We are very pleased to announce our next Circulus Family Office Summit will be on June 16th in New York! The Circulus community is growing, and we expect 75 families to join us for a day of great panels on AI, private equity, family office operations and succession and timely takes on the market. We will also feature our traditional top-shelf keynotes. Past speakers have included: Steve Tananbaum, Roger Ferguson, André Perold, Torsten Slok, Rebecca Patterson, Mitch Julis, Ken Kencel and Jose Minaya. Stay tuned for more information here on the Circulus Substack.
Kate El-Hillow - President and CIO of Russell Investments
What happens when you apply neural networks to 40 years of proprietary investment data?
At Russell Investments, Kate El-Hillow is finding out. By bringing AI into the heart of manager research, El-Hillow is moving beyond human intuition to pressure-test the world’s best investors through ‘million-trade’ simulations.
The Private Capital Podcast spoke to Kate about how AI is transforming the way Russell selects managers, filters the global information firehose, and modernizes operations at a legacy firm. We also talk about the complexity of the OCIO business, filtering talent, Kate’s litmus test for managers, and how last year’s shifts in global policy will affect everyone’s portfolios.
Kate El-Hillow is President and Chief Investment Officer of Russell Investments, overseeing asset management, implementation, and research to deliver client investment solutions. Based in New York, she also serves on the firm’s Executive Committee and chairs its Operating Committee. She joined Russell in 2021 and brings over 25 years of investment management experience, with deep expertise in OCIO and multi-asset portfolio management.
Previously, she was Deputy CIO of Multi-Asset Solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management and held senior investment roles at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. In 2024, she was named one of Pensions & Investments’ Most Influential Women in Institutional Investing.
Please enjoy my conversation with Kate El-Hillow.
The Inheritance Podcast - Jill Shipley
You may or may not know that Circulus Group also has a podcast focused on the non-financial issues in the family office, and this week we had a fantastic guest in Jill Shipley.
“I don’t think the system, the family system, can thrive until you focus on the individual.”
Jill Shipley is one of the most thoughtful people working today in the family wealth space. She has been working closely with substantial families for years and has many interesting takes on family unity, prenups, secrets, and baggage, how to train wealth advisors, and what the shows Succession and Billions get wrong.
Jill Shipley is Managing Director and Head of Family Governance and Education at AlTi Tiedemann Global. Prior to joining Tiedemann, Jill was Senior Managing Director at Cresset Capital, leading the firm’s governance and education practice, and prior acted as Managing Director in the Institute for Family Culture at Abbot Downing, where she was a family wealth consultant focused on family dynamics, education & governance, family business transitions, and social impact analysis. Jill has been on the faculty with Stetson University’s School of Business, where she taught courses on family businesses. She also served as an invited faculty member with the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Executive Education Wealth Management Program. Jill holds both an MBA and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Stetson University.
Please enjoy my conversation with Jill Shipley.
Thank you for listening and see you next month!
