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WSO Podcast | E85: Impact Investing (ESG) at Barclays

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In this episode, @MauricioMBA shares his path working at JP Morgan in the strategy and CFO office and his ability to make the jump to the structured products desk. How he transitioned to Barclays, eventually making his way into an impact investing role as well as some important advice for younger listeners just starting out their careers.

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WSO Podcast (Episode 85) Transcript:

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis. Your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me as I talk to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, MauricioMBA shares his path working at JPMorgan in the strategy and CFO office, and his ability to make the jump to the Structured Products Desk, how he transitioned to Barclays, eventually making his way into an impact investing role, as well as some important advice for younger listeners just starting out their careers. Enjoy.

MauricioMBA: [00:00:52] So I started my career back in 2007 after studying a master's degree in the United Kingdom, I started working for JP Morgan. So my initial role was within the security services businesses business. I used to work in an area that used to report to CEO of that business, where a little bit of a strategy finance. So we used to report for a while to the CFO of the business as well. From that, I move into the structured products within the investment bank Morgan as well. So it used to be a structured products with each manager covering the southern Europe sort of jurisdictions, If you like. So like Portugal, Spain and was

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:34] The same with that in London, was that in London that I was in London? Yes. Ok, great. And then

MauricioMBA: [00:01:41] After that, I had always had an interest for, the capital markets and not so much from a sort of broader perspective. In the beginning of that list, I wanted to go into especially the equity capital markets .And it was interesting at that time, basically when I was trying to make the decision, Barclays just had acquired the institutional book of clients from Lehman Brothers. So Barclays, as you know, is a big fixed income house. But previous, previous to that acquisition. Basically, they used to do equity advisory. Not so much the execution aspect of things. So on the back of that acquisition, basically, they started basically rolling out the full the full spectrum of services, basically from acquisition. And I wasn't part of the the teams that basically built the bank to start them for the past. And actually iun many occasions, the first public offerings, rights issue and lots of different transactions, not only for the UK but also for other jurisdictions within Europe, such as so like

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:46] Ipos and secondaries and that type of stuff

MauricioMBA:  [00:02:49] At secondary type issues, block transactions, lots of other things as well. A little bit more complex as we started to kind of build on the momentum that we had back then and experience. And those last couple of years, we started doing emerging markets as well. So we did quite a lot of IPOs in Poland, Georgia, South Africa, Turkey, actually. So we worked on the Pegasus IPO and lots of transactions, basically, which were quite interesting experiences that have been evolving. Very cool. So both that and I guess that that takes me where I'm currently, I guess, is that after a while and after managing a team within the equities business, I used to say the syndicate desk with the e-commerce business. I kind of started to challenge myself in terms of what I wanted to do next, and I wanted to make sure that I did and I didn't just throw away my  finance experience at the same time wanted to make sure that what I was doing had has some meaning for me personally, very, very openly. So I started to kind of explore alternatives in terms of where that could be and came across in back investment. And after speaking someone in the UK that happens to have a investment boutique that focuses on the very kind of first aspect of the spectrum. And again, by coincidence and chance and luck, Barclays was going through a transition where after the financial crisis and all this stuff that we got involved and we got really badly hit for, we the fund created in Australia, they were trying to kind of focus new initiatives to make sure that they had an element of like societal impact, so to speak. Did you talk about that in the sense of shared growth? Kind of sort of leveraging the time off of David Bordewich value, which is basically where can we find commercial opportunities, where we can bring our core expertise and also get some sort of value? And then in the back of that strategy, they created a venture capital fund like an internal couple of venture capital fund effectively to fund initiatives, strategic initiatives within the bank to kind of the risk those initiatives from the business lines basically acquired.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:18] Then within Barclays, there was a fund specifically focused on sustainable and impact investing. And you worked. That's right. You worked leading that division.

MauricioMBA: [00:05:29] Second, sorry.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:29] You were leading that division, you were leading that group.

MauricioMBA:  [00:05:31] No, so the fund was created. It was it was part of group and reported into the office of the ceo. And just because social innovation facilities is fun and basically I applied for some funding, there was someone else as well with the wealth management and private banking division applying for funding for some of the issues that.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:54] Sorry, what was that? I lost you there a little bit, so I slowed down. Just slow down because I can't. I can't understand you. Could you speak fast and there's and you have a slight accent? I don't know if it's I think you have a slight British Spanish accent, which is rare.

MauricioMBA: [00:06:10] Yeah. Yeah, I know it's Colombian. Maybe Colombia. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. So, OK. So Social Intervention facility was the was this internal base fund within the group to finance initiatives that had this angle to it. So the way you would go about getting funding was that they used to do like annual calls for bids. And you basically come up with a proposal and you would get different grants and funding from the scholarship fund. And it starts at 50k to like half a million. And then depending on your idea, it can be. Let's go.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:53] Let's go back to the beginning. I want to hear more about your story. I want to hear more about like how you even broke into JP Morgan to start. So you start at the strategy transformational change kind of CFO office. Is that correct? And that was in London,

MauricioMBA: [00:07:08] That was initially in Dorset, where it's an office in Dorset, in the United Kingdom. It's basically location just a couple of hours away from London. I think part of the reasons why I end up landing within that job was that prior to my experience in the financial services industry, I studied engineering and a little bit of working in project management. So having that experience before was very handy because a lot of what we used to do within strategic planning was effectively managing portfolios and different initiatives that require you to have that sort of end to end project management experience, which, regardless of where you are in market, I think is useful. But having it for that specific role, it was it was very valuable.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:47] Yeah, you were there, you were there for you were there for three years, correct? That's right. And so in those three years, can you just give me an example of something you did in a specific day or week so that other the listeners can kind of know what a transformational change in CFO office, what somebody coming out of school, what do they typically do? Or if you know how it's changed nowadays,

MauricioMBA: [00:08:05] Do you know? Yeah, no, no, absolutely. So in essence, they look after the broad portfolio of initiatives that are getting funding through the business that they used to have different sort of strategic objectives for the business, if you like so many of them, will be revolving around cost reduction. Some of them would be revolving about automation and efficiency. They used to basically these. These Wall Street services business is to use to service large pension funds and large institutional investors, and they used to serve as a securities. Basically, they have within a custodian, so some elements will be around the integration systems and direction and processes and whatnot. Some of the elements of the business will be focused on, for instance, making sure that you reduce the cost to the client by making sure that they can use the securities they holding and lending those securities for other businesses. So they used to be like a really dynamic business call securities to give this lending effectively that basically they use for the for the prime brokerage business.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:06] So should I think of this group, the strategy, transformational change or CFO office? Is it pretty? Is it like CFO Office for just the UK or is this global and like?

MauricioMBA: [00:09:17] Yeah, that was go. And so when you're supporting

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:20] This office, how should I think of the structure? Is it like the CFO Is at the top? And then how does it work rather like a few people underneath him working on different projects? Or how do they how did they structure it? Yeah, so it used to

MauricioMBA: [00:09:31] Have you have. So there was this office basically kind of looking after the European business, but the CFO Sendai office, which had some sort of regional offices as well, London and some New York, they would have basically different directors and all of them would basically reporting to CEO. Basically, it works in a kind of hierarchical way. If you like where you have CFO for it should be your region and you have direct reports into him basically looking at the different portfolio initiatives or reporting responsibilities. If you like to do the cfo from a from a finance perspective, then you have these specific ideas. You have a quite low exposure, actually, how you how you go about accounting and finance management at a large corporation that obviously involves a lot of number crunching, lots of reporting data analysis. I mean, the more you know about how to even like it may sound silly, but actually have like a really good grasp of using BVA and excel is massively useful. Did you

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:10:44] When you were when you were working there with VBA guru,

MauricioMBA: [00:10:47] Right? You got better a little bit, but I definitely got much better working in a specific role. I think having studied engineering was useful for me because we had to do modeling stuff, so I had some good knowledge about that. But but I got challenged basically when I started that job and end up improving as a result of it there.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:09] You were there. So why? How did you make that

Internal switch to equity, finance or structured products? Like how was it something where you went to your boss and you had been there long enough and built that relationship and were able to make the transition? Or were you were you networking internally to talking to the other kind of MDS in equity?

MauricioMBA: [00:11:26] Yeah. So it was actually the latter. So I did have the support from imda. I mentioned to him that I went to kind of transition to a more commercial role. So I had his support to start with the decision making time for interviews, traveling or whatever and whatever else. But that was right at the at the I mean, not right at the beginning, but actually the financial crisis was kind of still around. So it actually took me quite a lot of interviewing to make that transition, especially because I wasn't coming from abroad doing the same broad. I mean, making lots of transitions within the market is usually much straightforward and actually going for Australia and then coming into into structured products.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:10] But you're saying coming internally from a totally different group was much harder than, say, somebody laterally from another bulge bracket bank that had already been doing structured products.

MauricioMBA:  [00:12:20] Yeah, and coming from different function as well, if you like.So I mean, JP morgan is a vogue, has a really good process in terms of promoting internal mobility. But even so, sometimes it's difficult. I mean, it could be that you have within the division, they have a an open role and they almost sort of in the beginning holding that role for people within the same division. So you need to kind of learn how to navigate those different sort of nuances.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:49] And there weren't a lot of open roles back then because it was 2010 11.

MauricioMBA: 00:12:53] It was not exactly it. It was it was difficult. I think if I recall correctly, could have taken easily like twenty five interviews. Joshua Landis this job. But what do you think?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:04] What do you think made the what do you think made the difference on when you finally did get it? In that last one, the job that you actually got. Yeah, I think we know

MauricioMBA: [00:13:12] Things, you know, when you start interviewing for jobs. Part of your training is actually going into having like a really crafted CV that can actually undue the interviews, but then going into the interviews and, you know, with every interview you, you improve yourself and you actually start realizing the elements when you have gaps and weaknesses that you're not covering very well. In some cases, you could be that you have that will experience whether it is at a previous job or university or whatever. But the realization that you failing to actually explain something well makes you or helps you actually take a step back and thinking about that and then doing it better in the next in the next interview. So I think at the end of that process, I was interviewing really well. And actually Interestingly, by the time I got this job, I also have another two offices were for the jobs. Isn't that

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:09] Interesting? How after 20 interviews, you're a lot better at interviewing. It's not surprising.

MauricioMBA: [00:14:14] Yeah, it is. It is something that you craft and you polish and then you, I guess, to get good at. So, so yeah, so that was to your question, back again, it took it took a lot of interviewing at the same time, a lot of networking. So the opportunity to interview for that specific role came through a

recommendation from someone and then had a chat with those guys six months before actually for the job at that time that happened. And then and that's another thing actually that is that I think is worth so to mention the people going through this process at the moment. And is that the fact that you go through an interview and is not successful doesn't mean that it cannot be for a future opportunity. And like this specific role and the one that I had later on at Barclays, both of them came through people through teams that I had actually interviewed before and despite the didn't happen in the beginning, it happened like six months or 12 months later. So. So always make sure that you keep those channels open and you leave a good impression, I guess, after this process, because you never know when they could be around back again. So even...

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:28] After you had been rejected, even after you had been rejected for certain seats, you were still good about reaching up, say, six months later, three months later, saying, Hey, just letting you, you're going, Yeah.

MauricioMBA: [00:15:38] I think the combination of two things. One is that I guess having left a good impression through the interviewing process and whatnot, so they see the value in you and for whatever reason, they may end up having or find finding someone that was, you know, better prepared, had experience or whatever. But obviously, they I left a good impression, so they actually thought of me for when they had a different opportunity. And the second one is that I have always tried to realize that if you work in finance, you need to. Even if it doesn't come naturally in you, you need to make an effort to always reach out to people that in your network and trying to network as much as you can, because relational capital in this industry is very valuable. So I always kind of made that effort of like touching base every six months or whatever else being active on LinkedIn, connecting to all those people. So even though you're not connecting with them or talking to them directly through your engagement

or comments or activity in social media, for instance, they could at least see that you're quite interested in the industry, that you have something to contribute, that you have ideas and whatnot. And then just by being present, basically people think of you when an opportunity and opportunity comes around.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:51] Yeah, you kind of hang around the hoop. I say you hang around the hoop long enough and

MauricioMBA: [00:16:55] Eventually

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:56] There's a there's a job to be had and they think of you right away because they had just recently talked to you or whatnot. But so tell me in the first job out of school. So it sounded like VBA and excel were really important. Tell me about the tools for this equity, finance or the structured products product. Like in terms of listeners, what what helped you there to more excel, more VBA, more modeling?Or was there a different, different?

MauricioMBA: [00:17:18] That's right. That's right. Excel VBA modeling. And that's about it. Obviously, if you're looking to enter that industry, studying structured products and derivatives is obviously very valuable because the responsibility you have, you will have right away is requires you to have that knowledge.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): structured products, can you give examples of what that is and like what you were doing on the structured product desk

MauricioMBA: [00:17:47] For the bank equity option swaps interest rate swaps?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:52] Are you were you creating? Were you creating these instruments like actually from scratch and helping sell them? Or what were you? Were you? Were you like advising companies on how to do it? What was the

MauricioMBA: [00:18:05] So? So the way the business structure? Is that they have different trading desks and different set of desks. They all kind of focus on different types of products. So you have like the one and like step of more vanilla flow type of products where they basically focus on the standard derivatives that they sell by bulk. They are some of the more exotic types of products that are basically served through more specialized desks that almost tailor made different products for the different needs of different, different investors. The depending on the area where you see it in the business, you support the level of knowledge you will need around the product themselves. So they will be, will be, will be different effectively. But in essence, this role wasn't much to do with the side of the product themselves as the role of the trade the traders themselves, especially if you're working in exotic products. But actually, this was this was this specific business was aligned to sales. So once a product has been agreed with the counterpart and then is going to become a contractual agreement, then there's a lot of negotiation between commercial terms states different sort of schedules in terms of where they pay out for different events of the structure, as in whatever the different events of the structure fraud happened and actually in the sort of process as well of making sure that contractually you are actually in line with the expectations of the economics of the product you need to be dealing with clients all the time. So this is almost what happens once you have agreed on a specific need and the specific pricing of the product and then everything that happens after basically will be looking after, I was going to say, Got it. Ok, so you were only

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:56] There for about. So you worked really long and hard to get into the structured products desk at JP Morgan. And then you were there for only about a year before jumping to a new bulge bracket, also in London. So tell me what was the thought process on that where you recruited? Did they reach out to you? Were you starting to look kind of outside because you'd been there for a JP for a while? Tell me the thought process of just career wise why you thought it was a good time.

MauricioMBA: [00:20:26] So, so, so I think the general idea of making that transition was actually to work on a more commercial role, I guess, than what I was doing back in strategy once I got into the business, which I quite enjoyed. I can't really assess whether competition in order to be able to move up the ladder was going to be very fierce. And at the same time, what? What's worse, I would still back and structural products in JP Morgan at some point I was I was approached by a headhunter to speak at some of the people at Barclays capital. I went interviewed for that specific role went through like two or three rounds of interviews. I can't quite remember at the moment then to find someone else that had some experience from a bank. And then a year later, they approached me back again. They said they have a new role back again. Would you would you be interested to talk to them back again? Because I have previously left a good impression. I guess it was kind of more straightforward. I guess it was almost like, I know that this is where we are. This is what happened last time, and the best that we have recruited back then has moved to Australia. The opportunity, what you think and kind of have to kind of happen really, really easy, actually somehow. Um, so yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:51] Was it a similar role in equity capital markets at Barclays or was it were you doing similar things?

MauricioMBA: [00:21:59] No, I was. It was a much more broad role in terms of responsibility and scope. It was the responsibility was and this is what kind of appealed to me as well. I think I consider myself to be, I guess, quite entrepreneurial in approach and spirit. And this is one of the things that I loved about Barclays, which is it's a bank that is really open to new initiatives to give you your responsibility to run with things and actually being able to execute and and show what you're capable of. Whereas in other bulge bracket banks are so large, such as is the case with JP Morgan, I guess everything is so well established and set up that oftentimes you end up just focusing on one specific activity. And at least for me, at best. But for me personally, it wasn't the right match at Barclays. Once it was back. Basically, we started up this new business. We have basically the responsibility to work out how we go about doing execution and ensuring that the business continued to grow by X multiples on a yearly basis. You're going to be playing a key role within that setting.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:17] It's awesome. So you were there for a good three years doing that, and then you eventually started moving over to something called impact, I guess impact private assets. Or is this is this when you start to kind of go into the sustainable and impact investing space?

MauricioMBA: [00:23:31] Yes. I think that for three years and a half and was managing it team by the time I leave. And then I mentioned that this thing happened within the bank. They created this social innovation facility, which like obviously fund the funding initiatives for people that were basically put them forward. And the more aligned they were to the strategic priorities of the business, the more senior management support they had. And if they had a team or whatever else, they would have different levels of support. I mean, can

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:05] You give me some examples of investments that they made or just of types of investments they would look at? Like when you say sustainable impact investing, is this like solar or is this wind? Is this like microfinance?

MauricioMBA: [00:24:16] And so bear in mind is there were only financing internal initiatives in order to enable those businesses to actually focus on those type of plays. So things that they find that they have funded, for instance, was what I end up doing thereafter, which is basically I put up a beautiful work force to see if we could leverage something that we had done previously in the investment bank to the retail distribution of initial public offerings. Basically, the story goes like this. So back in the financial crisis, there were a few companies that were bailed out by the UK government. But after some years, they go needed to kind of sell back to the market to be able to out the back if you like. But because they were bailed out by the government, the government needed to make sure that the public was also able to subscribe for shares in this public offering so that we have that Rhodium group and the Direct line Group, for instance, where we're two of the few that basically we were part of. If I recall correctly, by the time we were given a role within the transaction, we only had a role basically to. The regional distribution, which none of the UK banks have done before, so we end up doing a joint venture with like a broker basically in the Uk. The help was coordinating and on boarding within the investment bank platform, at least like 80, basically. Brokers basically used the distribution to retail investors, and then through them, we didn't have any restriction there. Restrictions on investment banks usually have around no distribution so that that went well and after that we end up taking those type of roles in different transactions going forward. And because of that innovation, basically, I wanted to see if we were able to use the same distribution channel to facilitate subscription and distribution of sustainable investment products, which until now a lot of discussion in the market was around. There is interest in the retail market, but banks are not really well placed to do that. So that was my idea. I put forward the idea for funding end up kind of competing against another idea within the wealth management division. This kind of focus on the same thing, but at the same time, It makes sense because wealth managers actually cut and serve retail clients from retail like property, retail to affluent areas.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:40] So if I'm if I'm asking this correct, if I summarize so you're basically you were saying through the same distribution channel that you guys had used before, you're saying, why don't we offer products around sustainable impact investing through that?

MauricioMBA: [00:26:51] Yeah, exactly. And using a specific distribution channel that we have enabled through the investment bank. And so you were doing that

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:58] For a while, it sounds like or

MauricioMBA: [00:27:00] It went well. Yeah. So what happened was that rather than getting funding for that specific idea, the proposal that was that it was made by this internal funding fund within Barclays. Whereas why don't you join forces with the other guy that is doing this or what? Barclays Wealth and then launched this business? So that's what the show is. Basically what I end up doing. I end up joined

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:22] Forces with the wealth management guy or gal. So a lot of specific time

MauricioMBA: [00:27:30] We do have the funding itself. There was a guy within within the wealth management division that had gotten half a million, almost half a million,  a little bit more than half a million dollars. Actually, it was over like eight hundred thousand dollars basically to run with the with the pre-feasibility stage of that specific idea where we end up doing with. I was working for a while with the with the global head of behavioural and quantum research, and we end up doing basically a research in which we got two thousand high net worth individuals from retail to high net worth individuals actually to to to to study how they were thinking of doing sustainable investments. What is sustainable investment will need to look like the characteristics, the features, the risk return profiles, the type of service that they want to see from, from the wealth manager or whatever else. In order for us to be able to take those views and then being able to design a proposition that will have market fit. So in doing that, we end up doing that, publish a paper on that. And then the back office did a business case that allows us to basically launch properly the business within the wealth management division as a properly established division as opposed to like a project and then end up getting financing from the social innovation facility as well as the as well as the as well as the you've got investment products division within the wealth management.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:57] So you got it off the ground. Basically, it's the long road to the yeah.

 

MauricioMBA: [00:29:00] Yeah, pretty much pretty much. Yeah, we got off the ground and then we did many, many different things within that. That was that was a tremendous experience. We launch the first fund of funds like mutual funds that focus on sustainable investment strategies that existed for retail distribution distribution. We launched a discretionary, sustainable investing strategy for high net worth families and university endowments in the Private Bank fund of mutual funds like ETFs, mutual funds, English products and lots of different things. So it was it was almost like launching a start up with that within the comfort of of...

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:44] A big bank. Exactly. Yeah, it's funny because I've spoken with some guests they've been worked at venture funds, at these large firms and it's nice because you have that that safety and the and the resources to pull on if you have if you find something interesting. So it sounds like you had some a lot of success there. You are kind of co-head of that impact investing, you know, a division or whatnot, or you helped launch the research and all that. You were doing that for almost five years. Tell me what, what kind of prompted you last year to kind of start again? Or were you kind of already doing stuff on the side or.

MauricioMBA: [00:30:22] I think one of the one of the things that that I was kind of in is an additional responsibility, but I just kind of be myself as well through the development of this business was originated in the flow, probably as a deal flow for distribution to private bank. So anything to do with sustainable investing basically will have to go through our desk. We will do an element of selection in it. We are actually developing a robust sort of framework for us to be able to select investment for the best and sustainable investment criteria.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:55] But these were these are direct investments into individual companies, or they were funds that you were

MauricioMBA: [00:31:00] In direct, direct and funds. Yeah. So so the way the way works, the way this mission works within the private bank, this is that while this within Barclays and I think it's a similar case for the full institutions is that you have a one simpler distribution channel, which is basically like a placement model where basically either director funded that you look at the flow that have the characteristics that you want to see in like a mainstream placement engine type of house. Like your team, good brand sizes will be ranging from anything from five million to 30 million. If it was correct, if it was funded, it would be potentially being funded between 30 million to 100 million. But if he was to be a fund, you would normally look at funds that have a more differentiated in Australia, basically. So something that would make them unique and specific play. That specific investor base will invest in it because it happens to have an interest in and it could be like artificial intelligence. It would be agritech or it would be microfinance. So something that has to be more, more, more niche and kind of helps the sort of satellite play, if you like. So the so

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:15] This specific initiative, you were looking at both funds and direct investments, and this was capital being deployed by Barclays like propriety, the actual capital by the bank. Or this was this was sorry. Yeah, go ahead.

MauricioMBA: [00:32:27] Explain it to me. Yeah, absolutely. So everything that the bank does within a world management and private banking division is its client money. So since the financial crisis, we're walking through, like with workers rules and whatever else. Banks are quite restricted. But you

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:44] Were packaging, you were doing

MauricioMBA: [00:32:45] Direct investments, but you

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:46] Were packaging this stuff up for potentially

MauricioMBA: [00:32:48] Selection, selection, distribution and in some cases, you do packaging. So that's the case of the of funds. But in the majority of the cases where you really do and is just originating and apply like institutional due diligence and basically the redistribution. So placing that those type of deals with clients effectively without a specific that a specific distribution channel wasn't even so much of like. Basically, you don't do any advice or basically you almost really just blaze the deals through the networks that you have within the bank. So you almost kind of end to know which type of promo bank is basically what has with the clients that will have an interest. You basically disseminate information and then the bankers will be doing the introductions. That has evolved a little bit. Now they have these two platforms through which they can actually do a more efficient distribution process because being that activity as restricted as it is in the uk, It is. It is difficult for, for, for, for instance, for a private bank to actually coordinate and arrange things beyond sharing commercial documentation. So these are channels allows you to do that. There's no there's no distribution channel whereby you actually have your sales force actually doing an advisory activity and actually, you know, prospecting, you know, thousands of clients, you know, to be able to actually close in with some specific investment. So within that one, the numbers tend to be much larger. You can find direct, but less so. I think the majority of the transactions that we use to support through that distribution channel were where funds usually funds beyond the 300 million mark to a couple of million. And the way the business would normally go about that inflow is that they'd like to see that a fund or project had a least secured a first round or close that they had some institutional names, you know, as investors in the piece. And with all that, basically you're kind of ensuring that you have all the people that has done the bidding so that we will anyway get the end done by a third party as well to kind of ensure that you always have like an additional an additional process in it, secure and ensuring that you have quality, equity, transaction quality. And then obviously the probably has a stable basically conductor excellence on it. It will go to the mezzanine committees and then support to the end up basically being a a project that can take up to six months, you know? In ads, you know, supporting rounds of anything from 50 to 75 million dollars, Basically in one single one single go.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:30] That's great. So tell me a little bit about kind of what's next for you and what's the what's the next jump recently you kind of started. Is it some media?

MauricioMBA: [00:35:40] Yeah, so in essence, I had a personal kind of plan for a long time, which is basically returning to the country where I come from, which columbia. And since we had two children, that kind of puts in context. Sometimes your priorities. I mean, everyone has different set of priorities and whatever else, but for me was really important to for them to grow close to family. So left Barclays in June last year was formerly actually kind of informally left back in February. But I also wanted to somehow make sure that what I was going to do next was really, really aligned to making sure that has that impact element of things. So I was going to take some time off actually have to after I left and second coffee and the first week I left and end up talking to someone. That happens to be the right hand off of someone that is actually quite recognized in the in the venture capital industry in the UK and the investment industry for that matter, which is which is so ironic. So Ronald Cohen is, I believe, a steel chair and a partner of hyperx Partners. But like 15, 20 years ago, he decided to that he wanted to do the same thing that he did for the venture capital industry in the UK, for the sustainable and impact investment industry. So he chairs the different organizations in the UK. One of them is a private equity fund called Bridges Fund Management and another one called Social Finance, which is an advisory firm. He helped funding Big Society Capital, which is like a wholesale bank in the UK for this type of investment. And back in 2010, David cameron, former prime minister of the UK, took him to to share an initiative that used to be called the Task Force for Impact investment, which was intention was getting to the G8 countries basically to commit, pushing this agenda through public policy, public and private partnerships and investments that that G8 organization evolved to become. These days, what is called the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment, the JSE. And they've been they've been helping in launching basically outcomes based finance funds for some years now. They wanted to do something around migration. And basically, the short story of it is that basically end up setting very, very, very soon and the founder looking to launch around migration in Latin America, actually, it's almost like it's almost like the first mandate, but I'm quite involved in it. So we'll see what the future holds in terms of

a lot of it is pending fund raising effectively for us to be able to actually structure a legal and stop property fund raising activity back in 2022. But it is really exciting. It's the job will be done here in colombia, which kind of brought me comes back again, which was the ultimate goal as well. And yeah, is are you

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:51] In Colombia right now?

MauricioMBA: [00:38:53] I am, yes. Where Bogota in? Imagine, actually? Cool. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:00] Yeah. So I think that's awesome. And congrats on kind of seeing your priorities. And with the two young kids, I know how it is and it's great. It's great that you're kind of following that impact investing and stuff that you're more passionate about kind of staying along with that.

MauricioMBA: [00:39:17] Ok, thank you. I hope this helps, I guess, to so you know, you are one of the interesting things that I learned while doing this at Barclays was that there's huge interest in the industry, especially with the younger generation, to ensure that they not only equip themselves with the with the hard skills that they acquired through doing jobs in banking and finance, but also making sure that they can actually take that somewhere else that is relevant for them. And I can tell you that we used to have a least 30 people a week approaching us through LinkedIn to everywhere, asking us, Would you have a role there? Can I do an industry day or whatever else? And I got a piece of advice for that is that if you can acquire that, those skill sets that become valuable from a finance perspective is great. But also make sure that you continue to be done as well and all the other aspects of that nascent industry. So you can make the transition at some point. But there's plenty, there's plenty going on at the moment and around that that film Avc blackrock ricin letter to the CEOs of the companies every year. They coming up with this thing where they basically saying that the larger asset managers, the ones the companies are able to evidence they impact the society. Fund managers from private public markets are launching airstrikes around these family offices. Endowments are fully focused on this thing. Governments started to rethink as well how they do public and private partnerships and actually focus on outcomes as opposed to just public service. So this is plenty going on that I think will allow the people that have this interest to make that transition point. But also, I guess my piece of advice is make sure that you you plan ahead and you equip yourself with the skill set so that transition is easier than it was. Probably for me, I guess.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:07] So does early on. Yeah. Well, as an engineer, it's tough, right? You had to learn on the job more. But that's cool, man. So you're saying get the technical skills, but there will be the opportunity to impact investing in sustainable investing is growing so rapidly and in large institutions are now becoming more focused on it.

MauricioMBA: [00:41:26] Yeah, absolutely. Make sure you reach out to people that you know, like oftentimes just offering your skill sets to less well-defined projects. I mean, it's something that is undervalued because oftentimes it's by getting involved, getting engaged. Both within a specific audience, a community allows you to tap into the network star quite different skills that you wouldn't you wouldn't normally be be acquired through your day to day job investment banking or whatever else. And then at some point all the different steps kind of start out in the open and, you know, gets you the profile you need to be able to make it to to do a different thing if that's what you're looking to do.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:07] Make sense to like join associations that are in the areas that you want to be. And likewise, so that you're not just developing the network, you're developing the skills to, even if you have to work for free, even if you have to work for free a little bit.

MauricioMBA: [00:42:20] Yeah, I mean, that's yeah. Yeah. So sometimes people tend to overlook those opportunities because they think if they can afford to pay you a salary or because the specific project may be at a stage where it doesn't provide you a move right away, then then then you tend to think, well, it may not be a good opportunity, but you will be surprised how many people are actually working on tremendous initiatives that happen to be connected to ludicrous networks, but at some point actually make that tipping point and then launch. So this that's one thing. I mean, if you look at qualifications, whether you just mentioned like the CFA just recently launched a pilot for years qualification as well, that people can take in and it's not going to focus in on ESG equities research as well for a lot of people that's looking to make the transition. The Kiah, which is the one that I made, has also some modules around long term, long, long term portfolio investment. Some elements around integrating climate change within investment strategies, ESG and...

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:25] Esg is really big. Esg is really big right now.

MauricioMBA: [00:43:28] Yeah, yeah, it is. It is. It is

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:31] Very cool. Well, anything else you want to share with the listeners or any advice you'd give to your younger self now kind of being everything that you went through that you would you would tell the younger listeners.

MauricioMBA: [00:43:46] I'm probably the only one piece of advice I would give my younger self, I guess, is taking the time to actually to actually understand what are your life's priorities, your life's interest, even your life's values? Because there will be a lot of situations through your career where you get tested on those assumptions and that knowledge, if you like. I think If you actually take that time to actually understand that and you start up your career with really crystal clear clarity of what you want to do and the sort of things that you don't want to compromise in order to be able to become successful, I think becomes a much easier endeavour to actually make career progression decisions, commitment and transitions as well if you were as you start moving up.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:41] I love that you have. You have a north star that you go toward and you understand your values and your core beliefs.

MauricioMBA: [00:44:47] And yeah, I think, yeah, no, exactly. Because I think from my personal experience, I've worked with a lot of people that came from families where they had lawyers and bankers with the family. And they just they just know that they want to be a bank and then the next number of years. And that's good. And well, if that's based on their own understanding that that's what they want to do. But equally, I met so many people that at some point in their careers, having made it to associate B B was a bit lost in terms of what they want to do next. And so oftentimes sacrificing like family better relations to something that was 100 percent what it was the or to something that they were 100 percent sure is what they wanted to be doing in the next decade. I think when you get to this type of situations, then it is really difficult. So it becomes it becomes a challenge for you and all this sort of professional, but at the same time, personally. So I think the more clear you are around what you want to do, that you make more conscious decisions around that if you want to be a banker than you do a bank and put your time put to work, find a partner that can support you in that aspiration. And then and then all the best to you. But if you happen to have all the priorities.

In life aside as well of being, you know, a finance professional, then start with a clarity. And based on that, you will have different options with the financial services industry that actually could have a really good fit. And banking is great and allows you to have a skillset that is incredibly valuable in the industry. But equally, there's various other avenues that oftentimes people don't know of, then that can be very attractive, actually. Career transition as well, like probably banking and wealth management is incredibly interesting as well because they high net worth individuals, their families, the endowments, the type of clubs that you're actually servicing that oftentimes actually become prospective clients to your ex colleagues in the investment bank. So that's something that is interesting if you happen to be good at, you know, investment analysis or running portfolios and habitable kind of or potentially thinking of working in asset management or fund management industry. This there's different

culture, different sort of aspects to those type of career paths that may be more aligned to your priorities and your personality or whatever else. So I think take your time to kind of explore what is in finance and all the different avenues they are. They work actively and need people across different, different functions. Different. Yeah. Yeah, because oftentimes you find lots of people working within investment banking that only network with people with investment banking, and they just keep talking about the same thing they're let out. Whereas in networking with people across the spectrum in financial services, you get to understand how finance actually works in a much broader sense. At the same time, finding opportunities for potential transitions. If you like watching, end up finding out that there's other areas within finance that happen to be quite attractive because you have to have an interest and then you have the skill set and could actually be a good transition for you as well. So I think taking the time to actually have that understanding before you start making those initial decisions as to where you want to focus at a stage where you're just starting, it's incredibly valuable because it will save you years of time before you start thinking of those later on, where oftentimes making those decisions is actually much harder.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:15] Yeah, and I harp on that all the time. I always say to the listeners into the community that, you know, investment banking and private equity is not the only path to success. There's many other paths. So ways to be not just happy or not just wealthy, but happy. You can be wealthy and happy and you can have a life. And there's other ways. And hopefully some of the some of the people we're profiling on this podcast and in the community kind of opens everybody's eyes a little bit to how different everyone's backgrounds are and how many different roles there are within even a large bulge bracket bank there. So there's. A lot of different ways to be successful, so you. Thanks so much for taking the time today. Really appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis. And till next time.

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