Espresso Chats Season Recap

Hello, everyone. This is George Suttles, Executive Director of Commonfund Institute. And I'm Amanda Novello, Senior Policy and Research Analyst at Commonfund Institute. And this is Espresso Chats, a podcast by Commonfund Institute, where we deliver short, strong shots of governance and leadership insight. This is a fun episode. This is our recap episode where we look back on the half year of podcasting. It's been great, and we've been having a good time. Just really reflecting on some episodes and themes, our very first inaugural episode was with Tim Yates, President and CEO of Commonfund Asset Management. And the key message there, especially focused on higher ed was imploring leaders to focus on long term institutional investing and strategic long term vision rather than short term political dynamics. The public policy and political environment has been fraught to say the least. And Tim really urged us to focus to focus as long term institutional investors. Then episode two, we spoke with Holly Label and Taisha Smith at Expect Equity. And really the key message there was how can institutional investors strive to expand their opportunity set across asset classes? And both Hallie and Taisha really shared not just opportunities, but conceptual frameworks to help institutional investors do just that. Episode three, we spoke to Joanna Jackson at Weingart Foundation about aligning mission and impact. And the key message there really was focused on how to partner with nonprofits and communities to ensure all resources, both grant making and from the endowment, are aligned with the foundation's mission. Yeah, and I agree, George. It's been a great first season of the show. We served up many, many shots of governance and leadership insights, and I'm happy to take a shot at the next few episodes just to quickly spotlight those. So the fourth episode, we spoke with Mark Hoeing from Commonfund Private Equity about what's happening in private markets. In case you missed it, there's been a lot between inflationary pressure, a higher interest rate environment, the rise of AI, you know, numerous other things. Mark helped us put it all together. Succinctly, we covered a lot of ground in less than twenty minutes. Then, George, you had a great conversation about purpose driven governance with Monica Varma from BoardSource. In her words, I just pulled out this snippet, any governance need you have, anything you need, we should be a sigh of relief. So referring to BoardSource, they have loads of resources, frameworks for thinking about and orienting towards better governance, especially in challenging times. I thought this episode really grounded in purpose and rooted in being proactive rather than reactive, which of course is critical for long term institutions. Finally, we recently spoke with Shannon Polk from Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation and Jocelyn Rainey from Brooklyn org about how community foundations are responding to crises in their communities and the biggest challenges that communities face, and kind of working collectively across different types of institutions and organizations and advocacy and like all these different lenses and avenues for addressing these challenges. And I thought that was a really hopeful episode. They really lifted up a ton of concrete examples for addressing those challenges collectively in their communities. So those are our six episodes so far. Speaking of moments of crisis and turbulent times, which I feel like we say in every episode, George, what has inspired you or given you hope about how leaders are stepping up in this moment? Yeah, no, I think hope and inspiration is really what I've gotten from each and every episode, Just to sort of be in community with all of these amazing individuals, all of these amazing leaders in different sectors, in different spaces, And just being able to dialogue with them about sort of how they're meeting the moment, how they're thinking about tackling some of these challenges has given me hope and been really, really inspirational. So as you said, we are in turbulent times and there are a lot of complexities and challenges that leaders are facing. But we've been able to speak to leaders who had a clear vision and a clear path forward to tackling some of these challenges. So the conversations that we've had over the last six or seven months in and of themselves have been inspirational and provided hope because it really does show this abundance of leadership. That really is, that really again is inspirational. I feel like I keep saying inspirational, inspirational over and over again, but that is the theme, and that's really what I've been really, really excited for each and every episode is that little spark of leadership and inspiration that we get from the folks that we've spoken to. What about you? Yeah, yeah. I agree. I feel like inspiration and motivation and hope and paths forward have been like the key reasons why we started this podcast. So I feel like kind of mission accomplished there. But yeah, really on a personal level throughout the year, there have been these really like tense kind of fraught moments that feel like, oh, how is anyone going to move forward from this? And just being able to get on the phone and talk with really smart leaders who are taking really concrete, tangible steps. Like I feel like I said in the recap, like really concrete examples, tangible insights, things that you could bring to your institutions and things that you can whether it's a mindset, a framework, or you know, getting on the phone with a certain type of partner and figuring out how to develop relationships and work together better. I just feel like we've been able to get those practical insights in every conversation. It really is indicative of what I think our vision was for this podcast is community. And so leadership can be incredibly isolating and especially during fraught moments. And so the fact that you can look across episodes as a leader and say, right, I'm not doing this alone. Each episode showcases and highlights leadership in a way that does lend itself to community, that does lend itself to shared perspective, that does lead to a sharing of tools, resources, and frames that might help other leaders. And so I think, you know, if anything, and maybe that's me being aspirational in terms of the impact of our podcast, but I really do think that is something that we that we thought could be important is that there is an abundance of leadership in the field, in the nonprofit sector, in the institutional investing space, focused on charitable organizations. And so if we can showcase that, then maybe leaders will feel like they're in community with each other in a way that can be especially helpful in these fraught times. So I just wanted to sort of double down on that because you spoke to it a couple of times, but I do think it's important from a leadership standpoint just to be in community with one another. And my hope is that this podcast is contributing to sort of that community. Yeah. And I think that really gets Institute, right? You always say being in community of learning and practice and sharing our thought leadership and making sure that folks in our orbit and in our broader ecosystem have what they need to succeed. So I feel like it makes sense that we're doing a podcast about this. In addition to all of the longer form content that we have on our website and all of the other resources we're sharing, I think having these smaller or shorter shots, as we say, of insight hopefully is a helpful way to reach people. Amazing. So with that, just to recap the recap, we spoke to amazing folks over the past six or seven episodes. You can look forward to more of that in the new year. Shared perspectives, amazing conversations. We will be back in January, and we'll keep the great lineup coming. You can find us at www.Commonfund.org/espressochats, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Wishing you and yours a great holiday season and new year. Thank you all for listening. We'll see you in twenty twenty six.