The Investment Table: Lunchtime Webinar | Building the Team Behind the Returns: Talent and Operating Decisions That Institutionalize a Firm ($1B–$5B)
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Founders rarely outgrow their people. They outgrow the structure their people are working inside. Crossing $1B is a milestone. Building an enduring firm that scales past it is a different job. Size correlates, but it doesn't determine. What actually changes is complexity: key-person concentration, product proliferation, regulatory surface, and the number of things that only work because one specific person is still there.
This session covers the talent and operating decisions that institutionalize a firm: what to build in-house versus outsource, when to add people and at what level, full-time versus fractional, how to develop and retain the team you already have, and how to pass allocator operational due diligence without over-building.
Speakers
Chris Lillis
Leads Arootah’s Talent Solutions practice
Chris Lillis leads Arootah’s Talent Solutions practice, partnering with alternative investment firms to design and execute high-impact recruiting strategies. He brings deep experience placing senior talent across asset management, investment banking, and quantitative finance, with prior leadership roles at Jackson Lucas, PJT Partners, Two Sigma, and UBS. Chris is known for aligning hiring decisions with firmwide strategy, growth objectives, and long-term performance.
David Bradley
Chief Operating Officer of Hawk Ridge Capital Management
David Bradley, CFA, CAIA has served as the Chief Operating Officer of Hawk Ridge Capital Management since November 2013. Earlier in his career, David was COO/CFO/CCO for 8 years at Sirius Advisors LLC, an SEC and California registered investment firm which managed $500 million in health care equities for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and later ran a long/short equity hedge fund. David graduated from Claremont McKenna College.
E. Kurt Kim
President & COO of Arootah Talent Solutions
E. Kurt Kim is President & COO of Arootah Talent Solutions, where he leads strategy development, execution of growth initiatives, and firmwide operations. Over more than 25 years, he has played a central role in building and operating a multi-strategy credit hedge fund complex and a FINRA-registered broker-dealer, and has founded and successfully exited an award-winning fintech platform.
This diverse, hands-on experience gives Kurt a rare, end-to-end perspective across entrepreneurship and institutional operations. He is known for pairing a founder’s mindset with disciplined operating rigor to help alternative investment firms scale responsibly and deliver sustained long-term performance.
Yulia Perruzzi, CPA, CFA
Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Almitas Capital
An SEC-registered investment manager based in Santa Monica with $800m+ in AUM. Earlier in her career, Yulia was COO, CFO, and CCO of Caden Capital Partners, a spin-out from MSD Partners, and also served as CFO, CCO, and Managing Director at Sepio Capital ($5b+ AUM). She began in fund operations in controller roles at Partner Fund Management ($5b+ AUM) and Bridger Capital ($2b AUM)
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