May Issue of Institutional Investor Interviews Dozens of the Most Influential Business and Investment Leaders

I just scanned the cover story of the May issue of Institutional Investor Magazine. It contains interviews with some of the most influential individuals in the investment and business communities today and the recent past. These include such illustrious figures as Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Warren Buffett, John Reed, Maurice Greenberg, Felix Rohatyn, John Gutfriend, Charles Schwab, and many many others.

The interviews are forward-looking, and provide a strong sense of where business and the economy are likely to be heading.

While I haven't been a continuous reader of II over the years, for the sheer scope of and range of the special, and for the ability to obtain interviews with these individuals, in my judgment, this is probably one of the most informative and broad-based issues of the magazine ever to be published.

There is a short piece about Michael Bloomberg, but due to its brevity, one can infer that he declined to be interviewed.

I recommend reading this series of interviews in its entirety.

John Walker, An Engineer from London,
Comes to New York To Begin a Venture Capital Career

On Thursday, May 24, I had coffee with John Walker, a new acquaintance I met at the most recent meeting of the Management Committee of the Columbia Business School Alumni Club of New York.

John, an engineer by training, recently arrived in New York from London, taking a position as a technology specialist with Chart Venture Partners (CVP) (www.chartventure.com), a venture capital firm based in Rockefeller Center that is focused on investing in homeland security ventures. He has been in the Business School's Executive MBA Program (EMBA) for the past year, majoring in Finance.

A native of Scotland, John began the EMBA program while working in London as the director of technology for a London-based manufacturing company.

While CVP has been in existence as an advisory firm since 1994, it only closed on its first venture fund about a year ago. To date, the fund has invested in five homeland security-related firms, and is seeking additional investment opportunities.

In our conversation, John displayed a high degree of knowledge of defense-related technologies, which I am sure will help his new firm to identify potentially strong companies for the fund's
portfolio.

John has been to the U.S. previously, most recently several times in connection with his EMBA studies. He said that for some time, he had been seeking an opportunity that would enable him to come to New York on a longer-term basis. Living in the Soho-Greenwich Village area of Manhattan, he said he wants to absorb and enjoy the positive experiences of New York, as well as build his new career in the venture capital business.