Listen as Joe Thomson, Founder and CEO of Pacer ETFs, discusses Pacer’s origins in fund distribution. Our discussion covers the launch of Pacer’s ETF business in 2015 and their focus on developing deep relationships with financial advisors.

Guest: Joe Thompson, Founder and CEO, Pacer Financial

Host: Steve Kriechman, Director, Index Investments Group, FTSE Russell

• (00:00:00) - Pacer's evolution
• (00:04:06) - Their cash cows
• (00:05:44) - The products of the future
• (00:07:23) - Diversifying your portfolio
• (00:08:44) - Planning ahead

Marina Mets (FTSE Russell) and BlackRock's Joyce Choi talk about the recent market volatility and how the recent market dynamics in the US along with the falling US dollar make international fixed income more attractive to invest in. Joyce discusses the best way to dip your toes into international bonds and which iShares ETF invests that way. 

Guest: Joyce Choi, Head of Institutional Product Strategy, Fixed Income, ETFs, BlackRock

Host: Marina Mets, Head of Americas, Fixed Income & Convertibles, FTSE Russell

In this episode, Stephanie Maier, FTSE Russell and Laura Starks, University of Texas, discuss investor democracy and the evolving landscape of proxy voting where shareholder voting becomes more open and inclusive, enabling broader participation and representation. Laura explains the impact of decentralised voting and investor choice programs, revealing key findings from her latest research on how these shifts influence decisions on ESG and climate proposals, and corporate governance.

Guest: Laura Starks, George Kozmetsky Centennial Distinguished University Chair and Professor of Finance at the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin

Host: Stephanie Maier, Head of Sustainability, FTSE Russell

Meet StepStone Group, a private markets solutions provider with $723 billion in total capital responsibility (as of June 30, 2025). In June 2025, FTSE Russell announced a partnership with StepStone to leverage their extensive private markets database in the creation of new indices—designed to help investors better understand these strategies and potentially broaden access to the asset class. We sat down with Tom Keck, StepStone’s Co-founder and Partner, to explore the hidden value these next-generation private markets benchmarks are poised to unlock.

Dana Moody (FTSE Russell) and Vanguard's Carole Okigbo discuss recent Vanguard milestones and review some current ETF industry trends, including the resilience of the ETF structure in the face of more recent market volatility. Lastly, they look at portfolio construction considerations and some common ETF misconceptions.

Portfolio construction is a key tool for investors. By applying a framework and a systematic approach, investors may understand their exposures better. Listen to learn more about both practical and theoretical ideas about building robust and resilience strategies.

Host: David Sol, Global Head of Policy and Governance FTSE Russell

Guests: Dr. Joseph Simonian, Head of Equity Portfolio Design and Analytics, CalPERS and Sebastian Lancetti, Head of Index Research & Design, Americas, FTSE Russell

• (00:00:00) - Introduction
• (00:01:00) - Portfolio construction: Is it an art or a science?
• (00:02:39) - Examples of portfolio construction techniques
• (00:05:05) - What academics are writing about today
• (00:07:40) - Approaching portfolio construction
• (00:12:20) - Practical vs theoretical approaches
• (00:14:13) - Concentration

Anthony Rochte (FTSE Russell) talks with GSAM's Brendan McCarthy and ProShares' Mo Haghbin about the evolution of the ETF industry. They discuss how the types of ETFs are evolving and how the question in portfolio construction is no longer about active vs passive, it's how you combine the two optimally.

Media reports, social media posts, press releases, CEO conference calls and many other channels deliver unstructured data to the market. MarketPsych uses AI and its large language models to analyse emotions and sentiment and turn these into signals and forecasts. Listen to learn more about this exciting and powerful growing field.

• (00:00:00) - Introduction
• (00:00:50) - What is media analytics?
• (00:01:49) - Converting unstructured data into structured content
• (00:04:15) - Explaining named entity recognition
• (00:05:15) - Launch of the StarMine MarketPsych Media Sentiment Model
• (00:06:44) - Sentiment vs stock market performance
• (00:08:20) - Signals around tariffs
• (00:10:08) - LLMs and entity recognition
• (00:10:39) - CEO optimism and analysing emotions
• (00:12:03) - The future of technology