Welcome to Press Play, the StreetCred podcast with
Elena Krasnow, yours truly, and Jimmy Moke from
StreetCred PR.
In this podcast, Jimmy and I will welcome
industry leaders, journalists,
influencers,
and friends of the firm to shed some
light on who they are and the various
twists and turns that led them to where
they are today. We're grateful to have you
listening in, and we hope you enjoy the
show.
My name is Elena Krasnow. Welcome to Press
Play, The Street Credit Podcast. I'm so grateful
you're here. I'm the marketing manager at Street
Credit PR and your host for today's show
along with co host and managing partner, Jimmy
Mok. We will break down the show into
two segments,
press where we dive into all the hard
news about our guest life and their professional
goals, and then play where we have a
little extra fun with it. Today, Jimmy and
I are delighted to welcome Ryan Van Gorder
to the show. To give our listeners a
little more background on Ryan, he is the
chief executive officer of Opto Investments, a technology
enabled solution expanding private markets across
access, sorry, for independent investment advisors.
Under his leadership, Opto has distinguished itself from
competitors by creating a unique alignment of interest
with advisors.
Prior to joining Opto, Ryan was a managing
director at BlackRock where he led finance in
the Asia Pacific region, And throughout his time
there played a role in growing the asset
management platform up to 10 up to 10,000,000,000,000
from a little over 1,000,000,000,000 when he joined.
Ryan has more than twenty years of financial
services experience and began his career in 2001
at Queloz, a Seattle based hedge fund of
funds.
When he's not focused on building Opto into
a world class business,
Ryan can be found running, biking,
or adventure racing, which we will talk about
more in just a bit. Ryan, welcome to
the show.
Alright. Couldn't be more pumped to be here.
Good to see you, Elena and Jimmy. Good
to see you. So great to have you
on the pod. Thanks for joining us.
Yeah. I think the last time we saw
you was, Future Proof in the sun.
That's right.
It's it's, the sun's coming back. Super excited
about summer.
Excited to spend more time with you guys.
Likewise.
And, Ryan, one thing that Elena didn't mention
in her,
opening intro is that you are also
sometimes able to be found on the river
in a kayak. Is that right? There you
go.
This is true. Spend a lot of time
on the water as much as I can,
paddling with friends whether we're in rivers or
in the ocean. It's one of one of
my one of my faves. What about surfing?
Is so fun. Do you surf too?
I do. I'm
a horrible surfer, but I love it. It's
one of those things that you need some
some reps to,
be very good at. And as soon as
it falls off, then I just enjoy bobbing
in the water with my friends and catching
one out of every 10 waves that I
try to catch.
There you go. Well, I am a I'm
a body surfer. That's it. I can't stand
on a board. I would embarrass myself. So
there's that.
Love it.
I am not a surfer, but I enjoy
observing the surfers, and I'm very impressed.
Cool. Thanks again for joining us. It's so
fun to have you on the show.
And as we like to start all of
our podcasts, my first question for you, Ryan,
is what did you have for lunch today,
or what do you plan to have?
Well, today's a big day. I was really
hungry, so I went down to the
taco truck down the street
at First And Howard in SoMa in San
Francisco at El Vaco
Loco
and got the pork torta.
Yum.
It's so good.
Grease was dripping down my elbow. The one
that it's gonna have me do is definitely
ride my bike home and do a workout.
I might even start here with some jumping
jacks.
That is a that is a press play
first right there. Exercising on the pod.
That's right. That's right. Well, if we had
some of our team members here, we might
have Emma on the bike desk, Meg on
the walking pad. You know? That does happen
from time to time.
And if I were with Ryan right now
in San Francisco, you would have me with
him at the taco
truck. True. We would have to do more
like man on the street podcast style
reviewing tacos or something like that. Indeed.
Awesome. Well, let's get into it. We have
so much we wanna talk talk about with
you today, Ryan.
But just to start us off, tell us
and our listeners a little bit about your
background and what led you to becoming CEO
of Opto, and, you know, how your team
is doing things differently when it comes to
private markets investing.
Yeah. So I'll start with background and
I think I Start as far back as
you want. Like, one years old, 10 years
old, whatever you want.
Okay. Let's see. I'll take you back to
the late nineties in college.
So I went to school in Durango, Colorado,
and I graduated with an accounting degree.
My first declared major was field biology.
My second declared major was
ski resort tourism management.
Amazing. I convinced my parents that that was
actually a real thing.
And then what I found out was I
love the rules and framework of accounting.
I'm pretty good with math,
and I was able to really understand that
framework and extrapolate that into business. So I
graduated with an accounting degree, and I loved
it.
Shout out to Fort Lewis College Skyhawks out
there. There's not many of us, but, big
shout out. And then,
from there, I went to,
one piece of my career. I don't actually
bring up often, but I did a little
over a year at the resort at Squaw
Creek, which is
a a large resort next to Squaw Valley,
which is now called Palisades.
And my job was the income audit manager,
and I managed the night auditors there. It
took me about four months to fully automate
everything that was happening there
and,
sort of reconstruct that, which is
why I ended up leaving and moving up
to Seattle to join a a start up.
And it was a start up that we
joined I joined in
late ninety nine two thousand.
It's called Avenue a.
We brought the company public
on 02/29/2001.
We'll have to fact check the, the IPO
day, but I certainly remember it being a
leap year. And
it was a wild ride. It was the.com
boom and bust,
sleeping under my desk, working twenty hour days.
I lived at my aunt's house on Bainbridge
Island. I missed the 01:40AM
ferry often,
slept under my desk, went to the vault,
which was the gym I belonged at, took
a shower, and came back to work. Wow.
It's one of the experiences that,
is so memorable and character building. And I
met a lot of really good people and
worked with a lot of really good people
that are now out in the wild doing
awesome things.
And it was a digital media company, which
at the time was very new.
So, the company is still alive today in
the form of a ray, Razorfish, which is
an agency out of New York.
And, Microsoft
did a full stock purchase of
the equity
in 2005 and then took the tech in
house and spun out the agency as Razorfish.
But,
anyways, I did that for,
I'll just round up and call it a
couple years. And then after the dot com
bust,
I got wooed into financial services with
company called Qualos, which is,
gets billed as a hedge fund to fund,
private equity fund to fund.
It also had a wealth management boutique,
attached to it, and that's what we call
it then. I think today we'd call it
a multifamily office.
And, we grew the business to about 23,000,000,000
in assets under management.
We had a a large list of clients.
We We had a broker dealer. We had
all these businesses, and then BlackRock came along
and bought
Qualos.
They did not do a company acquisition. They
did an asset purchase agreement. So they lifted
all the funds out of Qualos and brought
them into BlackRock to build out their Alts
platform. And it was our first Alts acquisition.
It came off the heels of buying,
Milim, which is Merrill Lynch Investment Management.
So,
that was sort of my entry view to
to BlackRock. And when I joined,
about 1,600
people.
Fast forward when I left, I think it
was 14,000 people. And I think today it
might be 20,000.
And,
it was their first foray into alts.
I came in and sort of sat on
the the acquisition for both BlackRock and Qualos,
and then, basically got to help them build
out their alts platform from a finance perspective,
and then partner with a lot of people
running businesses and learn how to build businesses,
the BlackRock way, which is
really, based on scale and process, and it
was a a fabulous experience. I did sixteen
years at BlackRock.
I don't think I ever held a role
longer than three years.
Part of their ethos is to move people
around,
reward you with new opportunities, exposure, experience.
I like that. I very much appreciate it
because
I do think variety is the spice of
life.
From an operator perspective, it also is nice
for controls to make sure that you're sort
of moving people and building process that anybody
can plug into.
And then,
I would say from those last three experiences
and particularly from growing up in financial services
at Quellos, I had seen
some form of the power law exhibited in
terms of high alpha and returns, and I
was wondering why this was happening in ultra
high net worth portfolios and, at the time,
not my portfolio
per se or
people who are in their late twenties or
early thirties and wondering,
why
an illiquid long term
high alpha opportunity
exposure wouldn't be in people who have
time on their side and are building for
multi decade retirement down the road.
I had seen software deliver scale and efficiency
in the form of Avenue a in my
experience there. I'd seen the alpha piece.
And then at BlackRock, what I saw were
all the different channels
of wealth that come into the investment management
space from the institutional
space to the retail space and everything in
between
and saw that the wealth
what would be referred to as a wealth
channel, but really the wealth space in America,
the independent wealth space
had been somewhat underserved in terms of their
access to privates.
We had perhaps accomplished this zero to one
type experience where
we went from no access to access.
And that was sort of felt a little
good, but not a lot good,
because
I had the ability to put on my
X-ray glasses and look at what the retail
and wealth market was being served, and it
didn't feel awesome.
Nobody
really would put their friends into a mega
cap fund 47
that's serving up beta like returns
for
400 basis points of fees when you know
they could just go get an S and
P 500 ETF for three basis points and
get the same return.
Mhmm.
So,
the industry the private market industry and investment
management industry in that sense took some steps,
but it didn't feel like the real solution.
So the combination of
trying to deliver quality product
in search of alpha
Mhmm. Trying to,
use technology to deliver it in a seamless
fashion
and really having a sort of bold and
principled approach that allows you to have a
different and aligned model versus a distribution model
was something that I was looking for. And
I got introduced to Joe Lonsdale and his
formation of the company, and he had his
circle of founders.
And,
when I talked to him, I knew that
this was it. This was the problem I've
been staring at, and it's a a problem
that I really wanted to
have a part of trying to solve or
at least be part of the solution.
And, couldn't be happier with the introduction and
the group of founders that I met and
now all of my employees. So,
we have arrived. We're here. We're excited about
it. Let's go.
What a wild journey. Let's Yeah.
Let's hit the rewind button real quickly, if
you don't mind, Ryan. Yeah.
One of my best friends, and I'm sure
I'm gonna get, some gruff for this, and
even a fraternity
brother was actually at Razorfish.
And I didn't know that,
that you you might have crossed paths with
him. He was, one of their top developers.
But
what's what's really interesting about your journey from
Avenue Way to Razorfish,
you you were dealing with
the volatility
of the markets
during this during the .com
boom and,
subsequent crash. Right?
And being early on in your career, I'd
imagine that,
you were,
you know, pressure makes diamonds.
Right? Like, those were some tough times. I
remember
young
Jimmy who and I did a lot of
dot com PR back in the day.
Poof.
So many of these companies just literally disappeared
almost after their hundred thousand dollar launch party
somewhere in Manhattan or San Francisco.
I'm sure you remember those days, and I
know that at least recently couple, Jimmy. Yeah.
Same here. They were a lot of fun,
especially for 25 year old Jimmy living in
New York City at the time.
And then you
you
you went through that market volatility, and then
you got into the fund to fund space
at Queloz,
And then
with BlackRock, you're you're watching the the
the beginning, the foray,
the
the BlackRock itself walking into the
alt space with full intention. Is that right?
That's right.
Building this.
Roller coaster ride. Here we go. Yeah. Yeah.
And and there's siren.
Yeah. Well well, there's also this this,
I don't know if it's if the economy
is the right word, but you went from
start up to
a sound what sounds like a more, obviously,
established
fund to funds,
and then you went to the behemoth.
Mhmm. What what was that like as a
as a professional? No matter what you might
have been doing or what your job function
was like, talk a little bit about what
that was like
as you were were finding your way
as a leader in financial services.
Yeah. I think that maybe the most
profound thing for me was the structure and
the process.
And what I mean was the .com startup
was
chaos,
and we spent a lot of time trying
to organize. So we did bring it together
when you file with the SEC to go
public. There's a lot of work that needs
to be done in organization admin, but it
still was off spread. Things are on fire.
You're going
the Quello story for me was sort of,
like, growth, but we weren't a lot of
people. We were, I think, 200 ish people
at the time of the acquisition. And then
we we got into this space. It was
1,600 people. And it was just
a year before maybe a year and a
half before they doubled by buying Barclays Global
International,
BGI, which was the iShares franchise
amongst other businesses coming on board.
And,
the process
that was in place
and the way that BlackRock
achieved scale from that process, which is sort
of the centers of excellence and having scale
and leverage from a back office that's totally
repeatable. And when you add on a business,
it's just the front end of the business,
and they
use all the the, infrastructure to support that,
was legitimate
and was built by real business builders. They
had hired and were thinking about this, and
they were getting ready to go on a
real acquisitive run. It hasn't stopped.
Hasn't stopped at all in the sense of
the fact that in 2024,
I believe, they bought Prequin and Mhmm. For
$3,000,000,000
private market
data
driven company.
They are very good at
process achieving scale.
Maybe the less fun part is synergies and
saving money as a result of it and
then also integrations. But, sir, that that's one
of the things that really stood out to
me. And,
from a business building perspective to put that
lens on and see like, oh, okay.
We're about ready to go on this tear.
How are we gonna do it in an
effective way?
There it was profound, and a lot of
people don't geek out on that stuff. But
because I've been a part of a lot
of different businesses and built a lot of
businesses within the walls of other companies as
well as being part of building one now,
I think about that that stuff quite a
bit.
I bet. Fascinating.
Must have been a wild journey and Yeah.
Such a ton of great experiences
that you've
were able to
accumulate,
refine, and and sharpen.
Totally.
Not that markets right now are under such
duress as they were during the
the .com days, but volatility is back. You
can blame
tariffs or
inflation,
both, whatever you'd like, DC.
Mhmm.
What Weather.
What
talk a little bit about that.
You know, here we are again,
and now you are in this seat at
at Opto
and what that means to the clients that
you serve and and their end investors.
Yeah. I think,
well, maybe I'll just sort of go back
and say the GFC experience
also. Okay. I mean, yeah, that was my
next question too because you started at BlackRock.
Really fascinating things there. And one is the
company that we're part of sold at the
peak of the market.
Wow. And it's questionable as to whether or
not they would have survived it. It was
a hedge fund of funds in a time
that Bernie Madoff's
experience came out and a series of other
funds, large institutional funds went down.
Hedge fund to funds lost their steam. They
sold at the peak of that market. So
just there could have been an existential
crisis that they averted, and then we got
put into a large machine that used the
real value of of their purchase in that
regards.
And so it acted kind of as a
buffer, but, I believe that we were part
of, shortly thereafter, the first layoff that that,
they had experienced
Mhmm. Or that they had executed.
And,
that was
some shock and awe within that organization to
go through
the the volatility and roller coaster and reaction.
But now it's, like, from a market perspective,
people will look and see in large asset
managers. That's just,
part of the
the course. It's it's just gonna happen over
and over again, and large
money managers will follow that. Now what I
would say is, and bring it back to
today,
is we exist in a very special part
of a whole portfolio perspective, and that's in
the private markets.
And the private markets have longer duration, and
there's reasons,
there are regulatory reasons and
business reasons and a lot of different reasons
why that's the case.
It also
because it's not
a sentiment driven or day to day mark
to mark on the value,
investors in the space
can be very emotional about the things that
matter, which are what are the jobs I'm
creating? What's the problem I'm solving? Where's my
money going to work? And how are the
operators of those companies gonna react to that
environment?
It's a very
awesome space to be as well as sort
of outside of the volatility,
just in terms of
the volume of investors
in efficient markets that are now realizing that
there's a
high multiple
of businesses and opportunities in the private markets
to create value
than than there are in the public markets
to invest in.
Mhmm. And I feel like that multiple is
changing every day. You know, we used to
talk about, like, there are six
times the amount of investable opportunities in the
private markets than there are in the public
markets. It change it's changing rapidly as as
things are getting more accessible, as there's more,
efficient ways to get into
stock ownership in the private markets, into managers
that sort of invest in that space. And,
as you apply a modern portfolio theory and
build more efficient portfolios that do have a
risk allocation to the private markets,
and we make it easier to do that,
we're in a very special place
to aid
people
investing in better ways for their future, and
we're excited about that,
especially in terms of volatility. It's a good,
there's a good story there. I mean yeah.
And I I have to go back because
BlackRock is such a prolific organization, and you
started there in 02/2007.
Right?
Yeah. So you're, like, in the middle, in
the thick of it with the GFC.
Do you have, like, some big takeaways or,
you know, specific memories from that time at
the organization?
Oh, yeah. It was,
chaos. I mean I can only imagine.
I saw that on your LinkedIn as I
was, like, researching for this show, and I
was like, oh, that is a year to
start.
Yeah. I mean, I follow this general
rule
philosophy,
and
people who are around me get to hear
this a lot. But I think that
this idea of uncertainty
equals anxiety.
So the more uncertain you are about stuff,
the more anxiety you have.
Yeah.
And what I would say is to
to BlackRock's,
I I would give them kudos
to the way that they had navigated that,
which was to overcommunicate
and do a good job
of letting the
the crew know
that, yeah, this is horrible.
We're there's a path to peace, and it
it might hurt for some people, but we're
gonna do what's best for our shareholders and
our employees. And
they they sort of built some path, and
I learned a lot from that. Yeah. And
I think that,
my
colleagues will hear this often from me is
just turn the communication dial up. A lot
of times,
you know, dealing with uncertainty,
If you're
dealing with human beings, they tend to think
about, like, the worst case scenario.
That's me. Yeah. So every time you go
to the doctor, you know, every time I
have a back pain, I, like, go to
the Internet and I turn into a doctor,
and then I roll in and I go,
doctor, I have, you know, spina bifida. I
found a doctor.
What are you talking about?
The the real fact of the matter is
they'll go, oh, maybe you just slept on
Right. Right. Yeah. Someone wants to be more
cognizant about how you're sleeping. Oh, okay. It's
amazing how quickly you can become a doctor,
though, by looking at the Internet for about
five to ten minutes.
That's very true. So I've stopped doing that.
But, what I have started doing internally and,
just about everywhere I go, I just try
to turn the communication dial up and make
sure people are aware of sort of what's
happening, where we're going, how we're gonna get
there. Yeah. It's to drive down that uncertainty
and drives down anxiety.
Yeah.
So Absolutely. There's something to connect there also.
Right? Your your back hurts. You hop on
to WebMD, and you're trying to self diagnose.
And you call your your primary, and you
tell them
all the reasons why you have to come
in. Let them know the bad news.
Right.
For investors
that might not be able to
follow
the
value of their investments
on in privates
just because they are not marked daily.
They can watch
financial television
and see a sea of red
and land in that spot of anxiety that
you were just talking about.
Mhmm. So let's hear a little bit about
how
private markets can't just be a
a ballast or a source of even alpha
to a portfolio,
but they might also help investors,
calm themselves when they're looking at their overall
portfolio.
Do you
I'm I'm tracking with you. Right? Yeah. I
know. I gotcha. I think
it does
boil down to some
sort of easy to follow in a linear
path here. And and
so while you're not seeing marks on portfolios
wildly swing
Mhmm.
That's a byproduct of the fact that,
there are less frequent requirements to do that.
However,
the way you stay in tune
with your strategic portfolio manager or GP,
historically, has been very difficult.
And what we try to do and what
we're doing with,
our data information connectivity
and software
is connect advisors we work with with what's
going on in their portfolio so they can
talk intelligently about a little, you know, about
a couple of things I mentioned previously, which
are what are the jobs you're creating,
where is your money being spent, how are,
portfolio
managers as well as,
operators within those portfolios
putting money to work or allocating money or
reallocating what's the approach.
Mhmm.
And we've found that arming our
partners and clients with that information allows them
to talk more intelligently and clearly about how
money is being put to work and why
it's not swinging wildly and put put people,
not necessarily at ease in times of volatility,
but give them some clarity and and transparency
into what's going on with their money.
I think that
we've got a lot of opportunity in front
of us
to take it to the next level, and
we're certainly
adding to our product road map a path
to try to
go as far down the transparency road as
possible and get people connected in a way
that can make them feel,
on top of how their money is getting
put to work
and have a little bit more of a
keel in terms of, the fact that there's
a long duration bet going on, and you're
betting on a company that can survive downturns
and upturns.
Yeah. Mhmm. It it becomes more tangible in
that regards, I believe.
Mhmm. Actually, just came from
one of our underlying GP's
AGMs, which is a annual general meeting,
where
this is
a,
not an early stage or emerging manager. They're
on their fifth fund, but they showcased,
you know, three sectors that they invest in
heavily, enterprise AI, health care, and,
industrials. And they brought up their port co
managers, and they all addressed
how we're getting built. We're new companies, but
how do we get through the trough of
volatility?
Mhmm. And they're very focused on solving problems,
which feels very good. You hear people say
there's a real problem
in this space, whether it's mRNA,
coding and development, whether it's robotics or infrastructure
for companies on the path to Saturn.
Pretty exciting to hear people talk about that
stuff rather than how the public is
viewing
the price of their stock on a daily
basis.
Makes total sense. That's awesome.
Personal question. When it comes to your own
portfolio,
how
how is it divvied up between equities,
bonds,
and then private markets?
Yeah. Maybe because of my proximity to private
markets, I'm
have an excessive allocation. But if we just
think allocations,
historically, I've had a very boring portfolio. I'm
not out looking for grand slams.
Mhmm. But I, certainly am looking for an
opportunity to
invest in private markets. And right now, I
am north of 20% in private markets.
Okay. I think that that's in line with
the modern portfolio theory and me having an
efficient portfolio. But, I do historically, I've I've
been very boring. Run something that looks like
a sixty forty
in equities and fixed income,
and then I have inner circle of that
which is private market exposure to the same
thing, some equity, some income opportunities.
Yeah. And I think that's a nice extension
of, a sixty forty approach.
Boring is not bad.
It's not been bad for me. I guess
I'm trying to fill my time with other
activities
to
take my mind off of
the roller coaster ride. I'll serve that up
for you. I was gonna say, speaking of
that, what a perfect segue.
That's twice, Ryan. Ryan's running the show. I
mean, do I just give the host keys
over to Ryan at this point?
More jumping jacks, please.
But, yeah, we've heard so much from the
team.
I hope y'all are watching on YouTube so
you can see the magic that's happening right
now.
I've heard a lot about your passion for
adventure racing, and I read your article that
you wrote about it as well.
Can you tell us more about that and
your experiences and kind of how it's influenced
your approach to life as a fintech CEO?
And
and don't forget to bring in the connection
to Mark Wahlberg, if you could.
You have to you have to tease that
out a little bit later. Okay. Well,
so maybe I should just say what adventure
racing is. That would be a good starting
point. Because it's a it is a nuanced
eccentric sport that
there are not a ton of people that
follow it.
I've never heard of it until you take
a bite of it. It's hard to let
it go because it's super exciting, and it's
a fun way to spend your spare time
whether you're trying to get ready for it
or actually participating in it. So adventure racing
is
a point to point race
with no set course that's timed. So when
you go through the start line,
the gun has gone off, and not until
you go through the finish line does the
clock stop. So that means if you eat,
sleep,
go to the bathroom
All on the clock. Look at your map,
you're on the clock. So what you try
to do is be the most efficient you
possibly can to get through a course, which
is a multi sport course with transition areas.
So most people go to oh, like triathlon.
You can have
up to infinity transition points. Well, maybe not
infinity because it wouldn't end, but you get
the point that you transition from the core
sports that are involved in this are running,
biking,
and some type of a water sport like
canoeing, kayaking, something like that.
And if any if you've ever orientated, that's
a map and compass,
race around getting some checkpoints. Adventure racing is
just that. So you're given
the points, but you're not given how to
get there. You have to navigate with map
and compass, and then you do it Fascinating.
Human powered
And the longest race I did I've done
is 800 miles.
So the the shortest race I've done shortest
race I've done is
12 miles, and they have races everywhere in
between that. So they have sprint races that
are usually three to six hours or two
to four hours. Some of them are Wednesday
nights after work, and everyone has a potluck.
Seattle has Oh my gosh. That does that.
Wait. Wait. Where was the 801?
Like, where did you go to and from?
So the 800
mile race was around Moab, Utah.
Oh, beautiful. It was called Subaru Primal Quest.
Subaru is a title sponsor
shown on CBS. It was like a week
long show.
The the genesis of this stuff comes from
a French produced race called the Raid Galois,
which is a tough to say race name.
And then Mark Burnett, who produced a whole
bunch of TV shows including,
Survivor,
went and tried it a couple times and
failed and then came back to The US
and produced the Eco Challenge.
And the Eco Challenge was alive in the
nineties and early two thousands on CBS. They
would show this show for a week, do
about two to three hours a night, and
I saw it and thought, I could do
that.
Of course, there's no way I could do
it
in affairs. But,
I went to a barbecue at a friend's
house.
We all watched the eco challenge while we
were barbecuing. We all said it. I could
do that. And it turns out one of
the guys that I was hanging out with
was a a man of action, and he
signed us up to go to a race.
We went
maybe two months later to Deep Cove, British
Columbia and did what was called a three
to six hour race. Three hours shortest time,
six hours longest time.
Took us eight hours to complete. We tipped
our canoe.
We missed a checkpoint and had to go
back. One of my best friends, Frenchie, went
over his handlebars on his mountain bike four
times. Oh, no.
It was,
everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.
When we were done, we high fived, and
we were like, that was awesome. Let's go
do it again.
So we fucked us. We forgot about all
the pain, and,
we just jumped in
and started racing more. And then the elite
category within adventure racing is coed. So then
we started racing with our our,
women friends, joined the team. Turns out they
were the strongest ones on the team. And,
we built a team of about 10 to
12 people, and we rotated based on time,
efficiency,
money,
the time piece being the schedule, who could
actually make it. And we started doing these
expedition length races, which are defined as expedition
if they're over forty eight hours.
So we did three hour races across the
Baja Peninsula.
We went to The United Arab Emirates and
raced a seven day
race in the kayaking in the ocean.
We raced in Tasmania and Australia.
Oh my gosh. This is so cool. We
raced in Switzerland and all I mean, basically,
you name it, and we've raced there as
a team. And, it was I should've told
you to come prepared with, like, slides so
we could see some photos. This sounds so
amazing. On version two. So maybe it's not
I can't even you can tell I get
fired up about it. I think the the
main question was how did adventure racing play
into what I bring
Yeah. The tattoos. And and, I think it
plays out in a lot of
it's a metaphor for life, adventure racing. It's
easy to find that. Also, when you're out
running, biking, and kayaking for seven days straight,
there's a lot to think about. So you
find a lot of metaphor.
But the thing about adventure racing, and this
is the probably the most important piece in
terms of why the team that, I was
on and we helped build was successful.
We were ranked in the top 10 in
the world for a number of years. It
was fun to race internationally
Wow. Was because we had very aligned
goals and incentives. It was mostly about aligned
goals.
We checked our egos at the door before
we hit the start line.
And you you just go through so many
ebbs and flows like life. You have highs
and lows.
And
everyone kinda has some roles on the team.
Mine was everyone joked about me being the
Sherpa or carrying other people's gear. I'm bigger,
have more weight. It was easier for me
to take more weight on. I would tow
people.
But without a doubt, on a long race,
somebody was gonna carry my backpack,
and somebody was gonna tow me on a
bike.
It didn't never mattered who. I would say,
give me the tow,
and the goal is to move as fast
as you can as a team. Yeah. You
can only move as fast as your slowest
teammate.
So once you can all check your ego
at the door and say, I need help,
it's it's kinda hard to seem to do.
Put your hand up and just say, I
don't feel good. I need help.
I think that perhaps you guys are thinking
about this right now. It's easy to metaphor
out of that and say, hey. That happens
at work a lot. Yeah.
Yep. We we literally just came here from
our all hands virtual meeting
where we were talking about
new roles that management is going to be
taking on.
And,
to get there,
I think
that all of us on the management team
do have to check portions or all of
our ego at the door
in order to accomplish what we're putting forth
in front of us
in terms of a firm street cred and
our own
growth trajectory.
And I'd imagine,
whether
you're whether you're help towing
or you're admitting that you need that help,
it's probably really tough to admit the need
that those first couple of times.
Any any truth to that, or
give us a little bit in terms of,
like, what that experience was like?
Yeah.
It's hard to check your ego at the
door and make yourself vulnerable and Mhmm.
Let let
in front of other people
show that
you're not the strongest or the fittest or
the best at any given time. And in
a work environment,
if we're capable of making ourselves vulnerable, we'd
like we we try to preach that to
people, and it means different things to different
people, but
we spend a lot of time validating our
existence
or within a firm. Here's why I'm here.
I'm the subject matter expert.
It's tough to say, oh, but I do
need help.
And it's tough to say that when you
have, like, a hierarchy.
Mhmm. And I think what
we're doing our best at sort of bringing
to life,
particularly at Opto,
is that we're creating an environment that's,
got ownership across the board. It's one of
our values.
It's got courage across the board. It's also
another one of our values.
We have three values. The third is partnership,
and that's us celebrating the success of our
partners as our success.
And all of those go together and and
at times being
or being required to put your hand up
amongst our teammates and say, hey. Has Has
somebody thought about this in a different perspective?
And we we do our
we bring that into our
our build effort on our platform. We do
that on our investment processes.
We do that, in our partnership with our
clients, and it's a special thing. And, I
talk about adventure racing a lot to bring
this back to the question, and I do
bring it into work quite a bit because
there's,
a lot of that metaphor that plays out
in real life.
I mean, there is an abundance of metaphors
there,
and kind of a thread too from what
you were saying about your experience at BlackRock
and how they sort of reposition people every
couple years to give people different exposure.
That also leads into this value you hold
so dearly now of shared ownership across all
the different things that need to be done,
and certainly as part of Opto's success.
You literally stole words out of my mouth,
Elena. That was amazing. Getting too good for
you, Jimmy. What are you gonna do? I
I've I wanted to hit on those three
pillars and just share with you that
as
a business owner
and someone who is working on his own
leadership skills,
courage,
partnership,
ownership,
like, those are three
heavy topics
to,
to always lean into.
But for the benefit of the team and
watching how Opto has grown since we've partnered
together,
you're obviously
onto something and and,
kudos on that. And being able to lean
into your past
and extrapolate some of the things that you've
gone through
as an athlete and as a human
to the benefit of
the team that you work with now at
the firm.
Yeah. I think, thank you,
by the way. And I think that we
all have a
circuitous
path in our history, you guys included,
and
I think it feels good to be able
to lean into those and bring them to
life. Yeah. We learn. We're always learning.
Absolutely.
That's why,
I don't hide my gray hair. I've gotta
turn my head a little bit here. But,
with that comes all these kick ass experiences,
and we love to bring those along. We
should be so lucky to grow old enough
to have gray hair and wrinkles. Like, that's
how I always think about it. I hope
that I look like that someday. I hope
I have that chance.
I'm hide I'm hiding my gray hair and
my bald spot with That's okay, Jimmy. With
with the Octo hat.
Awesome. Okay. Well, I'm gonna take us into
our play segment,
which is pseudo rapid fire, but, you know,
me and Jimmy like to yap. So rapid
fire is very relative.
But if it weren't wealth management, Ryan, what
would you be doing? Like, did you have
any dream jobs as a kid or alternate
paths that you considered? I know you mentioned
biology and some other majors that you explored.
Like, what do you think you'd be doing
today, if not this?
I think
if I go back to dream jobs and
I think about what fires me up, if
there was an alternative path, it would have
been around some form of hospitality. I do
Oh, yeah. Like
to build the stoke in people.
And I think,
as you've might have recognized through my passion
for adventure racing and just recreating in general,
that alternative path probably would have been some
sort of,
mountain guide, ski guide combo.
I could totally say that. And and I
I flushed a little bit of this out
during college. And
what I found was there were people in
that industry that were telling me,
don't mix
your extreme passion with the business because you
get burnout. You don't wanna ski
powder in remote mountains.
I didn't that wasn't enough to, like, steer
me off of it. I just found that
accounting could be applied everywhere, and I like
to work with my business. And so I
followed that path. However, I could see
in a bizarro universe that that would have
been a path I followed.
Totally.
I mean, somewhere in a parallel universe, that
is what you're doing.
What's your favorite thing to do for fun?
I mean, sorry to be kicked a dead
horse, but I love riding a bike.
And I love riding bikes on trails, and
I love riding bikes on trails with my
family and my friends.
Probably
top of my list right there. Yeah. I'm
out in Hood River, Oregon, and we are
famous for our mountain biking trails. So if
this part of the world ever calls to
you. Well
well,
you
know that I mountain bike in Hood River
often.
Really? Wow. Yeah. In Awesome. The the river
in White Salmon.
Yeah. Little
Moab. There's a couple of Syncline. Have you
done that? I've done syn that is Syncline
is that, basically. I can see that trail
from where from my house right now. Okay.
Like, literally looking out on my porch.
And, for what it's worth, I used to
live in a house across the street from
the Philly Cheesesteak,
the restaurant on Waskow Drive in Hood River.
There we go. I don't know if that's
still there. I have made it through the
pandemic. But, Yeah. Oh, definitely a lot of
restaurant changes. Up there, and pun intended, after
Post Canyon.
That's where my boyfriend rides, like, every weekend.
There you go. Funny. There's some trail up
there called, like, Dad Camp or, like,
Dad Trail. It's for all the the dads
to, like, be mellow and not act like
a kid who's catching
25 feet of air on full send mode.
That was Somehow, I feel like you're with
the kids catching 25 feet of air. I
know.
Very cool. Awesome.
Well, we like to close out the show,
Ryan, with a moment of gratitude and and
just give you the opportunity to shout out
someone in the industry, on your team, in
your life who you admire and, yeah, say
something nice about someone who may or may
not be listening.
Well, I appreciate that. That's a it's a
nice opportunity. And,
I would say I've invested I'm a people
person. I've invested a lot of time in
building a big network, and there's probably at
least a thousand people I could say thank
you to. I feel like I do build
a bit of a personal advisory board, but,
I get asked a lot of times, like,
hey. How did you manage this finance career
and then also go race competitively internationally on
this thing that, like, took a lot of
time? And,
again, I do get caught up telling a
story at times about
my boss at the time
at Quellos. His name is Dan. I'll leave
it at that. He'll know who he is.
And,
I tried
I had this thought that perhaps I should
not work
in in towards developing my career as much
as I was,
based on my age and the fitness I
wanna do accrue. And the fact that I
was having kids at the time, I was
like, maybe I should do this when my
kids are younger. And, like, I have all
these thoughts. And
so I I told him, hey. I'm thinking
about taking a large sabbatical, basically, quitting for
a couple years and just focusing on on
racing. And he said, well, why would you
do that?
And I said, well,
super fit. We're competitive. We're beating these teams
internationally.
Some of my teammates have, like, quit their
jobs and become professional athletes. And, you know,
that doesn't mean a lot. It means you
struggle
financially, but you get to
fulfill yourself fill your cup on all your
recreational endeavors.
And he said, well, I think you're racing
a lot right now. Right? And I said,
yeah. He said, do you wanna race more
than you are now? I said, yeah. There
you know, I do wanna race more. He
said, well, how much more can you race?
These things are, like, killing you almost.
So I explained to him and he said,
how about this?
Don't ask me for more money.
Don't ask me for a new title.
Keep doing what you're doing because we love
your output, and you're dedicated and emotionally attached
to growing our business and us succeeding.
And I'll support you having a life outside
of work. It just means that you're not
gonna get some fancy title and do this
thing.
And
that was the kick start to me basically
having a career and,
being able to flex
recreationally
as well as,
with my brain
and on a career path with some experience.
I very much appreciate,
that person who's,
become
certainly a a very good friend of mine,
but, you know, acted as a mentor and
at the time, a manager and,
leader in finance at at Quellos. And, yeah,
big shout out to Dan for, helping me
on my way.
Dan, man.
Yeah.
Fantastic insight and story in terms of how
he,
he met you halfway
more or less.
Yeah. I mean, I think it helped that,
I had had some a good output for
him, but he knew I was,
on board and he wanted me to be
a human.
I think I said it at the beginning
of this, but variety is the spice of
life. So it's something that helped me to,
you know, proverbly proverbially
run
career
marathon rather than a sprint
Yeah. And just figure out what I like
about
working and
building teams and,
winning.
Well, to steal another phrase that you just
mentioned, you're able
to fill
two different cups at the same time. Your
your professional career
and then your recreational
racing career. That's awesome.
Shout out to Dan.
Shout out to Dan. Let's go.
Awesome. What a beautiful full circle way to
close the show.
Thank you so much for joining us, Ryan.
To our listeners, we know that you learned
something new. Hope you enjoyed hearing Ryan's story.
And be sure to write us via email
at pressplay@streetcredpr.com
to tell us what you think, ask us
any questions,
suggest any guests, or even just to tell
us what you had for lunch today.
Thanks again for tuning in, and we can't
wait to introduce you to our next guest.
Thanks again, Ryan. See you later. Thanks, guys.
Have fun to take. Thanks, Ryan.