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Joel Wittenberg

Principal, Joel Wittenberg Consulting · 2 appearances on the record.

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Joel Wittenberg served as Vice President and Chief Investment Officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, managing an $8 billion portfolio, following earlier roles as Treasurer of the Kellogg Company. He created the Expanding Equity initiative to promote racial equity across asset management and now advises on investment strategy and governance.

15statements → 6claims → 4claims resolved → 50%fully supported → 3.87/5average certainty → 2/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 2said about them ↓

2 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 5 assertions · 1 opinion · 4 insights · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 are resolved, and 2 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Joel argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Wittenberg: Diverse-owned firms manage only 1.3% of $71T in AUM
“One of the things we see is that of the 71 trillion dollars of assets under management, this number is unbelievable. Only 1.3% are from diverse owned firms. 3.9% of mutual funds are diverse owned. 8.9% of hedge funds and 1.2% of real estate funds.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 33:00 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Joel Wittenberg on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Joel Wittenberg said on Capital Allocators that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Not checkable as stated
Wittenberg: All-white firms will not survive to 2050
“Our country is going to be more than 50% diverse in 2050. Our workforce in 20 50 will be more than 50% diverse. If you're not addressing these things today, if you're just a bunch of white men, that firm ain't gonna make it to 20 50.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 34:24 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Opinion
Wittenberg: Impact investors' silence on returns suggests poor financial performance
“What we're seeing in impact investing Is that other impact investors aren't talking about their investment returns, which tells me that the investment returns have not been good.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 45:54 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Insight
Wittenberg: Distressed debt can match or beat VC returns with lower duration
“A VC investment is going to be our longest duration asset. But if you think about a, for example, a shorter duration asset, a distress bond fund allocation, your duration risk is a lot lower, your cash flow is a lot higher, and your return over the distress cy…”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 9:20 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Assertion Supported
Wittenberg: Diverse-owned firms manage only 1.3% of $71T in AUM
“One of the things we see is that of the 71 trillion dollars of assets under management, this number is unbelievable. Only 1.3% are from diverse owned firms. 3.9% of mutual funds are diverse owned. 8.9% of hedge funds and 1.2% of real estate funds.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 33:00 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Insight
Wittenberg: Emerging manager programs risk being perceived as a kids' table
“The one thing that we have to really be careful of is some people see this as kind of the kids' table, and that's not obviously our goal, but that's one of the downsides of this type of a program.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 38:40 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Disclosure
Kellogg Foundation Buys Out-of-the-Money Puts for Market Tail Risk
“We will buy out of the money puts that have so little delta in them that you can't really count them as part of your equity allocation.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 15:51 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Insight
Wittenberg: VAR Models Only Work for 1-2 Standard Deviation Moves
“The VAR model is helping you on the one and two standard deviation moves. And that's it.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 15:59 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Disclosure
Wittenberg: KKR and Värde joined Kellogg's inaugural Expanding Equity cohort
“It is our first cohort. It's being done this year, and this is five firms. These are, again, some of the largest firms. You know the names. Some of the names allow us, they allow us to use the names KKR, Varde and Beacon Investments real estate firm in Boston”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 27:38 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Insight
Wittenberg: Being the sole diverse employee in a department reduces success
“When you have a department that has one diverse person in it, That person is more likely to not be successful than if they were to have other peers and other diverse people in that department.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 29:48 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Assertion Supported
Wittenberg: McKinsey found diverse leadership yields 35% higher return likelihood
“There's a McKinsey study in 2015, and it showed that companies in the top quartile for racial diversity of leadership were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 33:26 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Assertion Partly supported
Wittenberg: Diverse companies see 19% higher revenue, 2.3x cash flow per employee
“So there's another one, a Harvard Business Review study that showed That diverse companies experience increased innovation, and it results in 19% higher revenue, 2.3 times cash flow per employee more.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 33:50 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Assertion Partly supported
Wittenberg: Kellogg Foundation Investment Team Is Two-Thirds Racially Diverse
“I have Built a team that is two-thirds racially and ethnically diverse. If we include gender, where we're 75%, we don't include gender when we think about this.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 19:26 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Henry Kravis Views Accountability as Key Driver for KKR Diversity
“The accountability part, I can't stress enough, and as we talked to Henry Kravis about this was his key driver, is he sees the accountability as how he's going to bring this into his organization.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 37:21 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Disclosure
Wittenberg: Kellogg's US Impact Portfolio Returned 9% Over 3 Years
“For the last three years, our U.S. Portfolio had a return of nine percent, and so we're starting to see some real benefits come out of this thing.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 42:16 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)
Disclosure
Wittenberg reviews ETF portfolio trades after six months for behavioral traps
“Whenever we do a trade, we have an ETF portfolio. We make tilts in our portfolio. I go back about six months if I can and try to look at the trades after six months and come up with one of the behavioral traps I may have fallen into.”
Joel Wittenberg Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 52:15 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Allocators, EP.154)

The other half of the tape: Joel Wittenberg's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 1 episode on Capital Allocators. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Ted Seides 2

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
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2020 2 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Eli Casdin – Casdin Capital (Manager Meetings, EP.02) Jul 15, 2021 5m
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 4: Joel Wittenberg – A Prescription for the Future (Capital Aug 31, 2020 39m
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