“Executional excellence can get you to being great at something – let’s call that top quartile – but it really is passion that distinguishes the best from great – top decile.” – Charlotte Zhang
As the director of investments, Charlotte Zhang oversees the selection of external investment managers at Inatai Foundation, conducts portfolio research, and helps to institutionalize processes, tools, and resources. Experienced in impact investing, she previously served as a senior associate at ICONIQ Capital and, before that, Medley Partners. Investing on behalf of foundations affiliated with family offices, her investments supported a variety of nonprofit work, from early childhood education to autism research. Charlotte was a founding partner of Seed Consulting Group, a California-based nonprofit that provides pro bono strategy consulting to environmental and public health organizations, and currently serves on the Women’s Association of Venture and Equity’s west coast steering committee and as a Project Pinklight panelist for Private Equity Women Investor Network. She is also on the advisory boards of MoDa Partners, a family office whose mission is to advance the economic and educational equity of women and girls, and 8090 Partners, a multifamily office consisting of families and entrepreneurs across diverse industries that is currently deploying an impact investment fund.
Charlotte earned a BS with honors in business administration from the University of California, Berkley. When not working, you can find her globetrotting (18 countries and counting), writing a Yelp review about the best bite in town, or cuddling up with a book and her two adorable cats.
You can find Charlotte on her LinkedIn here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotterzhang/
And huge thanks to this episode’s sponsor, Alchemist Accelerator: https://alchemistaccelerator.com/superclusters
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.
Brought to you by Alchemist Accelerator.
OUTLINE:
[00:00] Intro
[02:56] Charlotte’s humble beginnings
[07:02] Lessons as a pianist
[10:23] Lessons from swimming that piano didn’t teach
[14:52] How Charlotte became an LP
[17:44] Where are emerging managers looking for deal flow these days?
[21:23] Reasons as to why Inatai may pass on a fund
[24:35] The 4 P’s to Evaluate GPs
[29:26] How small is too small of a track record?
[34:42] How do you build a multi-billion dollar portfolio from scratch
[39:43] The minimum viable back office for an LP
[42:03] Underrated Bay Area restaurants
[47:01] Thank you to Alchemist Accelerator for sponsoring!
[48:02] If you learned something from this episode, it would mean a lot if you could share it with ONE friend!
SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:
- Inatai Foundation
- Kaiser Permanente
- Kaiser Permanente’s merger with Group Health Cooperative
- ICONIQ Capital
- Vernal Point Advisors
- Medley Partners
- Bridge Funding Global
- Bridge Funding Global Selection Committee
- Ludwig van Beethoven
- Andrew Huberman
- University of California, Berkeley
- Harvard University
- Stanford University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Kaszek
- Nubank
- Kavak
- QuintoAndar
- Mercado Libre
- Backstop
- Bipsync
- Nasdaq Solovis
- Caissa (acquired by Burgiss)
- SPI by StepStone
- Yelp Elite
- PPQ Dungeness Island
- Golden Crab House
- Mensho Tokyo SF
- House of Prime Rib
- Charlotte’s Instagram @deetzontheeats
SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:
“Executional excellence can get you to being great at something – let’s call that top quartile – but it really is passion that distinguishes the best from great – top decile.” – Charlotte Zhang
“If you have enough capital chasing after an opportunity, alpha is just going to be degraded.” – Charlotte Zhang
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