Baltimore: The Sundance Channel of investing
Legg Mason boss Mark Fetting advanced an interesting thesis when he spoke to folks at Johns Hopkins' Carey School of Business Carey Business School this month. Places such as Baltimore, with clusters of smart folks geographically apart from the lemmings and group-thinkers in the mega-towns, can deliver superior ideas -- whether in investing, tech innovation, policy or other areas, he says. Email me if you want the whole speech. I can't find an online copy. UPDATE: Here's a link to a video.
From the speech:
Leadership can not be limited to so-called global centers like New York, London and Tokyo. Because ideas don’t have zip codes or country codes global leadership also comes from a Baltimore, a Pasadena, a Melbourne, or a Sao Paulo. In fact, the traditional bastions of leadership may be a bit tarred or tired or even jaded these days, often blamed for today’s woes rather than being incubators of solutions.
Would we trust policy on financial reform that comes from Wall Street or is there more credibility if it comes from the Economic Opportunity Institute in Seattle? Would we be more open to a political perspective from the National Peoples Congress in China or from the independent International Peace Research Institute in Oslo? Do we look to Tokyo for new ideas or do we turn to the Silicon Valleys and incubators in mid-sized cities like Ann Arbor and Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill or the biotech and medical centers in Baltimore and Boston?
Do we even expect great television from the largest, most-entrenched networks or do we look to the HBOs and the Sundance Channels? Do we look for the best movies from Hollywood or from independent filmmakers? If we are honest with ourselves, the answer is probably somewhere in-between. We look to both the big cities but also to the best-in-class cities and there-in lies our opportunity.
A study conducted by The Bogle Center for Financial Research found that successful, alpha-generating investment managers are predominantly headquartered outside of New York and Boston. Baltimore, home to the first-ever investment bank in Alex Brown, is a testament to what Bogle found. From this singular idea this city incubated a robust community of traditional investment managers: T. Rowe Price, Brown Capital and Legg Mason. It is also home to venture investors like NEA and ABS Capital.
And the reach of our community is felt throughout the business world, the private equity firm Carlyle Group was founded by an alumnus of T. Rowe Price and Marriott is led by a graduate of Johns Hopkins University. More than ever, we should be looking outside the business and cultural centers of yesteryear for new ideas and new solutions; that is new leadership. Good ideas simply don’t have zip codes.
Comments
Jay--When Mr. Fetting says that traditional leadership may be "a bit tarred," does he mean that they are somehow stained with a chemical compound or does he mean it like in the sentence, "Hon, I've worked all day and I'm really tarred."
Posted by: Stuart Levine | January 26, 2010 12:46 AM
Here's a link to the video of the speech:
http://carey.jhu.edu/multimedia/Videos%20pages/mark_fetting.html
Posted by: rudy_d | January 26, 2010 9:06 AM
The test of leadership someone once told me is this.
Is anyone following!
Moses was a geat leader because he got his people to the edge of the promised land.
Joshua was another great leader because the people followed him into the promised land.
Present day leaders?
Who is following who?
Posted by: Utility Warehouse Distributor | February 1, 2010 11:03 AM