Aoifinn Devitt: This bonus series is kindly supported by Soundmark Partners. Soundmark Partners LLC is a women-owned and led private credit firm focused on commercial real estate.
Saira Malik: I grew up in Stockton, California, and other than my mother, I really did not have much access to financial markets or understanding them. And I think it’s important to level the playing field so anyone out there can look wherever they are and try to understand the markets, not only considering it might make them more interested in having a career on Wall Street, but money in retirement is important to everybody. So just understanding what’s driving your retirement portfolio The fact that in today’s day and age we can just go onto the internet and get thought leadership from leaders across firms and in roles where they’ve been doing this for 10, 20, 30 years. I am still an investor. I do manage a global equity portfolio, so I, I do still do investing for a living. I think that that’s most of the reason that I do it.
Aoifinn Devitt: This is a long-awaited conversation with a CIO and thought leader who posts frequent videos to LinkedIn that focus on making finance accessible to all. We hear about her belief in investing in yourself, the proven benefit of social mobility, and why finance and investing need to be accessible to far more. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast. A podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories. I’m joined today by Sarah Malik, who is Chief Investment Officer at Nuveen, a TIAA company. She’s an active voice on social media, regularly posting videos on LinkedIn containing market-related and career-related content. She recently celebrated her 20th anniversary at Nuveen. Welcome, Sarah. Thanks for joining me today.
Saira Malik: Thanks for having me.
Aoifinn Devitt: Let’s start with your background. Can you briefly walk us through your path into the world of investing?
Saira Malik: Sure. Well, I think if I had a theme about my background, it was that I had to learn to invest in myself. But before I go into that, maybe I’ll just talk a little bit about some of my family. So my grandmother actually is from India, and when she wanted to pick a career, she decided she wanted to be a doctor. And when she went to medical school, she was told that she couldn’t go to medical school because they didn’t allow women. In a medical school in India at that time. So she actually entered into one of the first classes of women in medical school. And what I love about her story is that her diploma hangs in my office. It stated 1934, and on her diploma, the hims are crossed out and replaced with her, and next to the he, S is written in because they did not have diplomas for women doctors at that time in 1934. You could say medicine runs in my family’s blood because my mother followed in her footsteps and wanted to be a doctor also in the US at that time. Now, my mom wanted to be a surgeon. And when she went to her guidance counselor and asked him about being a surgeon, he actually told her he didn’t think that would be a good path for her because people wouldn’t trust a surgeon who looked like her and sounded like her. So I’d love to end that part of the story by telling you that my mom became a fantastic surgeon, but she didn’t. She became an internal medicine doctor, and that’s how she practiced until she retired as a medical doctor. That gets me to the theme of investing in yourself. I grew up in Stockton, California, and when I was in high school and talked to my guidance counselor about what I wanted to do next, he told me he didn’t think I’d make it through a 4-year college. Now, I didn’t listen to him, and I did go to college. And while I was there, I fell in love with the stock market, mostly because of my mother, who, while she was a doctor, really was enthusiastic and passionate about the markets, and that rubbed off on me. So when I was 19 years old and a junior in college, I got my Series 7 and 63 licenses started practicing as a part-time financial advisor, publishing my own stock market newsletter. I love doing that. I invested in myself, and that was how I got my start onto Wall Street and stock picking.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s amazing. And I love that concept of investing in yourself. And funny, I’ll share a story about my grandmother. She did not go to college, unfortunately. She won the scholarship, but at that time, only the scholarships— even though she won it, they wanted to give it to a boy. So they— unfortunately, she’s stuck with her high school education. But I love the story of these capable women, some of whom managed to get on the path and some of whom did not, but still quite admirable nonetheless. So investing in yourself, does that take a certain confidence? Does that take a belief of others, a circle around you? Is it all about your own self-confidence? How do people learn to invest in themselves?
Saira Malik: I think often it can come from the confidence that other people give to you. So investing in yourself means counting on yourself when other people won’t, or they’re giving you bad advice, or they’re, you know, sort of giving you negative data points. I got a lot of confidence in what I wanted to do from my mother. Her passion for the markets rubbed off on me. Me. Her confidence in me to pursue that dream really helped me do it. And then along the way, I’ve had many mentors and sponsors who’ve also helped me do that. I’ve also learned though that investing in yourself isn’t enough. You also need to find others to invest in you. I mentioned my mom, but for example, when I graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which is where I eventually did get my bachelor’s degree, and I had my Series 7 and 63, I’m publishing my own stock market newsletter, picking stocks, I’m ready to go to Wall Street. I guess Wall Street wasn’t ready for me because I applied to 20 Wall Street firms and I got rejected from all of them. I didn’t get a single interview. I just got these form letters back from their human resources department basically saying, we’re not interested and not inviting you for an interview. Now obviously I did eventually get my first job on Wall Street and I’ve been working in the industry for 28 years, but it was because of the other people who invested in me from my mom to these important mentors and sponsors throughout my career that have given me that confidence to continue to do this.
Aoifinn Devitt: So that path of rejection, I’m sure is more common than we know. That many, many rejection letters and the boilerplate that kind of annoys you because you know it’s just boilerplate. So where did your entry point come from then?
Saira Malik: So my entry point came after I finished undergrad and I did not get into any Wall Street firms. I went to get my master’s degree at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Fortunately, there they have a program where they let a handful of students manage money for their endowment program. And from there, schools did come to hire. JPMorgan Asset Management was one of them. I will give a nod and a shout out to Keith Banks. He was director of research for JPMorgan Asset Management. They hired one person from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Applied Security Analysis program into equity research at JPMorgan. I was the one that Keith hired. So that was one of the very first people who, you know, was not my mom, who invested in me, had confidence in me, gave me a chance when other people wouldn’t. He’s been an important mentor and sponsor to me. I think the mentors and sponsors are very important because they can often also light a path for you and show you the way. So maybe just to finish the second part of that story, ’cause I’ve only had two jobs on Wall Street. One was at JPMorgan, second one was at Nuveen. I came to Nuveen because I followed the future director of research from JPMorgan over to Nuveen. Her name was Susan Ulick, and she was really instrumental in my career. She taught me how to be a better research analyst, and she also started to put me into management roles. She talked to me about becoming a director of equity research myself. And I remember when she asked me if I’m interested in being a director of equity research, I looked behind me because I thought maybe she’s talking to somebody else. I hadn’t thought about that as a role for me. So this is my example of how these mentors and sponsors can light a path for you, show you the way even when you don’t see it.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s a great positive story. And also even the negative stories, sometimes the, well, I’ll show them attitude, which comes from someone not having that belief in you, can be quite inspiring as well and can really motivate you to try harder. So a really interesting blend. Based on this journey, which, you know, has obviously started early for you, earlier than most, what would you say are the core investment beliefs that you now have based on the years you’ve spent in financial services?
Saira Malik: Sure, I think all of these stories have taught me something that’s very important for my investment philosophy, and that’s going against the grain. And that’s a reason that I also think it’s very important to increase diversity on Wall Street, diversity of thought, diversity of educational backgrounds, diversity of people because they think differently. And going against consensus and going against the grain is usually where you you gain most of the returns that you do when you’re investing. So very important to me to have conviction, not always agree with consensus, feel confident and comfortable when my views are different. You can see that it’s not just an investing issue, it’s around the world. Many of you the, know, greatest thinkers of all time who were thinking differently, not thinking similarly to consensus, and that’s where they came up with some of the great ideas that they’ve had. And often in the markets, the outcome is the same when you’re looking at things through a different lens than other people are. That’s oftentimes when you generate the most alpha.
Aoifinn Devitt: And let’s move into the financial world today. So when you look around you today, and maybe you can describe a little bit of what you do in your Chief Investment Officer role, maybe what that role entails and what excites you as you look around you for areas of research, opportunities, sectors.
Saira Malik: Sure. So Nuveen, it manages a little over $1.1 trillion in assets under management. I think what makes us unique is our diversification across publics and private. So we have a very strong $400 billion plus equity segment of the firm, as well as about a similar size, a little bit larger in fixed income. And these incredible alternatives, which can be less correlated to other asset classes such as farmland, private credit, private equity, infrastructure, clean energy. This is, as a CIO of the firm, I get to oversee all of these asset classes, and I think it’s an incredible opportunity. I think what’s important today, the world has changed. We’re coming off an era of easy money, about $5 trillion in stimulus that came into the economy. During the pandemic. And today we’re dealing with two issues. That’s inflation and the late innings of the economic cycle. So how are we going to invest for that going forward in a world where inflation likely remains pretty high and interest rates are much higher than many of us have seen in our career? I’m looking for asset classes that are resilient to the economy and benefit from higher inflation. So for example, farmland and timberland, two areas that Nuveen is invested in. Farmland and timberland have tended to outperform inflation over decades. From 1991 to 2021, Farmland beat the CPI, which is a measure of inflation, by about 8.5% on an annualized basis, and Timberland by about 6.9%. And then areas that you can invest in that are more resilient to an economic slowdown. So infrastructure, the backing of infrastructure is utility segments and waste management. We still turn on the lights and take out the garbage during a recession. Infrastructure is an area that tends to perform well even during a recession. Also the onshoring and moving away from globalization to localization. We need to invest in our country. Infrastructure will be the key to doing that. So those are the areas that, you know, Nuveen has beyond what you may think about it that are less traditional asset classes that can work very well in the regime of higher interest rates and inflation that we likely will see for the foreseeable future.
Aoifinn Devitt: We’re going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor of this series, Sandmark Partners. I sat down with Jenna Gerstenlauer to talk about their private credit strategy. I asked Jenna what excited her about the current opportunity set.
Speaker C: The commercial real estate market is very interesting right now. With rates high, naturally property values have declined and property owners are facing refinance challenges as they cannot replace the level of debt that they currently have on their properties. We are seeing this across the board on nearly every investment opportunity that we are sourcing. Our goal is to provide solutions for our clients. We are entering a phase of the cycle where hundreds of billions of dollars of debt needs to be refinanced over the next 9 years, and borrowers need to figure out how they’re going to replace their existing low-interest rate debt with new, more expensive debt. We’re focused on the subordinate portion of the capital stack, so the piece in between the first mortgage and the equity, typically the piece resting between 50 to 80% of the property’s value. And very generally speaking, in today’s market, that piece of the capital stack generates between an 11 to 14% return.
Aoifinn Devitt: And now back to the show. And let’s look at the role of active management, because obviously Nuveen does have mostly active management approach. How do you see active management as playing a role in clients’ investment for that future? And how is it evolving as a, as a service?
Saira Malik: Your active management has evolved a lot in the 28 years that I’ve been in the industry with indexing has really taken a lot of the market share from active management, especially within the equities markets. You know, I think First of all, the key with active management is you need to beat your benchmark. I think there’s still a lot of inefficiencies in the market and a lot of emotion within investing, which is where active management can shine. So non-US markets, I think it’s tougher to know what’s in the index. Small caps, same thing. A lot of companies that you don’t really know what is the quality of this company. So I think active management still has a strong place. I mean, we may even take that a little further and say, well, what about the, the other sort of new, know, you I think permanent trend in place, which is artificial intelligence. And what does that mean for the markets? And for investors, well, artificial intelligence works off tremendous amounts of data, which is exactly what Wall Street investors have. Not only the data that research analysts go through, but the trading data and decisions that us as portfolio managers have made. I think artificial intelligence has a place to make us more efficient. But as long as there’s so much emotion driving markets, I think there’s always going to be a place for human investors and for active managers.
Aoifinn Devitt: And we have a discussion actually in our Series 5 with someone from Broadridge, a consultant around asset management, who speaks about the evolution of asset management from a product provision industry to more of a service industry, and how clients now are looking at partnerships, solution-based investing, customization, and ultimately long-term relationships that are not as transactional maybe as simply buying this fund or that fund. How do you see that role of maybe Naveen or just you in, in terms of your client interactions?
Saira Malik: I think it is exactly where the industry is going. It’s a very important initiative for Nuveen. For us, it’s important not only you know, to, it’s table stakes at this point to have the right products in place and generate returns that beat the benchmark or meet what clients’ return needs are. But then you need to build around that. We discussed a little bit even the amount of content that my office and my team puts out. I think it’s important not only to, you know, when you have a client, if they’re investing in you, to also make sure that you’re holding their hand, giving them the information they need, meeting them where they are when it comes to wrappers and the types of strategies that they want. Basically, you need to be able to solve clients’ problems for every need that they have, and that is a solution-based sale, not a product-based sale.
Aoifinn Devitt: And of course, that’s a great segue now to your video content, because I’ve just been saying how impressed I have been by the frequency and the engagement that you experience with your short, 1-minute-long— I think they are mostly— videos on LinkedIn. What kind of feedback do you get from them, both from clients and from other industry professionals at large?
Saira Malik: I’ve been fortunate. The feedback has been very positive. One of the reasons I’ve approached social media in so many different ways, from, you know, written content to videos to even just pictorial content, is I grew up in Stockton, California, and other than my mother, I really did not have much access to financial markets or understanding them. And I think it’s important to level the playing field so anyone out there can look wherever they are and try to understand the markets, not only considering it might make them more interested in having a career on Wall Street, but money and retirement is important to everybody. So just understanding what’s driving your retirement portfolio. The fact that in today’s day and age we can just go onto the internet and get thought leadership from leaders across firms and in roles where they’ve been doing this for 10, 20, 30 years. I am still an investor. I do manage a global equity portfolio, so I, I do still do investing for a living. I know that’s most of the reason that I do it. I’m fortunate to get positive feedback. The reason that I think we get that is most of the content I’m putting out there just comes from our incredible investment teams at Nuveen, ranging from all those farmland investors, private credit, fixed income, equities. I’m just taking a lot of that information and packaging it in a form that I think will be usable to the reader or the watcher.
Aoifinn Devitt: It’s really interesting what you’re describing, almost seems like a democratization of access to financial information, market information. But what I think is intriguing is that you can serve so many different parts of that spectrum, the institutional investor, the highly sophisticated individual, as well as maybe somebody who doesn’t have that level of expertise. And I think the important thing is that it’s coming from the same voice. Each of us has the ability to dial down or up our level of technical words that we use as well as the language we express ideas in. And I think it’s important that it comes from an authoritative voice to gain credibility and not maybe some TikTok influencer who perhaps could be disseminating dangerous ideas even around finance without some of the learnings behind it.
Saira Malik: Thank you.
Aoifinn Devitt: Do you do anything beyond LinkedIn? Any other social media?
Saira Malik: The LinkedIn has been my main source of social media. I actually haven’t done any other social media. I started on LinkedIn just 2 or 3 years ago, actually. But I went out there and thought, you know, we have such incredible investment information within our firm. I wanted to just go out there and start to share it with the world and see how they received it. And I’ve been very fortunate that they’ve received it quite well. But, you know, I always thought all this great information is coming across my desk all day long. And what would I have wanted when I was— before I got into Wall Street, when I wanted to understand Wall Street better? I would have loved to have seen it. And even for those who aren’t working in the financial sector, what’s going on with your retirement portfolio, what’s going on with your money is one of the most important things in life. You know, if we can get that information to people, in a way that’s interesting and understandable and even somewhat simplified, then I think more people will be interested in talking about money, learning about money, managing their money, whether they work in the industry or not.
Aoifinn Devitt: Let’s take this then to the question around representation, because you have spoken before about the importance of diversity and your own being— your own experience being a good case study for that. Looking at the industry itself and the representation of women, people of color, what grade would you give it in terms of representation and inclusion? And what do you think we can change to improve that?
Saira Malik: Well, I think we have a lot more work to do, so I certainly am not going to give it an A. I think we always should be striving for better. Maybe I’ll first start with hope as answering this question. When I talk about my grandmother and the fact that they weren’t allowing women into medical school, her diploma is dated 1934. So less than 100 years later, I don’t think we’re surprised when we see a female doctor. I tell the story about my mother wanting to be a surgeon. I’ll say, I hope we’re not surprised to see a female surgeon in 2023. So I think there is hope that within 100 years Wall Street can look a lot differently. I’m very passionate about widening the funnel in terms of how we hire. So not only getting diversity onto Wall Street from the typical schools that Wall Street hires from, which tends to be a very narrow band— I mentioned earlier in my conversation that JPMorgan Asset Management Equity Research only hired one person from the University of Wisconsin, and the rest were from the typical kind of Ivy League schools that Wall Street has tended to hire from. I think we should widen the and Wall funnel Street hire from a broader array of schools. There’s a lot of diverse talent there. There’s a lot of very intelligent students there who are passionate about financial markets like I was when I went to Cal Poly. I just didn’t have the access. Wall Street firms didn’t show up for our career days. You know, if you wrote a letter and applied to Wall Street firms, they generally tended to reject you, which is what happened to me. I think we can get a lot of diverse talent and diverse educational talent from a wider array of schools.
Aoifinn Devitt: So a wider array of schools. Any other programs that you’ve seen be particularly helpful? You mentioned the mentor circles that you had around you and how that helped you to invest in yourself. How can we create those circles for other young women entering the industry? Because I think there’s a fascinating— and discussion of this, and it’s a similar thing around people entering college, say first-generation college students. They don’t necessarily have the support. They can get in the door, but they don’t have the supports to help them thrive later. And I think the same might apply to the workplace. We have these pipeline programs, this recruiting you mentioned to get people in the door, but how do we help them to thrive and move up the ladder later? Anything you think can help in terms of mentorship in the workplace?
Saira Malik: Sure. So first of all, just other programs that I you think, know, are in existence today that I was not as familiar with when I was younger, like the Twigo Foundation, Girls Who Invest. The top recruiting firms now hold days where they bring diverse talent in and invite asset managers just to meet them. I think all these things going on is going to also help level the playing field, widen the funnel in terms of who comes onto Wall Street. And that does become more important in terms of when you get into a firm, how do you grow from there? Sponsorship becomes very important. Oftentimes people tend to migrate to or sponsor those who look like them, who have a similar background to them. That’s why I think it’s important for senior leaders to become more diverse to help pull up other leaders. AAPI, Asian American Pacific Islanders, a study came out recently that said they’re the least likely to get promoted. I think a lot of that often is because if you don’t see someone who looks like you who’s at a senior level or someone at a senior level isn’t thinking of you particularly, maybe it slows down your career path. I was fortunate Susan Ulick, who’s the person I followed from JPMorgan to Nuveen, you know, she was the one who helped pull me up. But I think you have to have people in the organization who are looking out for you oftentimes, otherwise you may fall behind or not even think about what path you should be taking.
Aoifinn Devitt: And speaking of leaders, you’re now a leader yourself. How would you describe your management and leadership style, and how does that bring out the best in your team?
Saira Malik: My management leadership style, it’s around 3 pillars: performance, process, and culture. So we’re an investment-focused firm, investment-focused group. We lead with performance. So first of all, it’s, you know, is everybody focusing on performing active management, beating our benchmark with appropriate level of risk? Process is also very important as an investor. How are you generating that performance? Is it sustainable? Over a cycle. If you’re having issues with your performance, how do you think about what your process is and what tweaks we need to make? And culture is very important. I’m very proud of Nuveen’s culture. I think we are known as a firm where a lot of very smart, nice people work. I want to keep it that way where it’s team-oriented and not people out to get each other. That’s all important. And then we have a very transparent rating and review process. For example, in Nuveen Equity, our portfolios managers manage money, which is very typical, but almost all of our equity research analysts also manage assets. So people are judged on did they beat the benchmark with the money they manage? Did they beat their peers? If you’re a portfolio manager or as an equity research analyst, did you add basis points to the portfolio manager’s portfolio? It’s a very quantitative process. So at the end of the year, when you get your rating, you know as well where it came from as we do because you can see your own numbers.
Aoifinn Devitt: And is that the culture piece you mentioned, that transparency, the fairness?
Saira Malik: Yeah, I think transparency, fairness, and culture, and also just having a team-oriented Culture is very important. Sometimes in asset management, people can veer to, you know, I win only if you lose. I you say, know, the pie is going to be bigger from compensation point of view, from a returns point of view. If we all work together, we all win. We’re going to expand that and do a better job for our clients. So that’s what we need to focus on rather than thinking, you know, can I outperform the person sitting next to me?
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, let’s go back to some personal reflections now. So we’ve spoken about your career journey. Were there any setbacks or challenges in there that you learned lessons from that you can share?
Saira Malik: You know, I’ve had investment setbacks where I’ve had just very difficult performance and to think hard about what am I doing wrong in terms of how I’ve been investing. You know, I’ve had periods of my career where I felt like maybe it should move faster or not in the direction that it’s going. I think we all have ups and downs. So resiliency and also having flexibility to deal with change is very important throughout your career. Financial services is changing constantly. When I started 28 years ago, you basically picked equity or fixed income. Today, active equity is very challenging and there’s a host of other asset classes that are growing faster, like private credit. So just understanding that as the world changes, you need to understand what’s going on. And what I’ve learned though is even when I felt uncomfortable in a room or not had confidence, if I was thinking back to how I would do things differently now that I have almost 3 decades of experience, I think the main message I would give is, and main advice I would give is telling people actually not to try to fit in. So I’ve often been the only person of color in a room, the only woman who’s a person of color. And oftentimes when I walk into that room, especially when I was younger, I’d feel like I needed to fit in. And I just wanted to be like everybody else and acclimate. And what I’ve learned over time is the power in your views is the diversity that you bring to the table. So actually, don’t try to fit in. This is where I got— get back to when we talked about going against consensus, going against the grain, bringing your unique views to the table. That’s why you’re part of that group. And why do I have the confidence to do that? These were from my mother to my mentors, to my sponsors. They’re the ones who gave me that confidence to sit in that room, oftentimes feeling like I look different. I come from a different educational background, but my opinions are important. They’re diverse. They’re there for a reason. They’re there because I do wanna talk about things that maybe aren’t the consensus.
Aoifinn Devitt: And we’ll definitely come to this when we ask about the wisdom, cuz I think I’m gonna file that one away as one of your words of wisdom. But just before we move to that, so you mentioned many key people that were so pivotal in getting you on your path and, and keeping you on it. Anyone in particular that you can speak about that had a particular influence on how you see the world?
Saira Malik: I think the main influence is the woman I followed from JPMorgan to Nuveen, which is Susan Uelek. When I went to JPMorgan Asset Management, I was a chemicals analyst and she was a steel analyst. And she took me under her wing day one and said, I’m going to help you. Our sectors are fairly similar. She was about 20 years ahead of me in my career. So she helped me become a better analyst. When she went to Nuveen, she called me and said, would you like to come over? We’re going to, you know, kind of change how we think about things here. I followed her over. I became an analyst again, but she then moved me up to a portfolio manager, director of research. By the time she retired, she was CIO of Nuveen Equity. And not surprisingly, my role one role ago was CIO of Nuveen Equity. I very much followed her career path. I still talk to her all the time. I’ve just now, since I’ve continued on to become CIO of Nuveen overall, but she was basically the person who taught me to be a better analyst, taught me to be a better investor, taught me the different paths I could take from management to managing money. She was just probably the most instrumental person in my career.
Aoifinn Devitt: Then you’ve mentioned then some of the pieces of advice that have come and the advice that you would give to women in your situation coming in around authenticity and bringing that authenticity to the table. Does that come with any qualifications, uh, or any kind of guidelines or guardrails, I suppose? Are there times when one has to in order to make progress, maybe mute some of that individualism or not? Or how do you think— I mean, obviously you mentioned it’s an up and down career we have. It’s a volatile profession. And any guidance for maybe words of wisdom, some of which can come from setbacks that you mentioned before in terms of without authenticity, anything to build on that?
Saira Malik: Sure. So, you know, I think all of this comes from investing to being your authentic self with a level of conviction and confidence.. And if you invest with conviction and when you’re in a room, you have conviction in your views, you have confidence. I think that’s kind of the goal that I have. But how do you have that? How do you make sure it’s the right thing to be doing? People often ask me, well, you’re going on TV, you’re sitting on these panels, you’re doing a keynote speech. Do you get nervous? And I say, well, there’s one thing I always make sure I do, and that’s my homework. I always make sure I’m very prepared. So if I’m walking in with a view or with conviction, I’ve done a lot of work around it. I never say anything that I don’t believe in, that I don’t believe has good data to back it up. When I make my investments, the same thing. I, I run a portfolio with about 60, 65 stocks in it. I know those companies. I have a high conviction in them. I think that’s important because you don’t want to just walk in the room and say, you know, I’m just going to say things because I’m different or, you know, I don’t really know exactly why I’m saying this, but I just want to say something in the room. If I don’t have anything to say or I don’t— the topic isn’t something that I feel well versed in, I’m going to be the quiet person in the room. If it’s a topic that I feel very comfortable with, you know, it always starts for me with investing. That’s what my core skill is. Then I’m going to have conviction and confidence when I talk about it.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, Sarah, thank you so much. You are a light in this industry. The breadth of experience that you bring, the breadth of research and video content that you put out is just a gift to me and so many other practitioners, as well as to that segment that may not be spoken to as often in such easy-to-understand and relatable terms. So thank you for the work that you’re doing and for being such an outstanding role model for coming here to share your insights with us.
Saira Malik: Thank you, Aoifinn. It’s always great to see you. Thanks for having me.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors and their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
Aoifinn Devitt: This bonus series is kindly supported by Soundmark Partners. Soundmark Partners LLC is a women-owned and led private credit firm focused on commercial real estate.
Saira Malik: I grew up in Stockton, California, and other than my mother, I really did not have much access to financial markets or understanding them. And I think it’s important to level the playing field so anyone out there can look wherever they are and try to understand the markets, not only considering it might make them more interested in having a career on Wall Street, but money in retirement is important to everybody. So just understanding what’s driving your retirement portfolio The fact that in today’s day and age we can just go onto the internet and get thought leadership from leaders across firms and in roles where they’ve been doing this for 10, 20, 30 years. I am still an investor. I do manage a global equity portfolio, so I, I do still do investing for a living. I think that that’s most of the reason that I do it.
Aoifinn Devitt: This is a long-awaited conversation with a CIO and thought leader who posts frequent videos to LinkedIn that focus on making finance accessible to all. We hear about her belief in investing in yourself, the proven benefit of social mobility, and why finance and investing need to be accessible to far more. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast. A podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories. I’m joined today by Sarah Malik, who is Chief Investment Officer at Nuveen, a TIAA company. She’s an active voice on social media, regularly posting videos on LinkedIn containing market-related and career-related content. She recently celebrated her 20th anniversary at Nuveen. Welcome, Sarah. Thanks for joining me today.
Saira Malik: Thanks for having me.
Aoifinn Devitt: Let’s start with your background. Can you briefly walk us through your path into the world of investing?
Saira Malik: Sure. Well, I think if I had a theme about my background, it was that I had to learn to invest in myself. But before I go into that, maybe I’ll just talk a little bit about some of my family. So my grandmother actually is from India, and when she wanted to pick a career, she decided she wanted to be a doctor. And when she went to medical school, she was told that she couldn’t go to medical school because they didn’t allow women. In a medical school in India at that time. So she actually entered into one of the first classes of women in medical school. And what I love about her story is that her diploma hangs in my office. It stated 1934, and on her diploma, the hims are crossed out and replaced with her, and next to the he, S is written in because they did not have diplomas for women doctors at that time in 1934. You could say medicine runs in my family’s blood because my mother followed in her footsteps and wanted to be a doctor also in the US at that time. Now, my mom wanted to be a surgeon. And when she went to her guidance counselor and asked him about being a surgeon, he actually told her he didn’t think that would be a good path for her because people wouldn’t trust a surgeon who looked like her and sounded like her. So I’d love to end that part of the story by telling you that my mom became a fantastic surgeon, but she didn’t. She became an internal medicine doctor, and that’s how she practiced until she retired as a medical doctor. That gets me to the theme of investing in yourself. I grew up in Stockton, California, and when I was in high school and talked to my guidance counselor about what I wanted to do next, he told me he didn’t think I’d make it through a 4-year college. Now, I didn’t listen to him, and I did go to college. And while I was there, I fell in love with the stock market, mostly because of my mother, who, while she was a doctor, really was enthusiastic and passionate about the markets, and that rubbed off on me. So when I was 19 years old and a junior in college, I got my Series 7 and 63 licenses started practicing as a part-time financial advisor, publishing my own stock market newsletter. I love doing that. I invested in myself, and that was how I got my start onto Wall Street and stock picking.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s amazing. And I love that concept of investing in yourself. And funny, I’ll share a story about my grandmother. She did not go to college, unfortunately. She won the scholarship, but at that time, only the scholarships— even though she won it, they wanted to give it to a boy. So they— unfortunately, she’s stuck with her high school education. But I love the story of these capable women, some of whom managed to get on the path and some of whom did not, but still quite admirable nonetheless. So investing in yourself, does that take a certain confidence? Does that take a belief of others, a circle around you? Is it all about your own self-confidence? How do people learn to invest in themselves?
Saira Malik: I think often it can come from the confidence that other people give to you. So investing in yourself means counting on yourself when other people won’t, or they’re giving you bad advice, or they’re, you know, sort of giving you negative data points. I got a lot of confidence in what I wanted to do from my mother. Her passion for the markets rubbed off on me. Me. Her confidence in me to pursue that dream really helped me do it. And then along the way, I’ve had many mentors and sponsors who’ve also helped me do that. I’ve also learned though that investing in yourself isn’t enough. You also need to find others to invest in you. I mentioned my mom, but for example, when I graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which is where I eventually did get my bachelor’s degree, and I had my Series 7 and 63, I’m publishing my own stock market newsletter, picking stocks, I’m ready to go to Wall Street. I guess Wall Street wasn’t ready for me because I applied to 20 Wall Street firms and I got rejected from all of them. I didn’t get a single interview. I just got these form letters back from their human resources department basically saying, we’re not interested and not inviting you for an interview. Now obviously I did eventually get my first job on Wall Street and I’ve been working in the industry for 28 years, but it was because of the other people who invested in me from my mom to these important mentors and sponsors throughout my career that have given me that confidence to continue to do this.
Aoifinn Devitt: So that path of rejection, I’m sure is more common than we know. That many, many rejection letters and the boilerplate that kind of annoys you because you know it’s just boilerplate. So where did your entry point come from then?
Saira Malik: So my entry point came after I finished undergrad and I did not get into any Wall Street firms. I went to get my master’s degree at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Fortunately, there they have a program where they let a handful of students manage money for their endowment program. And from there, schools did come to hire. JPMorgan Asset Management was one of them. I will give a nod and a shout out to Keith Banks. He was director of research for JPMorgan Asset Management. They hired one person from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Applied Security Analysis program into equity research at JPMorgan. I was the one that Keith hired. So that was one of the very first people who, you know, was not my mom, who invested in me, had confidence in me, gave me a chance when other people wouldn’t. He’s been an important mentor and sponsor to me. I think the mentors and sponsors are very important because they can often also light a path for you and show you the way. So maybe just to finish the second part of that story, ’cause I’ve only had two jobs on Wall Street. One was at JPMorgan, second one was at Nuveen. I came to Nuveen because I followed the future director of research from JPMorgan over to Nuveen. Her name was Susan Ulick, and she was really instrumental in my career. She taught me how to be a better research analyst, and she also started to put me into management roles. She talked to me about becoming a director of equity research myself. And I remember when she asked me if I’m interested in being a director of equity research, I looked behind me because I thought maybe she’s talking to somebody else. I hadn’t thought about that as a role for me. So this is my example of how these mentors and sponsors can light a path for you, show you the way even when you don’t see it.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s a great positive story. And also even the negative stories, sometimes the, well, I’ll show them attitude, which comes from someone not having that belief in you, can be quite inspiring as well and can really motivate you to try harder. So a really interesting blend. Based on this journey, which, you know, has obviously started early for you, earlier than most, what would you say are the core investment beliefs that you now have based on the years you’ve spent in financial services?
Saira Malik: Sure, I think all of these stories have taught me something that’s very important for my investment philosophy, and that’s going against the grain. And that’s a reason that I also think it’s very important to increase diversity on Wall Street, diversity of thought, diversity of educational backgrounds, diversity of people because they think differently. And going against consensus and going against the grain is usually where you you gain most of the returns that you do when you’re investing. So very important to me to have conviction, not always agree with consensus, feel confident and comfortable when my views are different. You can see that it’s not just an investing issue, it’s around the world. Many of you the, know, greatest thinkers of all time who were thinking differently, not thinking similarly to consensus, and that’s where they came up with some of the great ideas that they’ve had. And often in the markets, the outcome is the same when you’re looking at things through a different lens than other people are. That’s oftentimes when you generate the most alpha.
Aoifinn Devitt: And let’s move into the financial world today. So when you look around you today, and maybe you can describe a little bit of what you do in your Chief Investment Officer role, maybe what that role entails and what excites you as you look around you for areas of research, opportunities, sectors.
Saira Malik: Sure. So Nuveen, it manages a little over $1.1 trillion in assets under management. I think what makes us unique is our diversification across publics and private. So we have a very strong $400 billion plus equity segment of the firm, as well as about a similar size, a little bit larger in fixed income. And these incredible alternatives, which can be less correlated to other asset classes such as farmland, private credit, private equity, infrastructure, clean energy. This is, as a CIO of the firm, I get to oversee all of these asset classes, and I think it’s an incredible opportunity. I think what’s important today, the world has changed. We’re coming off an era of easy money, about $5 trillion in stimulus that came into the economy. During the pandemic. And today we’re dealing with two issues. That’s inflation and the late innings of the economic cycle. So how are we going to invest for that going forward in a world where inflation likely remains pretty high and interest rates are much higher than many of us have seen in our career? I’m looking for asset classes that are resilient to the economy and benefit from higher inflation. So for example, farmland and timberland, two areas that Nuveen is invested in. Farmland and timberland have tended to outperform inflation over decades. From 1991 to 2021, Farmland beat the CPI, which is a measure of inflation, by about 8.5% on an annualized basis, and Timberland by about 6.9%. And then areas that you can invest in that are more resilient to an economic slowdown. So infrastructure, the backing of infrastructure is utility segments and waste management. We still turn on the lights and take out the garbage during a recession. Infrastructure is an area that tends to perform well even during a recession. Also the onshoring and moving away from globalization to localization. We need to invest in our country. Infrastructure will be the key to doing that. So those are the areas that, you know, Nuveen has beyond what you may think about it that are less traditional asset classes that can work very well in the regime of higher interest rates and inflation that we likely will see for the foreseeable future.
Aoifinn Devitt: We’re going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor of this series, Sandmark Partners. I sat down with Jenna Gerstenlauer to talk about their private credit strategy. I asked Jenna what excited her about the current opportunity set.
Speaker C: The commercial real estate market is very interesting right now. With rates high, naturally property values have declined and property owners are facing refinance challenges as they cannot replace the level of debt that they currently have on their properties. We are seeing this across the board on nearly every investment opportunity that we are sourcing. Our goal is to provide solutions for our clients. We are entering a phase of the cycle where hundreds of billions of dollars of debt needs to be refinanced over the next 9 years, and borrowers need to figure out how they’re going to replace their existing low-interest rate debt with new, more expensive debt. We’re focused on the subordinate portion of the capital stack, so the piece in between the first mortgage and the equity, typically the piece resting between 50 to 80% of the property’s value. And very generally speaking, in today’s market, that piece of the capital stack generates between an 11 to 14% return.
Aoifinn Devitt: And now back to the show. And let’s look at the role of active management, because obviously Nuveen does have mostly active management approach. How do you see active management as playing a role in clients’ investment for that future? And how is it evolving as a, as a service?
Saira Malik: Your active management has evolved a lot in the 28 years that I’ve been in the industry with indexing has really taken a lot of the market share from active management, especially within the equities markets. You know, I think First of all, the key with active management is you need to beat your benchmark. I think there’s still a lot of inefficiencies in the market and a lot of emotion within investing, which is where active management can shine. So non-US markets, I think it’s tougher to know what’s in the index. Small caps, same thing. A lot of companies that you don’t really know what is the quality of this company. So I think active management still has a strong place. I mean, we may even take that a little further and say, well, what about the, the other sort of new, know, you I think permanent trend in place, which is artificial intelligence. And what does that mean for the markets? And for investors, well, artificial intelligence works off tremendous amounts of data, which is exactly what Wall Street investors have. Not only the data that research analysts go through, but the trading data and decisions that us as portfolio managers have made. I think artificial intelligence has a place to make us more efficient. But as long as there’s so much emotion driving markets, I think there’s always going to be a place for human investors and for active managers.
Aoifinn Devitt: And we have a discussion actually in our Series 5 with someone from Broadridge, a consultant around asset management, who speaks about the evolution of asset management from a product provision industry to more of a service industry, and how clients now are looking at partnerships, solution-based investing, customization, and ultimately long-term relationships that are not as transactional maybe as simply buying this fund or that fund. How do you see that role of maybe Naveen or just you in, in terms of your client interactions?
Saira Malik: I think it is exactly where the industry is going. It’s a very important initiative for Nuveen. For us, it’s important not only you know, to, it’s table stakes at this point to have the right products in place and generate returns that beat the benchmark or meet what clients’ return needs are. But then you need to build around that. We discussed a little bit even the amount of content that my office and my team puts out. I think it’s important not only to, you know, when you have a client, if they’re investing in you, to also make sure that you’re holding their hand, giving them the information they need, meeting them where they are when it comes to wrappers and the types of strategies that they want. Basically, you need to be able to solve clients’ problems for every need that they have, and that is a solution-based sale, not a product-based sale.
Aoifinn Devitt: And of course, that’s a great segue now to your video content, because I’ve just been saying how impressed I have been by the frequency and the engagement that you experience with your short, 1-minute-long— I think they are mostly— videos on LinkedIn. What kind of feedback do you get from them, both from clients and from other industry professionals at large?
Saira Malik: I’ve been fortunate. The feedback has been very positive. One of the reasons I’ve approached social media in so many different ways, from, you know, written content to videos to even just pictorial content, is I grew up in Stockton, California, and other than my mother, I really did not have much access to financial markets or understanding them. And I think it’s important to level the playing field so anyone out there can look wherever they are and try to understand the markets, not only considering it might make them more interested in having a career on Wall Street, but money and retirement is important to everybody. So just understanding what’s driving your retirement portfolio. The fact that in today’s day and age we can just go onto the internet and get thought leadership from leaders across firms and in roles where they’ve been doing this for 10, 20, 30 years. I am still an investor. I do manage a global equity portfolio, so I, I do still do investing for a living. I know that’s most of the reason that I do it. I’m fortunate to get positive feedback. The reason that I think we get that is most of the content I’m putting out there just comes from our incredible investment teams at Nuveen, ranging from all those farmland investors, private credit, fixed income, equities. I’m just taking a lot of that information and packaging it in a form that I think will be usable to the reader or the watcher.
Aoifinn Devitt: It’s really interesting what you’re describing, almost seems like a democratization of access to financial information, market information. But what I think is intriguing is that you can serve so many different parts of that spectrum, the institutional investor, the highly sophisticated individual, as well as maybe somebody who doesn’t have that level of expertise. And I think the important thing is that it’s coming from the same voice. Each of us has the ability to dial down or up our level of technical words that we use as well as the language we express ideas in. And I think it’s important that it comes from an authoritative voice to gain credibility and not maybe some TikTok influencer who perhaps could be disseminating dangerous ideas even around finance without some of the learnings behind it.
Saira Malik: Thank you.
Aoifinn Devitt: Do you do anything beyond LinkedIn? Any other social media?
Saira Malik: The LinkedIn has been my main source of social media. I actually haven’t done any other social media. I started on LinkedIn just 2 or 3 years ago, actually. But I went out there and thought, you know, we have such incredible investment information within our firm. I wanted to just go out there and start to share it with the world and see how they received it. And I’ve been very fortunate that they’ve received it quite well. But, you know, I always thought all this great information is coming across my desk all day long. And what would I have wanted when I was— before I got into Wall Street, when I wanted to understand Wall Street better? I would have loved to have seen it. And even for those who aren’t working in the financial sector, what’s going on with your retirement portfolio, what’s going on with your money is one of the most important things in life. You know, if we can get that information to people, in a way that’s interesting and understandable and even somewhat simplified, then I think more people will be interested in talking about money, learning about money, managing their money, whether they work in the industry or not.
Aoifinn Devitt: Let’s take this then to the question around representation, because you have spoken before about the importance of diversity and your own being— your own experience being a good case study for that. Looking at the industry itself and the representation of women, people of color, what grade would you give it in terms of representation and inclusion? And what do you think we can change to improve that?
Saira Malik: Well, I think we have a lot more work to do, so I certainly am not going to give it an A. I think we always should be striving for better. Maybe I’ll first start with hope as answering this question. When I talk about my grandmother and the fact that they weren’t allowing women into medical school, her diploma is dated 1934. So less than 100 years later, I don’t think we’re surprised when we see a female doctor. I tell the story about my mother wanting to be a surgeon. I’ll say, I hope we’re not surprised to see a female surgeon in 2023. So I think there is hope that within 100 years Wall Street can look a lot differently. I’m very passionate about widening the funnel in terms of how we hire. So not only getting diversity onto Wall Street from the typical schools that Wall Street hires from, which tends to be a very narrow band— I mentioned earlier in my conversation that JPMorgan Asset Management Equity Research only hired one person from the University of Wisconsin, and the rest were from the typical kind of Ivy League schools that Wall Street has tended to hire from. I think we should widen the and Wall funnel Street hire from a broader array of schools. There’s a lot of diverse talent there. There’s a lot of very intelligent students there who are passionate about financial markets like I was when I went to Cal Poly. I just didn’t have the access. Wall Street firms didn’t show up for our career days. You know, if you wrote a letter and applied to Wall Street firms, they generally tended to reject you, which is what happened to me. I think we can get a lot of diverse talent and diverse educational talent from a wider array of schools.
Aoifinn Devitt: So a wider array of schools. Any other programs that you’ve seen be particularly helpful? You mentioned the mentor circles that you had around you and how that helped you to invest in yourself. How can we create those circles for other young women entering the industry? Because I think there’s a fascinating— and discussion of this, and it’s a similar thing around people entering college, say first-generation college students. They don’t necessarily have the support. They can get in the door, but they don’t have the supports to help them thrive later. And I think the same might apply to the workplace. We have these pipeline programs, this recruiting you mentioned to get people in the door, but how do we help them to thrive and move up the ladder later? Anything you think can help in terms of mentorship in the workplace?
Saira Malik: Sure. So first of all, just other programs that I you think, know, are in existence today that I was not as familiar with when I was younger, like the Twigo Foundation, Girls Who Invest. The top recruiting firms now hold days where they bring diverse talent in and invite asset managers just to meet them. I think all these things going on is going to also help level the playing field, widen the funnel in terms of who comes onto Wall Street. And that does become more important in terms of when you get into a firm, how do you grow from there? Sponsorship becomes very important. Oftentimes people tend to migrate to or sponsor those who look like them, who have a similar background to them. That’s why I think it’s important for senior leaders to become more diverse to help pull up other leaders. AAPI, Asian American Pacific Islanders, a study came out recently that said they’re the least likely to get promoted. I think a lot of that often is because if you don’t see someone who looks like you who’s at a senior level or someone at a senior level isn’t thinking of you particularly, maybe it slows down your career path. I was fortunate Susan Ulick, who’s the person I followed from JPMorgan to Nuveen, you know, she was the one who helped pull me up. But I think you have to have people in the organization who are looking out for you oftentimes, otherwise you may fall behind or not even think about what path you should be taking.
Aoifinn Devitt: And speaking of leaders, you’re now a leader yourself. How would you describe your management and leadership style, and how does that bring out the best in your team?
Saira Malik: My management leadership style, it’s around 3 pillars: performance, process, and culture. So we’re an investment-focused firm, investment-focused group. We lead with performance. So first of all, it’s, you know, is everybody focusing on performing active management, beating our benchmark with appropriate level of risk? Process is also very important as an investor. How are you generating that performance? Is it sustainable? Over a cycle. If you’re having issues with your performance, how do you think about what your process is and what tweaks we need to make? And culture is very important. I’m very proud of Nuveen’s culture. I think we are known as a firm where a lot of very smart, nice people work. I want to keep it that way where it’s team-oriented and not people out to get each other. That’s all important. And then we have a very transparent rating and review process. For example, in Nuveen Equity, our portfolios managers manage money, which is very typical, but almost all of our equity research analysts also manage assets. So people are judged on did they beat the benchmark with the money they manage? Did they beat their peers? If you’re a portfolio manager or as an equity research analyst, did you add basis points to the portfolio manager’s portfolio? It’s a very quantitative process. So at the end of the year, when you get your rating, you know as well where it came from as we do because you can see your own numbers.
Aoifinn Devitt: And is that the culture piece you mentioned, that transparency, the fairness?
Saira Malik: Yeah, I think transparency, fairness, and culture, and also just having a team-oriented Culture is very important. Sometimes in asset management, people can veer to, you know, I win only if you lose. I you say, know, the pie is going to be bigger from compensation point of view, from a returns point of view. If we all work together, we all win. We’re going to expand that and do a better job for our clients. So that’s what we need to focus on rather than thinking, you know, can I outperform the person sitting next to me?
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, let’s go back to some personal reflections now. So we’ve spoken about your career journey. Were there any setbacks or challenges in there that you learned lessons from that you can share?
Saira Malik: You know, I’ve had investment setbacks where I’ve had just very difficult performance and to think hard about what am I doing wrong in terms of how I’ve been investing. You know, I’ve had periods of my career where I felt like maybe it should move faster or not in the direction that it’s going. I think we all have ups and downs. So resiliency and also having flexibility to deal with change is very important throughout your career. Financial services is changing constantly. When I started 28 years ago, you basically picked equity or fixed income. Today, active equity is very challenging and there’s a host of other asset classes that are growing faster, like private credit. So just understanding that as the world changes, you need to understand what’s going on. And what I’ve learned though is even when I felt uncomfortable in a room or not had confidence, if I was thinking back to how I would do things differently now that I have almost 3 decades of experience, I think the main message I would give is, and main advice I would give is telling people actually not to try to fit in. So I’ve often been the only person of color in a room, the only woman who’s a person of color. And oftentimes when I walk into that room, especially when I was younger, I’d feel like I needed to fit in. And I just wanted to be like everybody else and acclimate. And what I’ve learned over time is the power in your views is the diversity that you bring to the table. So actually, don’t try to fit in. This is where I got— get back to when we talked about going against consensus, going against the grain, bringing your unique views to the table. That’s why you’re part of that group. And why do I have the confidence to do that? These were from my mother to my mentors, to my sponsors. They’re the ones who gave me that confidence to sit in that room, oftentimes feeling like I look different. I come from a different educational background, but my opinions are important. They’re diverse. They’re there for a reason. They’re there because I do wanna talk about things that maybe aren’t the consensus.
Aoifinn Devitt: And we’ll definitely come to this when we ask about the wisdom, cuz I think I’m gonna file that one away as one of your words of wisdom. But just before we move to that, so you mentioned many key people that were so pivotal in getting you on your path and, and keeping you on it. Anyone in particular that you can speak about that had a particular influence on how you see the world?
Saira Malik: I think the main influence is the woman I followed from JPMorgan to Nuveen, which is Susan Uelek. When I went to JPMorgan Asset Management, I was a chemicals analyst and she was a steel analyst. And she took me under her wing day one and said, I’m going to help you. Our sectors are fairly similar. She was about 20 years ahead of me in my career. So she helped me become a better analyst. When she went to Nuveen, she called me and said, would you like to come over? We’re going to, you know, kind of change how we think about things here. I followed her over. I became an analyst again, but she then moved me up to a portfolio manager, director of research. By the time she retired, she was CIO of Nuveen Equity. And not surprisingly, my role one role ago was CIO of Nuveen Equity. I very much followed her career path. I still talk to her all the time. I’ve just now, since I’ve continued on to become CIO of Nuveen overall, but she was basically the person who taught me to be a better analyst, taught me to be a better investor, taught me the different paths I could take from management to managing money. She was just probably the most instrumental person in my career.
Aoifinn Devitt: Then you’ve mentioned then some of the pieces of advice that have come and the advice that you would give to women in your situation coming in around authenticity and bringing that authenticity to the table. Does that come with any qualifications, uh, or any kind of guidelines or guardrails, I suppose? Are there times when one has to in order to make progress, maybe mute some of that individualism or not? Or how do you think— I mean, obviously you mentioned it’s an up and down career we have. It’s a volatile profession. And any guidance for maybe words of wisdom, some of which can come from setbacks that you mentioned before in terms of without authenticity, anything to build on that?
Saira Malik: Sure. So, you know, I think all of this comes from investing to being your authentic self with a level of conviction and confidence.. And if you invest with conviction and when you’re in a room, you have conviction in your views, you have confidence. I think that’s kind of the goal that I have. But how do you have that? How do you make sure it’s the right thing to be doing? People often ask me, well, you’re going on TV, you’re sitting on these panels, you’re doing a keynote speech. Do you get nervous? And I say, well, there’s one thing I always make sure I do, and that’s my homework. I always make sure I’m very prepared. So if I’m walking in with a view or with conviction, I’ve done a lot of work around it. I never say anything that I don’t believe in, that I don’t believe has good data to back it up. When I make my investments, the same thing. I, I run a portfolio with about 60, 65 stocks in it. I know those companies. I have a high conviction in them. I think that’s important because you don’t want to just walk in the room and say, you know, I’m just going to say things because I’m different or, you know, I don’t really know exactly why I’m saying this, but I just want to say something in the room. If I don’t have anything to say or I don’t— the topic isn’t something that I feel well versed in, I’m going to be the quiet person in the room. If it’s a topic that I feel very comfortable with, you know, it always starts for me with investing. That’s what my core skill is. Then I’m going to have conviction and confidence when I talk about it.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, Sarah, thank you so much. You are a light in this industry. The breadth of experience that you bring, the breadth of research and video content that you put out is just a gift to me and so many other practitioners, as well as to that segment that may not be spoken to as often in such easy-to-understand and relatable terms. So thank you for the work that you’re doing and for being such an outstanding role model for coming here to share your insights with us.
Saira Malik: Thank you, Aoifinn. It’s always great to see you. Thanks for having me.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors and their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
