Adam Torres and Mike Anderson discuss the Milken Institute Global Conference.
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Show Notes:
Listen to Milken Institute Global Conference coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres and Mike Anderson, Director of Marketing at Arena Capital Advisors, explore Mike’s Journey in finance and the Milken Institute Global Conference.
About Mike Anderson
As the Director of Marketing at Arena Capital Advisors, Mike brings 25 years of experience in the financial services industry to the firm’s family office, high net worth individuals and institutional clientele. Prior to joining Arena, Mike was a Partner at Craig-Hallum Capital Group for 13 years, where he helped lead the firm’s growth and built significant and longstanding relationships with institutional clients across several markets and within the investment banking industry. Prior to Craig-Hallum, Mike successfully traded futures for 12 years with Geneva Trading and Marquette Partners in both Chicago and London. While receiving his BA from the University of Minnesota, Mike was a member of the men’s hockey team, and a NHL draft choice of the Washington Capitals.
About Arena Capital Advisors
Arena is an independent investment management firm specializing in fixed income, focusing primarily on the high yield and leveraged loan markets. Arena is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
The firm’s senior leadership team has an average of 23 years of industry experience, has managed short duration specific mandates since 2002 and has worked together for several years, navigating a variety of market conditions.
Arena seeks to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns with an emphasis on capital preservation and lower volatility.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I have on the line Mike Anderson, who is with Arena Capital Partners, and this is part of our Milken Conference series where we’ve been kind of going behind the.
Scenes and talking to and featuring individuals that attended the Milken conference either this year or in past years. And Mike was there this year. I was too. First thing I’d like to say is, Hey Mike, welcome on the show. Thank you, Adam. Thank you for having me. glad to talk with you.
Fantastic. So I definitely wanna get into what you’re doing over at Arena Capital Advisors and maybe some of your history as well. but before we do that, I just wanna talk a little bit about the Milken Conference. So like, it, was this your first year out or have you been in the past? talk to me a little bit more about the background there.
I have been in the past and simply Adam, I would say, the thing that is, so powerful and enjoyable for me about attending the conferences. Yes. So many people there are extremely accomplished and have impressive backgrounds. And those things are talked about and people learn from it, but more so.
It’s such a focus on how everybody can be better and give back more and have a positive influence, whether it’s on their business or underrepresented communities, or people that maybe just haven’t had the chances that others had. That’s the part that I just love about that conference. Yeah, I see that, and I don’t know, I can’t prove this now, this is my fourth year, but I feel like year after year, I don’t know if it’s, I’m just more comfortable or if it’s just like, I haven’t checked these numbers by the way, but it feels like it gets bigger every year to me.
I don’t know. Like how, do you feel? It’s like the energy, the like repeat individuals that you see a second and third year, like the community that’s around it. Like what are your thoughts on that? I would echo exactly what you said, and I love that you used the word community because that’s what it feels like and I feel like the community of attendees is broader each year.
It’s expanded from Yeah, just the, the most powerful people on Wall Street. Not that it was only that at the beginning, but it’s, so much more for those types of people that have been fortunate enough to, be blessed or, or created a lot of outcomes in the business world or other parts of the world.
Yeah. And switching it up a bit here, I do wanna get into some of the time we have here what you’re doing at Arena Capital Advisors, but maybe before that go, into your background a little bit and really how you got into finance and really on this path. And I understand this is a bond fund, so we can talk a little bit about that as well.
But like how’d you get into finance? Great question, and I have a little bit of a unique background. I’m good at always just being honest and, telling the truth. So I was not a great student, so I wasn’t someone who, who went to an Ivy League school and, and focused solely on finance.
I played athletics and attended the University of Minnesota where I played hockey. Mm. Through that experience, I was made aware of a futures trading firm and the firm, their profile was kids that played athletics at a high level. Yeah, knew nothing about the business and came from no money. And that was my kind of little risk I took.
I graduated college and went and started Trading Futures and that’s how I would say learned a love for the markets in finance. And I did that. What year was that roughly when you’re talking Trading Futures and was it in Chicago? I just wanna get, get a feel for that. I’m just trying to get a year. I started in 2000.
Great question. I did start in Chicago at the Chicago Board of Trade. Wow. And right away we traded electronically, so we were a little bit pioneer ish from volume switching from the floor and the pits. I was wondering, you were right in that like sweet spot. Yeah. Yep. And I did it between Chicago and London for 12 years.
And it was we had a lot of edge, I would say for probably seven of those years. And then. I moved from futures trading into investment banking where I was a partner at Craig Hallam Capital Group in Minneapolis for 13 years. And the part I loved about the two changes, Adam, was futures trading was.
Super individual, you could either stomach it and you could either make money or you couldn’t. But it was very individual, becoming an investment banker and part of a, a team where you had clients and colleagues. I loved that portion where you had skin in the game with your partners and others as well as your clients.
And if you accomplish something together, five or 10 of you were raising your sticks at the end of the year instead of just one person. Yeah. I really, really valued that. Yeah, that’s amazing. And I my background in, finance, I always thought about those days of like the futures and why growing up reading the market wizards and I’ve actually had a couple market wizards on my, from the Jack Schwager, I think I’m pronouncing that right, the author, the old school books.
I’ve actually had one or two on the show too as well. So, kind of going back, I was just really curious about where you started there. So now let’s. Go a little bit more, a little bit more present day. So at what point let, just fast forwarding slightly here let’s get into what you’re doing present day.
So tell me a little bit more about your, your current fund. Great. Well, I am now part of Arena Capital Advisors, which is a high yield, really multi credit bond fund, and our sweet spot is very much the short duration part of that space. And the founder, Daniel Rin and I are close friends and we met and we actually did some business together at my previous firm.
Mm-hmm. And Daniel asked me to, join the fund where I help with our marketing group. Mm-hmm. And I would simply say I’m in my late forties now, and what I love about Arena is we have a team of accomplished people. And we’re all about that same age to where we’ve had history and experience in our careers.
But we want to keep going. Mm-hmm. We can do more. And we have two very highly ranked funds versus our competitors in our space. So it’s a great place to be, a great team to be a part of. Mm-hmm. And excited to be here. Talk to me a little bit more about team and, and leadership and really I mean, you’re, an athlete from way back, like, and just about winning and how you win and why that matters.
Well, great question, and there’s a few things wrapped up in that question, but I think let’s start with team and. I would say with my background, and I wanna make it really clear that I value sports a lot because I learned a ton from it. It’s not because I love to necessarily live in the past or, or the glory days.
But learning and going through something that’s extremely competitive extremely hard, where there’s, Blood, sweat and tears as people would say. Yeah, with, a close group of people and then accomplishing something together. It’s just maybe the greatest feeling there is and it’s really hard to replicate it.
So once you’ve had a taste of that I think you always strive to, to do it again or be a part of another culture like that. Mm. And so maybe like taking it a step further there. What kind of metrics or like how do you measure your leadership process? it’s a, that’s a great question and, I’ll move maybe into to business and how I think about leadership.
For me, Adam, there’s, five metrics that I hold myself accountable to every day to ensure my long-term success. And the first one is the most important and everything kind of derives from this, but I believe the more you think about others, the more you will get. Thank you. And, and that can be obviously with your clients, right?
Mm-hmm. If you are truly serving them to the best of your ability, you’ll create outcomes together with your colleagues and partners and can be obviously friends and family. But if you truly, are serving them. Mm-hmm. And doing what’s best for the organization and not just yourself. I think that’s when people create the best success and outcomes.
Hmm. Where do you think people go, kind of go astray in, this area? Like where do you think, and obviously it’s gonna be different for each person, but where do you think people kind of get it? Not exactly right. Another great question and, for me, I have a clear answer in my experiences, and I’m gonna relate this to, I’m gonna generalize here a little bit, but when you think of Wall Street culture or finance culture, yeah.
Because there can be so much money or fiscal rewards involved. It unfortunately can bring out the worst in people. Mm-hmm. And so they, see that money or they see that feeling or that fiscal reward they got from a certain outcome they, created or worked hard to create. And then they just get so laser focused on only thinking about themselves that you lose focus on really.
What’s best for everyone around you, your clients and you lose focus that you will create a much better outcome if it’s not individual. Mm-hmm. And it’s for a collective group. Yeah. So let’s take it maybe, a step further here. So one of the things is you’re aiming to achieve any type of goal.
There’s gonna be some, you know, there’s gotta be some other, some things that, some resistance, some things that are in your way. Like how do you stay resilient when things maybe haven’t exactly gone your way? For me, Adam, I think I’m a simple person and one of my strategies has always been to surround myself with people that had what I viewed as things I wanted or were, and I put in quotes around this.
People that I viewed were successful, okay? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And when I put myself around those people, they were the types that expressed or exemplified those traits. It wasn’t about themselves, even when they were younger. It might’ve been, and it took time, but it’s, so consistent. With the successful people or highly regarded people that I’m around, it’s about doing things the right way, being consistent and serving the people that are around you.
And, even giving back for the opportunities that you have. Yeah. That’s great. Well, Mike first off, this has been great having you on the show today, learning more about your background and, finance also the work that you’re doing, of course, at Arena Capital Advisors and some of the, I know we just scratched the surface on some of your ideas and values when it comes to leadership and really being a competitor and winning.
I think it’s all great. That being said, I mean, what’s next? What’s next for you? what do you have on the agenda? What’s next on the horizon? Great question. I, think what’s next for me is, hopefully more of the same. Yeah. I feel I’ve been fortunate and at, at 48 years old now, it would be, I.
Just applying all the experiences and things that I’ve learned to help others become successful. that is something that I organically enjoy doing and hope I have more and more opportunities to, share with other people. I truly enjoy that , and I would say. Continuing to learn continuing to get better at sort of letting your ego go away or, you know, thinking you’re, smart or accomplished.
I think I hold myself accountable to, making sure that I continue to grow. As a person as a business person. And I have three awesome boys, 14, 11, and nine. So most importantly as a father and husband. Fantastic. I love, love that answer. And if somebody wants to follow up and if they wanna learn more about your work at Arena Capital Advisors or just to connect, how do they do that?
Very easily. My direct dial at Arena is area code 3 1 0 8 0 6 6 7 3 7 or my email is [email protected]. Would love to hear from any and all. Always happy to talk about business or life. Fantastic. And for everybody listening just so you know, of course we’ll put some information in the show notes and speaking to the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet don’t forget, hit that Subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Mike, thanks again for coming on the show. Thanks for Adam having me. And thank you for all the work you are doing for others to get their voice and story out there as well as the support of the Milken Conference.
Thank you.
