The National Strategic Investment Dialogue, 2008
The National Strategic Investment Dialogue (NSID) is an annual national series of discussions among fiduciaries and leaders of the investment community to address issues of vital importance to institutional investors. During 2008, the focus of the program will be:
The Investor Identity Crisis:
Putting Your Portfolio on the Couch
NSID 2008: Providing New Perspectives and Shaping New Strategies
During the past four years, the National Strategic Investment Dialogue has conducted nine national meetings which have brought together respected institutional investors, investment advisors and leading financial thinkers for frank, wide-ranging, provocative and exclusive discussions about the changing paradigms and shifting expectations underlying their investing strategies. The sessions were met with such great enthusiasm that many of the participants have returned more than once. Given the high level of interest and strong sense of the value derived from these unique fora, once again in 2008 the NSID will seek to bring together a select group of some of the investment world’s best and brightest to grapple with cutting edge issues in a unique peer-to-peer discussion format.
The 2008 sessions will build directly on several discussions that were central to the NSID during its 2007 meetings. The central concept is that we have entered a world in which traditional approaches to portfolio design, asset allocation, risk assessment, and strategy development have been overtaken by idiosyncratic needs. Today, it is not only possible to shape portfolios to the unique requirements of individual institutions, but it is a strategic imperative. The first step, as the title of the 2008 sessions indicates, is one that is often underplayed and even ignored: it is looking inward to what sets each individual investment pool apart. Fundamental philosophies, appetites for risk, the latitude afforded by governance systems, history, objectives, and resources are very different from organization to organization. Strategies and investment approaches are far less differentiated, although the tools for customization clearly exist. This program will help leading investors share perspectives with one another about how to move forward to much more tailored approaches that enable investors to take that which sets them apart and use it to their advantage. The first step is an exploration of core investment beliefs, values and goals, how they differ and how those differences can and should be translated into action. Next, the focus will turn to identifying effective ways to assess what each individual organization’s relative strengths are, with concrete examples being offered by representatives of leading corporate funds, endowments and public funds. In a working lunch the discussion will turn to an examination of what each of the participants fear in the global markets of the immediate future, where they see risk and where they see opportunities. Viewing portfolios in terms of traditional asset class components can constrain the analysis of how portfolios tie to strategies, beliefs and capabilities and, therefore, the discussion will then turn in the afternoon to a look at new ways of breaking down portfolios to understand them—by viewing the different types of risk they contain, by viewing them exclusively in the context of alpha and beta goals, by defining component parts with a new vocabulary. Because the goal of every NSID is to translate shared insights from leading practitioners into actionable strategies, the discussion will then conclude with a focus on how the participants might adjust their portfolio choices and approaches to be more closely tailored to their own individual natures and needs. Participants will leave with a more differentiated view of their own portfolios but also with a much richer sense of the options they have for tackling the core analytical and strategic functions associated with their jobs and professional missions.
An Opportunity to Gain Proprietary Insights on Critical Issues
We believe the format for the NSID will be unlike anything to which participants have been exposed during their careers. Prior to each meeting, hand-selected participants will be interviewed and profiled to ensure that the agenda is directed to their specific concerns and interests. Attention will be paid to bringing together participants with common interests to ensure a rich and directed discussion. We will seek participants who are influential in their fields to ensure that the contributions of all participants will be of high quality. The data from these initial interviews will be used to shape the specific programs each participant will attend and will also be used in the final data totals for analysis as part of regional and national samples on key questions.
Each regional session of the Dialogue will contribute to the aggregate findings through the systematic exploration of a common set of issues. Data will be compiled and analyzed and the collected results will be presented in the form of a 2008 NSID Year in Review entitled: “The Investor Identity Crisis: Putting Your Portfolio on the Couch.” Highlights of the study will be made available to the professional public and media. However, the detailed results will only be made available to participants in the study and many of the questions and issues addressed will be those raised by participants, thus ensuring real return on the investment of time in this effort.
Every Hand-Selected Participant is a Speaker, Each Plays an Active Role
Throughout each event, the structure will be that of an actively moderated group planning session. All invited participants are speakers; many will have specific aspects of the program to which they will be asked to contribute while, at the same time, all are free to comment and contribute throughout. The collective participation and “dialogue” element will also be manifested in the use throughout the program of wireless polling devices that will enable the moderator to regularly query the group and get instant responses (presented to all via advanced audience response projection technology) to those queries. Participants will be seated around an open "U"-shaped configuration and each person will have a polling device in front of him or her.
Each regional session will include no more than 45 invited participants plus selected “featured contributors.” Materials pertaining to the issues being discussed at the event will be sent to each participant one week prior to the event and will simultaneously be posted on the National Strategic Investment Dialogue password-secured website. Results of the polls at each regional session plus transcripts and highlights of the sessions will also be available to participants only on the password-secured website.
A National Initiative
The National Strategic Investment Dialogue was created to bring together the leaders of the institutional investing community to discuss the issues most critical to them and their professional success. The NSID regional task force meetings are designed to provide insights into the full range of professional viewpoints across all classes of investors including those from corporations, endowments, foundations, public and private funds. In 2008, the spring eastern regional session will be held in Washington, D.C. and the fall western regional session in San Francisco.
