Many successful careers in institutional investing are forged early from a high degree of passion, curiosity, and discipline in the space. These traits accelerate your learning curve and help you build a network that keeps you competitive over the long term. For those investors specializing in emerging markets, you add a focus on politics and whether leaders in those markets can actually implement the policies underpinning your investment thesis. In this sector, favorable economics won’t always save the day if the politics turn south.

In our first episode of the 2026 season, the Thematic Investors podcast welcomes Rob Citrone, Founder and Portfolio Manager, Discovery Capital Management, LLC, to discuss his 35 years in investing and how he continues to achieve a front row seat to emerging market trends. Key points in the podcast include:

• How important is a network of senior officials inside each emerging country to help further diagnose investment opportunities?
  
• How a morning golf game can change your perspective on technology investing and AI.
  
• Why do some cycles for emerging market investments (like Argentina) act like ‘movie remakes’, but during the remake allow for more proactive investments into better ‘actors’, ‘camera angles’, and more?
  
• What does Rob see when investing in Europe in both short and longer-term periods?
  
• Policies under President Trump, and Marco Rubio at the State Department, and how that will shape foreign policy and economics in the next three years in terms of GDP, future tariffs, and inflation.
  
• What has changed in the country of Nigeria, and why is it a ~6.5% performance winner towards Discovery’s fund?
  
• Rob’s future view on gold (will it hit 6,000), and what he sees from the US dollar, and other currencies.
  
• How Rob and his team look at volatility, efficiency of the markets, and diversification as it relates to regional asset classes, and why he believes the market is dumber than it’s ever been in history.
  
• And more.

Connect with Kieran Cavanna:

• Old Farm Partners
• LinkedIn: Kieran Cavanna

Connect with Robert Citrone:

• LinkedIn: Robert Citrone
• Website: Discovery Capital Management

About Robert Citrone:

Robert Citrone is the Founder and Portfolio Manager of Discovery Capital, a global macro investment firm he launched in 1999. With more than three decades of experience, he has built a career focused on emerging and developed markets, combining political analysis, policy insight, and fundamental research across equities, currencies, rates, and credit. Prior to founding Discovery Capital, Robert worked at Fidelity Investments, where he helped establish its emerging markets fixed income and currency group, and previously spent time at Tiger Management. He is known for his global perspective, extensive on the ground experience, and long standing relationships with policymakers and market participants around the world.

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What fuels the curiosity and drive to become a great investor? Could it be early teenage stock market experiments that return 20% or simply being bored in the UK’s equivalent of Iowa, allowing you to take deeper dives into company annual reports during summer breaks? Edgar Allen began his own investment career, fueled by these experiences, as well as through his studies as a budding pathologist. However, as many allocators experience coming out of the university system, a career change to finance was calling, which Fidelity Investments helped him realize.
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In this episode of Thematic Investors, we welcome Edgar Allen, CIO and Founder, High Ground Investment Management. Edgar runs a long-short equity fund focused on European investing (this builds on past Thematic’s Investor podcasts with Johnny de la Hey and Stuart Mitchell – so be sure to check those out as well).

Edgar and Kieran discuss value investing and how players can approach some of these counter trends across the market.

Key Takeaways:

• How being assigned the most random group of companies to analyze at the start of his investment career led to larger groupings of well-known names, and into hedge fund investing.
• How you begin to balance investment targets by buying low and selling high, against something that is fundamentally cheap, and how much the market has mispriced the asset’s terminal value.
• What does competition mean in short-selling when the target has a really good product or service?
• How do Europe and the US differ in terms of return profiles on investment, dividends, valuations, and why there might be greater advantages in European companies than US peers?
• What does European defense spending mean for the team at High Ground Investment Management when they look at valuations and durations?
• Why is it important to Edgar to go beyond pure spreadsheet numbers on investment targets to understand more about what a company does and why customers are willing to pay for the product and service that they receive?
• How investing ideas can be aligned with the fall of Carthage, as well as the three-age system.
• And more!

Connect with Kieran Cavanna:

• Old Farm Partners
• LinkedIn: Kieran Cavanna

Connect with Edgar Allen:

• LinkedIn: Edgar Allen
• Website: High Ground Investment Management LLP

About Edgar Allen:

Edgar Allen is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of High Ground Investment Management, based in London. Prior to establishing High Ground, he worked at The Children’s Investment Fund (TCI), Fidelity, and BlackRock. Edgar brings over 25 years of investment experience and focuses on European equities through a long-short strategy that combines deep fundamental analysis with disciplined valuation and risk control.

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Throughout many of our past episodes on the Thematic Investors podcast, we have seen the differences in hedge fund investing strategies when East meets West. Given today’s trade and tariff environment, we wanted to expand the debate with two leading macro investors, pulling their insights on tariffs, U.S. exceptionalism, capital expenditures in areas like AI, and more.

We are honored to welcome Ronnie Roy, Founder and CEO of RV Capital, and Zach Kurz, Founder and CIO of PinnBrook Capital. In this episode, host Kieran Cavanna discusses the following topics with Ronnie and Zach:

• What makes mapping the scavenger hunt of macro trends so exciting to these hedge fund investors today?
• For Zach, how did a Sunday discussion with Stanley Druckenmiller influence the future of his investing strategies?
• For Ronnie, how was he able to ride the wave of volatility by creating interest rate products during times of crisis?
• What do each of these investors believe about global tariffs, and why a recession never fully materialized, as reported earlier in 2025?
• Given the speed and complexity of AI, how are AI goals impacting macro hedge fund strategies and the CapEx story? What could labor market risks look like in 6-8 months?
• How will President Trump’s policies play out for the remainder of the year as it relates to China, Korea, India, and Japan?
• And more.

Connect with Kieran Cavanna:

• Old Farm Partners
• LinkedIn: Kieran Cavanna

Connect with Zach Kurz:

• LinkedIn: Zach Kurz
• Website: PinnBrook Capital

Connect with Ronnie Roy:

• LinkedIn: Ronnie Roy
• Website: RV Capital

About Zach Kurz:

Zach Kurz is the portfolio manager of PinnBrook Capital, a New York–based macro firm managing roughly $600 million in its macro strategy. His path runs from Princeton (economics and applied math) to an early stint at Morgan Stanley, then to Duquesne Capital under Stan Druckenmiller, where he absorbed a liquidity-first view of global markets. He helped launch PointState Capital in 2011, building out the macro business, and in 2020 started his own firm. Today, his approach blends macro with thematic equity investing grounded in that training.

About Ronnie Roy:

Ronnie Roy is the co-founder and portfolio manager of RV Capital in Singapore, an Asia-centric macro firm specializing in rates, FX, and credit that was launched in 2011 and now operates with a global footprint. After years in large institutions, he set out to manage his own capital and then external capital, drawing on a career spent across fixed income markets and co-founding RV. He started on India’s government bond desk in the early 1990s and went on to trade through major dislocations, including the Asian crisis and the LTCM collapse, experiences that shaped his risk framework and macro lens.

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Investing in healthcare and biotech requires razor-sharp models, especially if you want to create more opportunities in this category through short selling. In today’s market, how can investors capitalize on short opportunities when AI, external Medicare Service pressure, policy regulation, and other factors are impacting healthcare investment targets and potentially derailing performance returns?

In our latest episode of the Thematic Investors podcast, we sit down with one of the great under-the-radar investors who has taken $3MM in AUM and has built it into a $1 BN firm. Join us in welcoming Dr. Michael Castor, CIO and Portfolio Manager, Sio Capital Management. Kieran and Michael discuss:

• What exactly turned him from an ENT resident into a career in finance.
  
• How the short-selling models at SIO Capital Management take a deep look at 4 critical aspects in the investment journey: Valuation, Catalysts, Sentiment, and Investment Narrative.
  
• Do Biotech investment targets simply go bankrupt, with investors holding the bag for returns that never materialize? Or is something else going on across the sector.
  
• With 17% of the U.S. GDP and 10% global GDP, where is healthcare headed, and what type of external forces are at play in driving efficiency?
  
• How will the U.S. administration balance drug prices, especially those that are significantly in the spotlight today like, Manjaro, Ozempic, and others?
  
• Has the bar on scientific assessment been lowered too far over the last few years, and can the drag on the healthcare system be reversed at this stage?
  
• The impact of AI and how new doctors will need to adjust their approaches in the next 5-10 years.
  
• and more.

Connect with Michael Castor:

• LinkedIn: Michael Castor
• Sio Capital Management LLC

Connect with Kieran Cavanna:

• Old Farm Partners
• LinkedIn: Kieran Cavanna

About Our Guest:

Michael founded Sio Capital Management in 2006 and has served as the portfolio manager since the Firm’s inception. Before starting Sio, Michael worked at Bernstein Investment Research and Management from October 2001 to February 2006 as Bernstein’s healthcare analyst. Michael was responsible for covering all sectors of healthcare globally. In addition to evaluating long investments, he identified healthcare short investments for several of Bernstein’s hedge funds. When Bernstein launched sector portfolios (an internal Bernstein product launched in 2003), Michael served as the healthcare sector leader.

Prior to Bernstein, Michael worked in the investment banking/equity capital markets division of JP Morgan, where he focused on biotechnology and healthcare equity offerings.

Before entering finance, Michael spent three years in clinical medicine. He completed his surgery internship at Indiana University Medical Center, followed by two years of surgery and otolaryngology residency at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. Michael earned a MD from The Ohio State University College of Medicine, where he graduated summa cum laude. He earned his undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from Tulane University where he graduated summa cum laude with departmental honors.

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As the fiscal brakes start to come off of Europe, how can investors begin to take advantage of investment opportunities that are on the horizon? Many viewed the early days of the Trump presidency as negative, but could that view shift as pressure increases to move Europe closer together? Early movements are pointing towards a union of capital markets and banking, which could result in the breaking of financial barriers that have frozen Europe’s growth in recent years.

In this episode, Kieran Cavanna, CIO, Old Farm Partners and host of the Thematic Investors podcast welcomes Johnny de la Hey, Founder, Hunters Moon Capital, to discuss how the stars are aligning for investors in the European banking system, and how the financial system is driving capital and risk-free returns for shareholders. Johnny, an industry veteran, returns to the financial markets this year, having developed his career at Tiger Management and then managing the well-known Toscafund.

His big new London launch is Hunters Moon Capital, which we will explore in terms of strategy and focus, along with the following:

• how have rate adjustments have helped European banks outperform some of their US counterparts and why real estate credit losses never really fully materialized across Europe?
• securitization levels across Europe and the US, and where each region stands coming out of the 2008 financial crisis.
• how a weak-dollar policy could impact banking investment strategies for hedge funds like Hunters Moon Capital.
• fintech start-ups and how to identify the right targets to invest in when it comes to regions or platforms.
• what peripheral markets (Greece, Argentina, Portugal, Japan) are worth a look at when targeting bank investments.
• where does he see insurance and reinsurance deals happening and are the promise of significant returns in this sector achievable.
• And more.

Connect with Johnny de la Hey

• Hunter’s Moon Capital
  
• ir@huntersmooncap.com

Hunters Moon Capital is a newly launched investment firm founded by industry veterans Johnny de la Hey and Hugh Rance, formerly of Toscafund, with Johnny also having previously worked at Tiger Management. Headquartered in London, the 13-person team is focused on global financials and equity capital markets, drawing on the founders’ successful track records and predecessor strategies.

The firm officially launched its funds in February 2025, backed by substantial internal capital and supported by a select group of U.S. family offices and institutional investors.

Johnny de la Hey serves as Portfolio Manager of the Crescent Fund, one of the firm’s two flagship strategies. The Crescent Fund is a global long/short equity fund with a focus on financials, particularly across Europe and the UK.

Connect with Kieran Cavanna:

• Old Farm Partners
• LinkedIn: Kieran Cavanna

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When comparing emerging market equity investments to their credit investment counterparts, the scales quickly tip to favor credit investments by offering investors 150-200 basis points in real growth. The story on emerging market credit investments remains robust, but how does that growth translate across different regional markets? This is what we’re going to find out in the latest episode of the Thematic Investors podcast.

Kieran Cavanna, host of the Thematic Investors Podcast and CIO of Old Farm Partners, sits down with Genna Lozovsky, Founder & Managing Partner at Sandglass Capital Management. See where the passion for emerging markets originated from as Genna shares his background and insights from Russia, Argentina, South Africa, Greece, and more.

The podcast discussion will also target:

• Why a ‘fiscal bazooka’ that appeared in Europe and the US during COVID didn’t touch emerging markets in the same way.
• For those involved in emerging market credit strategies, what makes Argentina so attractive to investors, and how will President Trump’s policies impact future growth?
• What made Ukraine such an interesting credit bet in the early days of the war, and what are Genna’s thoughts on opportunities for credit following a future ceasefire?
• What are Genna’s thoughts on the current tariff policy, and how does that compare with the last 20 years of free trade and winning across some of the major countries?
• What is the ‘day of reckoning’ in emerging market credit opportunities, and how does it differ from credit investments made on the equity side?
• As US policy shifts, how will China fill in some of the financing gaps, taking a larger role in the credit markets? What can we see from voices across the Middle East and Turkey?
• And more.

Connect with Genna Lozovsky:

• LinkedIn: Genna Lozovsky
• LinkedIn: Sandglass Capital Management
• Sandglass Capital Management

Connect with Kieran Cavanna:

• Old Farm Partners
• LinkedIn: Kieran Cavanna

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In the world of institutional investing, many trailblazers didn’t start in finance. This field boasts talents from backgrounds, including musicians, philosophers, and even physicists. Take Val Zlatev, for instance. Originally a physicist, his journey took a thrilling turn during a Chicago event when he visited the commodities exchange. Upon looking down at the trading floor he saw enthusiasm and energy that he imagined could be larger and more exciting than the amount of energy in physics for the last 500 years. He was hooked.

In this latest episode of the Thematic Investors podcast, Val Zlatev, Portfolio Manager and Partner, Analog Century Management sits down with host Kieran Cavanna to discuss hard technology and agentic AI investing. This discussion focuses on the core belief that as a thematic investor, you develop a conviction and ultimately decide whether you can create capital from your thesis.

Key discussion points include:

• How to recognize, and formulate a solid investing strategy on what you know and understand about the markets.
• What exactly is the true potential of AI, how are chain-of-thought models evolving, and how likely is it that we will experience a terminator moment in the future.
• What makes models like DeepSeek so unique, and what Val sees in their evolution and how Elon Musk and Meta might be involved.
• Is the investment industry right to panic in their assessment of scaling laws being broken and AI reaching a peak?
• What does Val believe about broad cyclical trends and what may or may not be coming from Silicon Valley.
• What is the state of play in China as it relates to hard technology and cutting-edge semiconductors.
• And more.

Previous Episode of Interest:

• Thematic Investors: Scott Bessent a Global Macro Veteran on the Path Ahead

Connect with Kieran Cavanna:

• LinkedIn: Kieran Cavanna
• Old Farm Partners

Kieran Cavanna is the Co-Founder and CIO of Old Farm Partners. Old Farm is a hedge fund allocation firm focusing on small and mid-sized hedge funds, as well as co-investment opportunities with $600m under management. Prior to Old Farm, Mr. Cavanna worked at Soros Fund Management where he served as the Head of the External Manager Selection team. Mr. Cavanna and his team performed due diligence on and allocated to a select group of hedge funds that deployed a wide variety of hedge fund strategies. Prior to Soros, Kieran was a Partner and the Head of Research at Titan Advisors, a $5b fund-of-hedge funds. In total, Mr. Cavanna has been allocating to hedge funds for 18 years. Mr. Cavanna started his financial career at KPMG Consulting as Senior Analyst. Mr. Cavanna graduated from the University of Richmond with a BA and received an MBA from Vanderbilt University.

Connect with Val Zlatev:

• LinkedIn: Val Zlatev
• Analog Century Management

Please note, the information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest, and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Vidrio Financial and or our host, Kieran Cavanna. The content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding investment planning.

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