Senior Decision Makers: Erlina Yeo Terwelp, Columbia Investment Management Company

Erlina Yeo Terwelp (0:00)

I don't think there is huge difference in the fundamentals of what you're looking at between a business and a manager. All managers need to look at their firms as businesses as well. Bedrock of what we did as a generalist was that every investment opportunity was evaluated in its cleanest forms, which was, what's this equity beta? What's the liquidity and what's the cost of that? And what's its leverage? Not necessarily, do we want an India VC manager? Or do we want a X type of manager? There was very little bucket filling. It was a bottom sub, first principles of what an investment was.

I belong to the school where I believe that there's probably five things unique to every investment that will make or break the deal or make or break the returns. We try to get to those questions in a five pager.

Ted Seides (0:54)

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 a 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're 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 seat. These professionals are the primary driver of decisions that lead new ideas into a portfolio or exits from a manager strategy and are at a fascinating point in their career. My partner and the CEO of Capital Allocators, Hank Sturmack, will take the mic and lead an exploration of the investment thinking and role of Senior Decision-makers.

Hank Sturmack (2:32)

Our next guest on the Senior Decision-makers series is Erlina Yeo Terwelp. A Managing Director at Columbia Investment Management Company, where she oversees the endowment's private markets portfolio. Erlina's path spans investment banking, private equity, growth equity, and family office investing before she joined Columbia nearly a decade ago.

Our conversation covers her evolution as an allocator, how she thinks about manager selection and portfolio construction, the growing role of leadership and team development in her seat, and her perspectives on generalists versus specialist team models after working within both.

Erlina is candid, thoughtful, and very funny, with a deep commitment to intellectual honesty and openness to changing her mind and a willingness to continually put herself in situations that force her to grow.

Before we get to the interview, AI voice cloning has gotten scary good. Apparently, mine has too. I've hosted the first few interviews in our new Senior Decision Maker series, and you're about to hear the next. The funny part is, I've now had multiple people tell me they had no idea it was me behind the mic. They thought they were listening to Ted the entire time. Recently, I was on a call, and someone told me how much they liked Ted's conversation with Nick Sisco at Trinity Wall Street. I interviewed Nick. I didn't have the heart to correct them. While AI keeps improving, apparently my Ted voice is right there with it. So tell your colleagues about the latest Senior Decision Maker episode. No need to tell them who's hosting. Let them decide if it's me, Ted, or AI. Thanks so much for spreading the word.

Ted Seides (3:59)

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