hello everybody can I get your attention
please
great thank you so hi everybody my name
is Brittany Miner
I'm the vice president of external
community relations at mbw and I think I
can say that this is probably one of our
most well attended kickoff event so
thank you all for being here all right
so I think that's a testament to this
amazing venue that were in and this
wonderful event that we could put on the
thanks to our sponsor O'Brien Staley
partners so let's give it up for OSP so
I'm here today to introduce our speaker
Jerry O'Brien he's the CEO and CIO of
O'Brien Staley partners Jerry is
responsible for portfolio management at
O'Brien Staley partners and has over 25
years of experience prior to founding
OSP in 2010 Jerry was a founding partner
at CarVal investors where he managed
the global loan portfolios he has 17
years of experience across all aspects
of the financial business for Cargill
and CarVal and 14 years of specialized
experience in us small balanced C&I and
CRE loan portfolios so he served as a
chairman of cargo PAC from 2008 to 2010
and prior to joining CarVal in 1994 Jerry
was a credit analyst at Chemical Bank
and four subsidiaries of DG bank in New
York and Comerica Bank in Michigan he
has an MBA from University of Chicago
and the bachelors and economics from the
University of Michigan whoo go blue so
let's all welcome Jerry
thank you very much Brittany it's just a
joy to be here at my alma mater
that you know the sign says you know the
secret and the secret is that 30 years
ago I actually had Keith's job I don't
know where Keith Keith in the very back
Keith give us a little wave yeah I was a
security guard right here at this museum
and and in addition to being a security
guard I was actually an art history
major until I wasn't in our district
major anymore I it's a kind of fun I
between my sophomore and junior year I
applied for and received a job offer
from Sotheby's the art auction house in
New York and I remember like it was last
week it was a Friday afternoon the head
of Human Resources called me up and say
congratulations we'd like to offer you a
job in fact we liked you so much two
departments would like to have you and
you get to choose which department that
Wow
is that ever fantastic okay take the
weekend to think about it and call you
back on Monday
absolutely take the weekend I said you
know not that it matters all that much
for a summer but is there any difference
in the pay between one department or the
other that might leave me one way no no
they're both free free I said free was
not what I was expecting I said free do
you do you mean unpaid gratis I think
you might be misusing the word and and
and she said well we're looking for
people who love art for art's sake and I
said well I do love art for art's sake
but I worked for pay and needless to say
it went downhill from there I changed my
major from art history to economics and
that turned out to be a pretty good
career choice and and so anyway it's
it's a great joy for me when Brittany and
and and Kimby and Jill from our office
when we were planning this thing we said
let's have it the museum I was very
excited to come here and to share a
secret from my industry with Michigan
women and and by the way when I say
Michigan women I would like to highlight
the fact that of Michigan women includes
my daughter Grace give a little wave
Grace
my my nieces Amelia and Anna Anna Amelia will you wave another Michigan woman is my
sister Julie my wife Lisa is a Michigan
woman and my dear late mother Barbara
Strong O'Brien as a Michigan woman so it
is with great joy that I come here and
share a secret from my industry with
Michigan women and and my industry being
the alternative asset management
business and so anybody recognize this
this sculpture let me let me give you a
hint right here so this is Nydia and
Nydia is actually the very first work of
art ever acquired by the University of
Michigan Museum it was acquired in 1862
that's a hundred and fifty-seven years
ago but to make it more contemporary
that's seventeen years before we started
playing football so it's that so I
guarded Nydia with my life for four
years and it's a joy for her to share
this secret and and you know stated
crisply you know I believe that
regardless of what part of the business
she leads the role of a leader an
alternative asset management and whether
she comes from the front office like
Adrienne Thorson who is our chairwoman
and CEO of our subsidiary company
AmeriNat Adrienne will you give a little wave
or Kari Johnson who is the managing
director and head of impact investing
for O'Brien-Staley Partners or from the
middle office like Jen Wietecki who's
our head of Risk Management and a
director in investor relations or from
the back office Jill Wohlrabe who by
the way head of talent recruiting if
you're looking for a job you should meet
Jill Jill give a quick wave right so
regardless of what part of the business
she leads the role of a leader in
alternative asset management is just one
thing and that is to convert a trading
desk culture or mentality into a
sustainable business and you know what
by that I mean you need to consider
things from all angles
you need to see the hidden value in both
complexity and in simplicity need to
thrive
in the chaos of change and never
finished work you need to be able to
deal with incomplete information and see
a masterpiece even when critical
elements are missing and you need to
recognize that negative space is
important is positive
deciding what not to do makes you more
powerful let me give a couple examples
from art yep that's a urinal but so
Marcel Duchamp famous artist entered
this into an art contest in New York in
1917 it's called Duchamp's Fountain and
and you know obviously it's a urinal but
if you change the perspective and the
context you can see it as a work of art
it is after all a beautiful biomorphic
meaning lifelike shape it's polished
porcelain it has nice undulations and if
you put in the right context you can you
can see it as a work of art and you know
it's it's the same in alternative asset
management you need to be able to look
at things from a different perspective
and and you need to be able to see a
trade develop that other people are
saying that's junk and we have an
expression in our business if you think
something is the worst idea you've ever
heard of you're just on the wrong side
of the trade because from the other side
of the trade it's the greatest idea you
ever heard of so you need to keep an eye
out for that in a different example this
is to see hidden value in complexity and
this of course is Michelangelo's
masterpiece the center panel the Sistine
Chapel the creation scene it was you
know created in 1508 1512 and if anybody
ever read the book Agony the Ecstasy or
saw the movie you know the four-year
feud that Michelangelo had with the Pope
Michelangelo did not want to paint he said I'm a
sculptor I don't want to lay on my back
and paint and the Pope said I'm the Pope
you're gonna lay on your back and paint
the center panel and so you might
actually think that the Pope won that
battle but not exactly because embedded
in the center panel of the Sistine
Chapel
was a hidden image and what you need to
understand and it's obviously the
hemisphere of the brain you can see the
brainstem the frontal lobe the the
thalamus you need to understand that at
that time it was against canon law to do
dissection of human cadavers
yet in the center panel of the Sistine
Chapel
Michelangelo pulled one over on the Pope
and painted you know the hemisphere the
brain this by the way was 350 years
before Grey's Anatomy was created yeah
okay
let me give you a more contemporary
example and this iconic image this is
this is Annie Leibovitz's the legends of
Hollywood from 2001 Vanity Fair and you
know you might kind of think that Annie
Leibovitz famous photographer she just
shows up snaps a picture if it looks
good
you know they print it but that actually
belies incredible precision and
complexity you can probably see easily
the triangular or pyramidal composition
and if you have an iPhone you're
probably familiar with with the the rule
of thirds and and you know but if you
look a little bit deeper you can see the
dynamic symmetry of rebated squares and
if you look even a little bit deeper
again you can see the rule of thirds on
the bias or on a diagonal and it's
actually repeated thrice in the
composition and and there's also you
know if you're a mathematics person the
golden ratio and fractals of the
rectangle repeating itself repeating
itself repeating itself and if you go even
deeper still you can see the elliptical
groupings of all of the heads all the
images all the subject matter and my
personal favorite is the arabesque which
despite all this mathematics brings
again the biomorphic curves and brings
it back to humanity and gives it motion
so this this is incredibly complex and
it's this precision and complexity that
makes this an iconic work of art and you
need to be able to see recognize and
appreciate that same complexity and
alternative asset management if you want
to be a leader
in the business on the other end of the
spectrum you need be able to see the
hidden value in simplicity in 1942 so
the story goes Pablo Picasso was walking
through a junkyard and he saw standing
and sitting on the ground some
handlebars and not too far away he saw a
bicycle seat and in a flash his mind put
the two together into what is a
masterpiece called Bull Head this hangs
in the Picasso Museum in Paris now and
it is unmistakably a bull head well
sometimes in alternative asset
management trades are just that easy
they're sitting right there and a leader
has to have the courage to pick it up
and say that is a great trade even
though everybody else is walked right by
it and hasn't seen it at the same time a
leader has to be able to deal with
incomplete information and see a
masterpiece
when critical melon elements are missing
the two most famous works of art in the
world proudly right the winged victory
or the Nike of Samothrace and and the Venus
de Milo both of them are recognized as
masterpieces by everybody in this room
despite the fact that both missing their
arms and one's missing her head okay
well it's the same in alternative asset
management a leader needs to be able to
see and communicate a vision even when
the data is missing and may be missing
forever you must recognize the negative
space is important as positive space let
me let me define negative space for you
real quick in art history terms or
appreciation terms imagine these
sculptures not you know you have the
Kouros which is the the rather stationary
this is from the archaic period in
Greece and then you have the Poseidon
the Zeus Poseidon sculpture which from
the Hellenistic the the imagine that the
rock coming straight up from the plinth
or the base and you had to chisel away
above the head and and below the arms to
create the Kouros well you didn't chisel
away as much rock as you did in the
outstretched arm and outstretched legs
of the Poseidon so the more negative
space the more rock you threw away the
more powerful and dynamic the piece it's
the same in business good leaders decide
in advance
what not to work on and not working on
things make you stronger in economics we
talk about the 80/20 rule or Pareto
efficiency it's the same in art it's the
same in music Matt back there playing
the guitar would tell you that music is
made up of notes and rests not just
notes so it's the same thing positive
positive negative space ok
you must also thrive in the chaos of
change and never finished work so these
three sculptures are called the
unfinished slaves by Michelangelo or in
Italian non-finito
and if you ever go to Florence to visit
the David it's in the Academy and you'll
be staring right at the the David if you
turn 180 degrees behind you'll find
these three statues there's actually a
fourth one too
you'll find these statues and I love
them you know so they were done in 1530
so they're over 500 years old
they're called unfinished but I think he
was finished because you can actually
feel the tension as the slaves are
trying to escape the rock and even push
the rock off of his head and I don't
think that any any more work or any more
polish would have made this any more
finished in in alternative asset
management the leaders need to realize
you have to do all the work until the
work is done and you know the markets
close at 4:00 in the afternoon and the
traders go home but the leaders stay and
they worry about information technology
and human resources and taxation and
compliance and all the other non P&L
revenue generating items that's the
difference between being a leader and
just a trader
and speaking of traders this this work
of art is is one of my favorites this is
Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals
it's at the DIA it's only about 45
minute drive you know up up highway 94
if you ever want to go see it and I've
always been struck by this this mural
and by how much the trading desk looks
like an assembly line row after row
after row of people working on the same
thing day after day and you know you
need to not fall into the trap with
traders of thinking that the traders are
the leaders
of the business they're important and
the assembly line workers are important
but they're not the leaders of the
business and it's very important to
recognize the distinction it kind of
reminds me and thank you Brittany for
the introduction my very first job out
of Michigan was a Chemical Bank and I
was which is now JPMorgan Chase and I
was trained as a credit analyst which
meant I spread numbers and I did
Camel Capital Asset Management
earnings liquidity analysis of
businesses and I was in short trained to
be a banker and then one day I was put
on a deal team where the client company
was another bank and I realized I had no
idea how a bank works I had no idea
how banks raise deposits were originated
loans or how they you know secured
capital and dealt with analysts and
regulators so I called myself a banker
but I really wasn't and and I
didn't know how it worked and that's
when I realized I should go get my MBA
and round out all of my skills and so I
know that's perhaps why many of you are
here too so you know what's the secret
to converting a trading desk culture
into a sustainable business you know
people often you know prioritize
correctly and and you know especially
when you come to a great school like
Michigan you all have your top three
priorities right you know we might argue
about what's number two and what's
number three be got your top three
priorities right but people actually
have to then go on and do everything on
the list and and that is what makes the
difference between being a trader and a
leader so as you can tell I still love
art for art's sake and and you know even
after changing my major I think that
having the background in art history
helped me get my first job and I was I
was sharing over lunch today that I
actually because I changed my major in
the middle I had 72 job interviews
before getting my first job offer and I
have the thank-you notes and the
rejection letters to prove it but on my
73rd I met with Chemical Bank and I was
kind of eager and I bet you would be too
after 72 interviews so I showed up an
hour early to
to the to the bank well what do you do
when you show up an hour early I
wandered around the lobby and I studied
there art history there corporate
art collection an hour later a VP of
credit came down and greeted me and and
she you know she greeted me with the
typical pleasantries nice to meet you
how was your trip how was your hotel did
you find us okay and I said yes in fact
I was an hour early and she said well
what did you do for an hour and I said
well I I enjoyed your corporate art
collection and she said well what did
you notice I said you have a wonderful
collection from the Hudson River Valley
school she said really anyone in
particular
yep you you have an absolutely wonderful
Cropsey and I and she said really
what did you notice about the Cropsey
and I said well I really loved the
autumn palette he paints with it feels just
like the fall in America and and so she
oh she kind of do we went on we had the
interview at all went well well I
learned like a month later not only was
she the VP of credit she was the curator
of the art collection and and needless
to say she noted that that I had
something extra besides being good at
economics and finance and capital asset
pricing model and you know all those
things that they teach you that I had a
little something else to share and I
bring this up and I share it with you so
that if you're at all worried that your
undergraduate degree in philosophy or
history or French could put you at a
disadvantage to someone who has a BBA
before an MBA or something like that
don't worry about that rest assured that
that point of differentiation is what
will make you a leader when you find the
right place to work
so I I hope that this inspires a little
bit of conversation as we go on with our
cocktail hour I'm very very happy to be
here
Adrianne and Jill and Kari and Jen and I
apologize Mark Moores is here too but we
will stay for the cocktail hour and meet
with you Brittany thank you very very
much
you you are as our fight song says you
are truly a leader and best thank you
very much and Go Blue!
Jerry thank you so much for coming here
and for helping us put on this wonderful
event we really appreciate it
small kudos
