Los Angeles-based Capital Group today launched a new podcast series hosted by Mike Gitlin, the firm’s president and CEO, in which he interviews the firm’s global investment talent in a wide-ranging, unscripted monthly format.
The inaugural episode delved into the investment process and experience of Rob Lovelace, an equity portfolio manager for more than 30 years who started his career by majoring in mineral economics before he became a mining analyst.
“We’re really hoping that it allows advisors and investors to get a deeper look into our investment process,” said Sarah Johnson, Capital Group’s senior vice president of global marketing. “'The Capital System,’ as we call it, really allows us to invest successfully over the long term, and we really want the listeners of this podcast to get to be a fly on the wall. … To get a sense of what that investment process looks like, and to hear it from our investment professionals. Through their storytelling, we hope that really comes to life.”
“Conversations with Mike Gitlin” is available on all major podcast platforms and on Capital Group’s YouTube channel. Each episode runs about 30 minutes and drops the fourth Thursday of each month.
The fund company has had podcasts before, and the episodes average 5,000 downloads each. The difference with this series, Johnson said, is the stories: “Stories from decades of stock and bond experience on the part of the people who run the portfolios. Mike does a great job of getting into different conversational territories with them—successes, failures, their relationships with mentors, stories from traveling and visiting companies in terms of what they learned and how that all has fed into forming their investment approach.”
She added, “It’s as much about the people as it is about the portfolios.”
Capital Group has a prolific information-sharing program with its “Capital Ideas” newsletter, webinars, and podcasts, all focusing on investing. The firm also has a "Practice Lab" channel for RIAs, with articles, webinars, podcasts and a benchmarking study.