Ross Butler

Drawing on more than two decades of empirical research and extensive back-testing, Professor Oliver Gottschalg explains why algorithmic decision support can outperform “normal” human allocation, particularly in fund selection and secondaries pricing, without relying on better data or privileged access. In this episode, we look at sets out how machine learning can be applied to […]

Cyril Demaria-Bengochea is Head of Private Market Strategy at Julius Baer, Associate Professor at EDHEC Business School, and the author of several leading books on private equity. He has also advised Invest Europe, ILPA, and the European Commission, which gives him a rare vantage point across academic evidence, investor governance, and the day-to-day realities of […]

Will Dunham is President and CEO of the American Investment Council, the largest private equity and private credit trade association in the United States. Representing firms from trillion-dollar platforms to small and mid-market managers, he is the industry’s front-line advocate in Washington, charged with protecting private capital’s licence to operate and correcting the widening gap […]

David Nowak is President of Brookfield’s Private Equity Group. He leads Brookfield’s North American private equity business and its evergreen strategy, and brings a distinctly contrarian, operations-led perspective, shaped by more than a decade inside one of the industry’s most integrated investment platforms. We explore how Brookfield identifies essential-service businesses that are misunderstood, how it […]

Anthropologist and best-selling author Jack Weatherford, whose landmark book Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World reshaped our understanding of history, joins Ross Butler to explore how the Mongol Empire fused creative destruction with long-term institution-building. Far from being merely conquerors, the Mongols built one of the earliest global systems of commerce, meritocracy […]

Ross Butler speaks with Matteo Stefanel and Udayan Goyal, Co-Founders and Managing Partners of Apis Partners, one of the world’s best performing growth-capital firms. How did two former investment bankers build a globally recognised growth platform, and what does their story reveal about where finance is heading? Building a Firm Before the Market Was Ready […]

Ross Butler speaks with Adrian Letts, Managing Partner in Brookfield’s Private Equity Group and Head of Business Operations. Adrian brings a deep operator’s lens – from founding one of the UK’s first streaming platforms, to leading Tesco’s digital and global e-commerce, to scaling a UK retail-energy company from 500k to 5 million customers through M&A […]

In this episode of Fund Shack, Ross Butler speaks with William Benjamin, Head of Alternative Solutions at HSBC Asset Management, about the evolution of private markets, evergreen fund structures, and the democratization of alternatives. William has held senior roles across HSBC’s alternatives platform — including CIO, CEO, and Head of Hedge Funds — as well […]

Alex van Someren has lived at the frontier of technology entrepreneurship, venture capital, and national security. As a teenager he joined Acorn Computers, the company that seeded ARM Holdings and the UK’s early computing revolution. He co-founded nCipher, a London-listed cryptography firm, later became a partner at Amadeus Capital Partners, and between 2021 and 2024 […]

Ross Butler speaks with Kim Pochon, Global Head of Primary Investments at Unigestion, and Joe Briggs, Founder of BCF for this launch episode of Fund Shack’s Emerging Manager Series. What drives experienced professionals to leave established firms and launch new platforms? How do LPs assess the viability of emerging teams? And why the earliest decisions—on […]