33 - Raj Lala

Raj Lala is an investment fund artist. I talk about exchange traded funds(ETFs) a lot. How the best portfolio is a diversified portfolio. And how the simplest way to diversify is to buy a handful of ETFs that are built to mimic certain parts of the market. Robo-advisors, for example will usually have what we like to call “buckets” made up of ETFs that balance each other out to try to achieve an overall return, depending on your level of risk tolerance. But how are these ETFs built? Who creates funds and how are they created? The answer is that there are a handful of people out there who are skilled at taking a bunch of investments and packaging them together in a bundle, or fund. This is more of an art form than something you can learn about in books. The art of fund-building is something that is acquired over years of practice, but there’s also a lot of natural talent to start with, like someone who is a great artist or musician. You have to have some talent to start with and then you hone your craft. Raj Lala is one of these artists. With his new company Evolve ETFs, Raj is focused on investments encompassing topics that intersect in Canadians’ daily lives. Products like their North American Gender Diversity ETF, which invests in top North American companies as ranked by Equileap’s extensive Gender Scorecard, which includes 19 criteria of gender balance and gender equality. I met Raj at the Evolve office in Toronto where he shared his personal finance journey and the idea of investing in financial products that mean something to you. NEXT EPISODE 34 - Jeff Cates