mean, that sounds terrifying and brilliant at the same time. I would love the opportunity to speak to every boutique in the world. I'm like, I'm here for you, let's grow.
[00:49:56] Dani Hristova: It has to be Can't Stop by the Red Hot Chili [00:50:00] Peppers. They are hands down my favorite band in the world. They're actually the reason I'm called Dani, which is ridiculous. I changed my name by Deep Pulse. And walked up to the head of legal at Schroeders when I was like 22 and was like, can you please sign my depot if I'm changing my name to Danny, which is ridiculous, but I love him so much.
[00:50:17] Dani Hristova: And actually on my wedding day, my husband planned our whole wedding. It was like his dream, but he was a little boy and I didn't even realize we were having a walk out somewhere. When we walked into the restaurant to have dinner, he put that on and we walked out to concert, but it's, it's, you know, it's a lot of what they sing about is pretty nonsensical, but it's like, you know, this life is more than just a read through.
[00:50:34] Dani Hristova: That's their lyrics. It's about. For me, it's, I'm not going to stop on this journey. I'm not going to stop where we are now. There's so much to do this, you know, so much to do in this industry and so much good work that can be done. And I want to just go for it. And so for me, I really, I have a lot of affinity, I think, with that song.
[00:50:51] Dani Hristova: So yeah, that would be my. That's such a good answer.
[00:50:53] Stacy Havener: And I wish I knew the name change story we were doing backstory. Cause I would be like, we need to unpack [00:51:00] that. So that's fantastic. Also, this is a first, first person that's really. Taking a dive into the lyrics of the song, which I am a big lyric person.
[00:51:11] Stacy Havener: You know, I was the one with the school book that had, you know, the textbooks that had all the lyrics of all my favorite songs written all over it. Yeah. So I love that. So good. It's so good. Yeah. Okay. Here we go. Yeah. What profession other than your own, would you like to attempt?
[00:51:27] Dani Hristova: I'm in between two. I'm generally a really high energy competitive person.
[00:51:33] Dani Hristova: I love sports. I think I would have, I would love to do something like athletics, be, uh, you know, an athlete in some way. I don't know whether I quite have the, the ability to do that, but I do a lot of, you know, a lot of weightlifting and things like that. And I, I, So into that kind of stuff. And if I could make money in a profession out of that and all the sponsorship, that would be cool.
[00:51:50] Dani Hristova: But I think probably, I don't know if that has a lifespan. I think it would probably be more, I did a couple of law modules when I was at uni, which I loved. I really loved like psychology and law is super interesting. [00:52:00] So I think it would probably be like corporate law. It would be. I think in a similar fashion to how I am now like getting behind a business and being like we've got this we're gonna Win this and you without knowing enough about you know, corporate law practice And maybe it's because i'm also watching suits at the moment as well as like could have an influence I think it would be I think it probably could be something like corporate.
[00:52:19] Dani Hristova: I've thought about law a lot when I was younger Oh, that is so interesting
[00:52:22] Stacy Havener: Well, first of all your fitness influencer in this other. Yeah, so you have that part and you know So maybe that's like your side hustle and your lawyer
[00:52:30] Dani Hristova: Lawyer by day. Yeah Weightlifter by night. There you go.
[00:52:34] Stacy Havener: There you go. Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
[00:52:36] Stacy Havener: I relate to that because as a literature major that was, you know, when you major in in literature, people go, Oh, so you're going to be a teacher. And if you say no, they're like, Oh, so you're gonna be a lawyer. Oh, yeah. Those were the only two things. I think it would be really fun. I do, too. I do, too. I think
[00:52:54] Dani Hristova: it would be corporate law, though.
[00:52:55] Dani Hristova: I couldn't do family law. No, no. I think that would be quite intense, but corporate law would be great. Yes. [00:53:00]
[00:53:00] Stacy Havener: Okay, now, the flip side of this. Yeah. What profession would you not like to do?
[00:53:05] Dani Hristova: I just couldn't do anything solitary. I like people, you know, and I'm like you. I like getting to know people and stories.
[00:53:11] Dani Hristova: I think that's what you do when you're in distribution. I think that's where I was brought up. I mean, my dad is a pilot. Maybe that's where the aviation thing came from. He's brilliant. But I just don't know if I could sit in a cockpit with somebody that I didn't vibe off for hours on end. And I think, you know, it's quite sedentary as well.
[00:53:30] Dani Hristova: I adore my dad. I adore my parents. And he is. Given me so much influence and good stuff in my life, but I couldn't, I don't think I could do anything solitary and pilot jumps to mind because it is pretty contained for quite a long time.
[00:53:44] Stacy Havener: I had a lot of pressure. You're pretty much by yourself with a whole bunch of pressure.
[00:53:48] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Yeah. That's very good. Very good. Yes, it does. It sounds stressful. Okay. Last one. Yeah. And this is a long way away. This one. Yeah. But what do you want people to say [00:54:00] about you after you've retired or left the industry? Okay.
[00:54:03] Dani Hristova: I really appreciate you saying that's a long way away. Hopefully, that's your way of saying I'm very young.
[00:54:09] Stacy Havener: Yes, yes, and you can't go anywhere because we need you, so it's both. You're young
[00:54:14] Dani Hristova: and we need you. I don't think I will. I think it took me ten years, probably ten years, to find out what I was super duper passionate about, and I'm here, I'm in it now. I mean, for me, I would love to sort of turn around and for people to say that I kind of put boutiques on the map a little bit.
[00:54:30] Dani Hristova: I mean, one of my goals with the Emmy is Is to kind of create a platform where any international delegate or investor comes in and they're like, okay I really want to explore a specialist and where can I go and i'm like here we are What do you want? Let's talk. And we're not there yet at the moment, but I would love to sort of be known as the person who was like, this is why, you know, boutiques flourished and kind of put them on the map a little bit.
[00:54:52] Dani Hristova: And I, but I think the flip side, or they're not the flip side, but the complimentary side to that as well is that When I moved into the role with the [00:55:00] Emmy, I did it because it worked so much better around my family and it took me Like two years to make that work and I I didn't want to give up being 100 percent At home for my kids.
[00:55:09] Dani Hristova: I didn't want to give up being 100 percent at work And I found like the perfect balance with what i'm doing now so I Speak to moms all the time who are just burnt out and who are like, I can't do this. I'm not good here. I'm not good there. I'm not, you know, everything is a muddle. And I remember feeling like that for like the first two, three years of parenting.
[00:55:25] Dani Hristova: And I now feel like I have the best thing resembling balance, but it took two years to get that. So I would also love it if even one person, actually a couple of people did when I put my post up, my inverse in the bathroom. But if people turned around and said, She made it easier for women to kick backside at work and also kick backside at home as well.
[00:55:43] Dani Hristova: I'd be like, mic drop, I'd be like, I'm so happy. So, like, put boutiques on the map and be a good mom while you're doing it. That would be great. I love that. That would be, like, game changing for me, for sure.
[00:55:53] Stacy Havener: That is a mic drop, like, let's go, let's do this. Right there with you. What a [00:56:00] fantastic conversation, Danny.
[00:56:01] Stacy Havener: Thank you so much for being here and I can't wait to see you soon in London. Oh my gosh. Yes.
[00:56:09] Dani Hristova: England is waiting. We're going to roll out the red carpet.
[00:56:12] Stacy Havener: I'm so excited. Countdown is on 30 days from today. Thank you again. Really appreciate you so much. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
[00:56:26] Stacy Havener: 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. All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm.
[00:56:46] Stacy Havener: Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Havener or Havener Capital Partners.
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