Hi there, I’m back! In this episode, I share where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to since we last got together. I also wanted to share some exciting decisions, announcements and new developments!
Welcome to Bond Investment Mentor! This is a podcast dedicated to helping community financial institutions master the art of fixed income investments. In this episode, I provide an update on where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to recently. I also share some important announcements and exciting developments!
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Bond Investment Mentor Episode Three. I'm back!
[Music Intro]
Hi there! Welcome to Bond Investment Mentor. My name is Chris Nelson, and this is a podcast dedicated to helping community financial institutions master the art of fixed-income investments. If you're working for a community bank or credit union, and you have responsibilities for the investment portfolio, you've come to the right place. I'll be your personal investment guide as we help you boost your fixed-income investment knowledge, level up your portfolio management skills, and help you gain the know-how you need to help your institution achieve its financial goals. In this episode, I'm going to update you on where I've been and what I've been up to. And I have some exciting announcements about something new. So, let's get started!
[Music Out]
Hi, there! I'm glad you're here. Thanks for stopping by. And well, frankly, I'm glad I'm here as well. I know, I know, I've been MIA for a bit. Okay, more than a bit. A few weeks, a few months, who's counting, right?
I appreciate the questions. I have had a few people reach out to me and say, “Hey, is everything okay? Where have you been? What have you been up to? And are you going to have a new podcast episode soon?” And I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to know that there's interest out there.
And the short answer is everything's good. I've been staying out of trouble. There's been no prison time or bail money involved. And I've lately been quarantining like everyone else, so everything has been good.
But in today's episode, I do want to spend some time talking about what exactly have I been up to, and I've been up to a lot, and where I've been. And I have a big announcement about something that I've been working on that I'm really excited about. And I'm looking forward to sharing it with you here today.
So, let me start off by answering a basic question, where have I been? Well, let me review some information that I shared with you. Back then, I think it was in the first episode, I talked about my background as Chief Investment Officer and Head of Finance and Treasury for New England community bank. I've been doing that for the last 20 years or so. And I've enjoyed it. I’ve liked the people I'm working with. The bank that I have been with has been like family to me.
But for a long time, I've had another dream. I've had a dream of teaching and training other community bankers. I've done a little bit of that over the years where I've spoken at banking schools, or investment conferences, and the like. But for me, the dream was to be able to do something like that full-time, to be able to truly go out there and serve community financial institutions and help them with their investments and with their portfolio management.
And for me, this was always a someday thing. Someday, later in my career, I'm going to go ahead and do this at some point. You know, when the time is right, I will take this on. And, honestly, I finally got to the point where I realized that someday, without a plan, is never. And I've realized that I didn't want to be looking back on this dream of mine at some point in my life, saying I wonder what would have happened if, you know.
And so, it got to a point where it was decision time. I needed to make a decision, and I needed to move forward. So, in early 2019 – yes, you heard that right, over a year ago – I decided it was time to make a change. Now, this was a big deal, you know? I’m a senior executive for a bank. I had a steady paycheck, I had benefits, I had seniority, and I was thinking about changing to the world of the self-employed entrepreneur and all of the potential uncertainty that that brings with it.
But I talked it over with my wife. I actually checked in with both of my kids wanted their input as well. Everybody was on board. And so, back in early 2019, I let bank management know that I was going to be stepping down from my position as the Chief Investment Officer and Head of Finance and Treasury at the bank.
So, what's been going on since then? Well, it's been a very long transition, and I don't mean that in a bad way at all. I gave them a long transition on purpose. I wanted to give the bank time to be able to have a good transition, particularly with someone like myself that had been in my role for so many years. And I wanted to allow for that to go smoothly. I wanted to allow for succession to kind of kick in and be able to hand things off to somebody that was going to be qualified to take these responsibilities on.
And so, we've been working through that. I was actually working on that when I began putting out episodes of Bond Investment Mentor last fall but just wasn't in a position to really speak about it at that point. And basically, this all culminated with me exiting the bank a few weeks ago. I have left my position and have moved into something brand new. So, it's go time!
So, what does that look like? Well, basically, what I've done is I have set up a business that has two parts. The first part that I'll talk about just briefly, it's not really what we're doing here with Bond Investment Mentor, is I have set up business as an SEC-registered investment advisor. Nelson Capital Advisors is the name of the company, and it specializes in working with community-based financial institutions. Basically, it provides a couple of different services. I’m offering investment advisory and management services for banks and credit unions. And what I mean by that is I provide advice and recommendations on fixed-income and equity securities for them in helping them manage their portfolio. There might be some cases where I become directly involved in actually managing the portfolio, but for many, it’s just going to be more of an advisory role, providing some guidance and then helping them along with the management of the portfolio.
I'm also going to be providing some consulting services, which are more one-time, limited, or ongoing consulting, as the case may be, for financial institutions that are in need of investment expertise but don't have an interest in investment management or advisory services. So, examples of that might be, you know, investment portfolio or security reviews, a review of an institution's due diligence process, taking a look at the investment policy, and making some suggestions for how to tighten it up a little bit, something like that. Possibly being asked to come in and help out with regulatory-related consultations if those cases come up, and other specialty investment consultations. So that's what the Nelson Capital Advisors side of the business is all about.
The other part of the business, and what I want to tell you about today, is what I am calling the new and improved Bond Investment Mentor. And what we're doing through there is providing investment training and education. And we've been doing some of that through the website. Those of you that have checked it out, you'll see there have been some articles out there, I've been sharing resources, and so forth. Certainly, I started the podcast for the same reason, to be able to provide that guidance and that education from an objective resource for you. But we're going to kick it up a notch and I'm really excited about this.
So, some of the things that we'll be doing under the Bond Investment Mentor name; I'll be offering onsite training. What I mean by that is, it'll be one- to two-day sessions. I'll actually come out to your location and provide hands-on training for your team or your management team, or your board, on investments and portfolio management. And we'll be able to kind of tailor that training and really customize it to your particular needs. So, it'll be great to come out and work with people on a one-on-one, close-up basis.
The other thing that I'm going to be doing right away is offering one on-one-mentoring. And what that involves is personalized and customized professional training and development on investments, portfolio management, asset-liability management, and other related topics like that. And this, I think, is going to be really cool because it's going to be like having a key and being able to unlock the vault that is in my head and having personal access to my knowledge and my experiences to help you in just growing professionally in your role at your community financial institution. I think that's going to be really, really exciting.
Some other things that I'm working on fall more into the “coming soon” category because I'm still working on some stuff here. I am going to be offering online courses. There'll be courses on fixed-income investing, portfolio management, portfolio management strategies, and other related financial topics. You'll be able to go out on-demand and pull down a course that you can use to build your skills when you want to as part of the Bond Investment Mentor brand.
The other thing that I'm going to be planning to offer later this year or whenever we're allowed to get out of our houses again is investment workshops. And what those would involve, are comprehensive two- to three-day training sessions for people with investment responsibilities at their community financial institutions. So, you'd be able to come and actually get, you know, a day or two or two and a half days of intense focused investment training. And I'm looking forward to being able to offer those as well. But those are on the horizon. We're not ready to do that yet. The online courses are coming soon to a website near you.
If you are interested and want to learn more, you can go to the website, BondInvestmentMentor.com, and you can register to be notified when the online courses and the workshops go live. You can get on the waiting list, and as soon as we're ready to go, I will make sure that you are well aware of what's going on.
So, that's what I've been up to. I'm really excited about this new venture, and I'm looking forward to serving you and other community bankers in the weeks and months ahead. So, it's going to be something to really look forward to.
If you want to learn more about any of what I just mentioned, you can go to two places. I have two websites. One is for NelsonCapitalAdvisors.com, and the other one is BondInvestmentMentor.com, which you're already familiar with. You can go to either of those and get more information about what I'm doing. And you can certainly check out some of the things that I'm doing now and things that we'll be working on in the future.
If you have specific questions and you want to reach out to me directly, please do so. I'd love to hear from you! You can email me at Chris@BondInvestmentMentor.com. Let me know you know what your question is. I will get back to you. You can also catch up with me on LinkedIn; you can find me at Christopher Nelson CFA. And you can certainly message me there, and let's connect there. And you can also find me on Facebook at Bond Investment Mentor and touch base with me there.
The other thing is if you have found this information helpful, and you know someone who might be able to benefit from some of what I just told you about, please feel free to share it with them. I want to help as many people as possible become investment portfolio ninjas. That's just my goal! Pretty straightforward, pretty simple.
So, the other thing I want to share with you before we wrap things up today, I want to tell you about an event that is coming up that is being hosted by the Graduate School of Banking at Colorado. They are sponsoring a three-part virtual learning series on investments. The name of the series is called “Investing During a Pandemic: The New Normal.” And I'm going to be one of the presenters for this series. I'm looking forward to it. I'll be discussing investment strategies for uncertain times. And some of the things that I'll be speaking on will be the impact of recent events on financial market conditions.
We'll be talking about interest rates and when and when not to factor them in when you're making investment decisions. I'm going to be talking about portfolio management and taking a two-pronged perspective to your investment portfolio. And I'll also be sharing three key elements to developing an investment strategy and four questions that you must ask as part of that strategy building. So, check it out. By the way, it's a free series that begins on Thursday, May 14, so there's still time you can find more information. And you can register for the series at gsbcolorado.org. And, you know, right now, there's still room available. So, make sure you check that out. Did I mention it was free? I think I did, but I just want to make sure you know that. The other thing I want to mention is that it is a three-part series that is going to be weekly. And so, the first session will be on May 14, the second session will be held on the following Thursday, which is May 21, and then the last session is on May 28. So please check it out, gsbcolorado.org, and look for “GSBC Cares” in the menu bar at the top, and you'll be able to get the information and register for the series.
So, it's go time! Here we go! Time to start something new. I'm really excited, and I look forward to serving you. Next week, we'll be back to more of a normal format, with discussions on fixed-income investments, portfolio management alike. But I wanted to take a quick break and share with you kind of what's been going on behind the scenes and let you know kind of what's coming. And so, it's going to be great! A lot has happened since we last spoke in the financial markets, for sure. So, if you have questions, or you have topic ideas that you'd like me to cover in an upcoming episode, please let me know. Again, drop me an email at chris@investmentmentor.com. Let me know, reach out, and I'll definitely do what I can to get that put right into a future episode. I look forward to catching up with you soon! Thanks for stopping by, have a good one!
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