Nataša Williams is Cadro’s Co-founder and CEO.
With three decades of experience in UK Financial Services, Nataša began her career as a chartered accountant and moved into numerous senior roles across the investment banking and wealth management sectors. She is a former Partner at LGT Wealth Management where she headed the firm’s Private Office, and currently sits on the Investment Committee of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and the Advisory Board of Bookmark Reading Charity.
She is a full voting member of Cadro’s Investment Committee, alongside her Co-founder Jordan Buck, and the company's Chief Investment Officer David Semmens, Head of Private Equity Ajay Patel, and External Committee Members Gayle Schumacher and Jonathan Marriott.
An interview with Nataša Williams
So hi, I am Nataša Williams, Co-founder and CEO of Cadro.
I have been at Cadro, obviously, since the very beginning. My background has always been in finance. I studied economics, I was always interested in finance, perhaps first corporate finance – I am a chartered accountant – and then later I became interested in personal finance. And sort of about a third way into my career, I made a switch from corporate finance to personal finance, and I started working at UBS, advising individuals.
Those experiences have particularly enabled me personally to make the leap into entrepreneurship, in order to set up control and to see the broader lens of what needs to happen and how one can design a business.
How is the Investment Committee designed?
There were three of us that designed Investment Committee.
We met David very, very early on. David Semmens is our Chief Investment Officer, and I believe we had quite a strong vision that we wanted a modern firm, that we would like to have public and private market investing, and of course, that we would like to have this unique, engaging technology at the heart of the business.
What was wonderful is when we first met David, that he immediately got on to our sheet of paper, immediately understood where we were thinking of going, and gave us thoughts and opinions so that we could drive this business further.
David was instrumental in setting up the Investment Committee and its shape. Ultimately, it's the key governance body that governs our clients' money here at Cadro, that governs the decision making around investing.
To me, it's the most important body. It actually executes what we do, safeguards our clients from risk and safeguards them from, perhaps, decisions that could be made hastily by a smaller, lesser group.
How is the Investment Committee different?
I think the Investment Committee is different from many (others) for two reasons. First of all, it's a non-hierarchical body. So, I've seen in large organisations where some senior manager gets involved in committee decision making and overrules them, and then it's up to the business to implement those ideas.
Now, you don't own ideas if you didn't participate in them. And also ideas that require a lot of thought, a lot of intellectual rigour, and a lot of research are much better made when a lot of people are making that research, those decisions, that rigour, sort of as collective intelligence, that starts to form in a body like the Investment Committee.
How often does the Investment Committee meet?
The Investment Committee meets monthly, and there is a bit of a rhythm to it.
There's an awful lot of research, preparation, and then the meeting itself and then the execution of what was agreed or what was perhaps – further research of what was not agreed.
In a typical year we'd meet 14 times. There are not 14 months in a year, I agree, but very often in financial markets events happen and therefore we want the committee to be on top of the events, sometimes react or sometimes agree not to react to those events in order to seek correct opportunities for our clients, financial opportunities, and to safeguard our clients from excessive risks.
What kind of experience does the IC have?
There is obviously the breadth of the experience and the depth of the experience.
Most committee members have been making investment decisions for a very long time. Many investment committee members make investment decisions not just on this committee, but also others, specifically that's David (Semmens), myself, Gayle (Schumacher) and Jonathan (Marriott), and therefore I believe we have windows outside of Cadro to see how the financial landscapes are developing elsewhere, how decisions are being made elsewhere, which is also very useful when making decisions at home, being in Cadro.
Specifically, for example, somebody like Ajay Patel, who joined us from British Business Bank and M&G before, he has over a decade of experience of making very complex investment decisions in private markets with excellent results. Private markets feed into public markets because when investment trends start in private markets, sooner or later they will enter public markets.
Having an individual who is so skilled in something that is slightly different to perhaps the liquid portfolios adds huge amounts of value.
Somebody like Gayle chairs the investment committee of Scottish Widows, which is obviously Scottish based, and it's a very large body of capital that she's, you know, overseeing there. So again, she's got a huge amount of value-add from her other committee memberships.
Now, historically, of course, she was the Chief Investment Officer at Coutts. And, a bit like Jonathan Marriott, the depth of her experience is decades and decades long at the very senior level, investing very large quantities of client capital, really, really understanding, one, decision making processes to the kind of research that is possible, and then engaging in more futuristic discussions.
How are decisions made and communicated?
First of all, the committee internally keeps a log of decisions made, decisions proposed and not made so that we can track the quality of a decision making over some time.
This was David's idea, I think – best practice, clearly. I think it's quite brave because it's easy as humans for us to always just remember the good decisions we've made.
Then, of course, we communicate with clients in two ways: with our content team, the team that produces research, and David, we record a series of hopefully understandable content, and we try and make it engaging, short, relevant, relevant to those people to whom the investment decisions are applied to.
We do that, we generally film straight after the Investment Committee, we also film at the end of each month or we write. Every aspect of portfolio is reviewed, written about on a monthly basis and distributed to clients through the app.
Of course, clients have advisers as well, and some clients prefer an actual conversation. And in some cases, it does matter that a phone is picked up or the clients can pick up the phone to us, or we meet with clients and we can have a physical, old fashioned conversation or a digital conversation.
What don't most people know about the IC?
So, one, I think a lot of people don't appreciate the depth of the research that takes place before the Investment Committee. I mean, a mind boggling amount of materials produced with internal and external data, especially now, these days, using code and presented to the committee so that the investment decisions can be made.
The other thing I will say, it's glaringly obvious to everybody, is this is one of the most diverse Investment Committees here in London, with certainly a third of the members being female.
And in terms of diversity of thought and diversity of people's individual backgrounds and their careers, I think is rather broad, and therefore I really do believe it is a high octane body that makes very high quality decisions.
Disclaimer: This article is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal or tax advice, nor a recommendation to engage in any investment activity. It does not take into account the investment objectives, financial situation or particular needs of any individual. Capital at risk. The value of your portfolio can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invest.
