Senior Decision Makers: Luis Laboy, Hewlett Foundation (EP.512)

If I describe a market to you, I tell you this market has geopolitical risk. It has political uncertainty. It has social polarization. It's got policy risk. The market structure was changing. And I asked you to tell me which market I'm describing, you would most likely say an emerging market, but it's not. Today, it describes any market that's out there. Once upon a time, I went into Anna's office. This is back at RCM. It was maddening for a young analyst. The dollar was weakening. Emerging markets were falling. And I asked her, is a strong currency or a weak currency good or bad for emerging

I'm Ted Seides, and this is Capital Allocators. The CIOs of the largest pools of capital have jobs that require broad skill sets. They cover the world across asset classes and strategies, determine portfolio construction, and decide what goes into their portfolio. They're also leaders, managing people in an investment office, working with the board, and taking care of all their stakeholders,

whether

students, grantees, pensioners, family members, insured recipients, or sovereign states. It's a complex role that involves far more than just investing. But they don't do it alone. Behind every successful CIO is a talented team who focuses most, if not all of their time, on investing. We've spent time with many of these senior decision makers at our summits and find they are closest to the action and deeply insightful about investment opportunities and the investment process. This mini series, Senior Decision Makers, features conversations with investors that have not yet ascended to the CIO s

the senior decision maker series is Luis Laboy, director of public equities at the Hewlett Foundation, where he spent the last decade running the public equity book alongside CIO Anna Marshall, a mentor and colleague he first met nearly thirty years ago. The foundation's assets stand at roughly $14,000,000,000 today. Luis spent fifteen years as a direct emerging markets investor at Everest Capital before crossing to the LP side, and our conversation digs into how he's leveraged that experience as an allocator. We discussed how the cadence and depth of decision making changed when he went from

Before we get going, we're hiring at capital allocators. Two roles that will shape our next chapter. They're two of the best jobs in the business, at least in my opinion, that'll help us bring together our community of allocators and managers to compound knowledge and relationships. And best of all, we get to serve this community without really selling them anything. The first is investor relations. The role includes both building real relationships with allocators and managers and creating the experiences that bring them together. The relationships come first, knowing who should meet who, wha

Please enjoy this conversation with Luis Laboy. Luis, I am so excited for this conversation.

Thanks. I'm very excited to be here.

With these conversations, we're keen to explore your path to the seat, how you spend your time and insights into the life of an institutional LP. To start, tell me a little bit about your upbringing.