My daughter attended Incarnate Word Academy, a private high school with an exceptional leadership program, led by an inspiring teacher – Charles Kafoglis. The Young Leaders Program has an innovative curriculum and is one just a few high schools to offer students a concentration in leadership studies. I’ve witnessed the positive impact Charles and his program had on my daughter. I told the HIG team about the courses offered at the school and the personal finance module caught the attention of our fearless leader – Matt Hall. An introduction to Charles was inevitable and followed with an invitation for Matt to speak at the school’s “Leadership Live!” speaker series.

The students, Charles and Matt worked together to come up with a fun, student-led Q & A with the goal of energizing and inspiring these young women to change the way they think and feel about money. Matt took the stage in early November and engaged a packed auditorium with thought-provoking concepts around money, leadership, and entrepreneurship.

Matt encouraged the 9th through 12th graders to take control of their financial futures by saving early, understanding the value of compounding and using money wisely. When the 3:25 PM dismissal bell rang, signaling the end of Matt’s interview and the end of the school day, many students didn’t run out the door, but instead swarmed Matt to ask questions and receive copies of Matt’s book, Odds On. If Matt had hoped to reach only a few students that day, I’d say he more than accomplished the goal.

Here at Hill Investment Group, we’ve intentionally set up our infrastructure to offer seamless client care from Houston, St. Louis, or anywhere else we may roam. As such, if we didn’t tell you, you’d probably never know that our Chief Operating Officer Nell Swanson Schiffer has relocated from Houston to St. Louis, at least for a while.

By happy coincidence, her husband was recently accepted into the Internal Medicine Residency program at Washington University in St. Louis. (Congrats, Walter!) With Nell already an integral member of our HIG team, it was even easier for the couple to pick up roots and head to St. Louis.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Nell mentioned the move when she was speaking with the St. Louis Business Journal about our related, 2019 Best Places to Work announcement. In the same issue, she shared her journey with Business Journal readers. It’s an adventure that has taken her from wearing a flame-retardant jumpsuit as a Houston-based petroleum engineer, to her role as HIG’s COO.

Click here to read all about it. 

The common denominator between Nell’s past and current careers? A passion for pursuing ingenious and disruptive best practices across all of life’s pursuits.

We welcome Nell to our St. Louis office, where we’re confident she’ll continue to be valued firm-wide.

I’m obsessed with tennis. It’s mostly a healthy obsession, but this time of year, I start to slip. Why? Wimbledon, the finest tennis tournament in the world, is about to begin. It’s steeped in tradition, and yet its host, the All England Lawn and Tennis Club, isn’t afraid of innovation and science.

Whenever there’s a way to combine statistical analysis, tennis, and investing, I’m all over it. That’s why my life was transformed nearly 20 years ago, when Larry Swedroe did exactly that in the brilliant introduction to his first book (emphasis mine):

“After making what I thought was a great shot, a forehand that landed right in the backhand corner of my opponent, my teaching pro said, ‘That shot will be your worst enemy.’ While it was an exceptional shot, he explained, it was not a high percentage shot for a good ‘weekend player.’ Remembering how good that shot felt, I would try to repeat it. Unfortunately, I would be successful on a very infrequent basis. The pro asked me if I wanted to make great shots or would I rather win matches? (I thought that one was the cause of the other.)”

Playing the winner’s game is what the pro was getting at as he cautioned Larry about falling in love with his special and rare shot. Winning calls for consistent and disciplined play. When players go for shots beyond their skills, they’re playing a loser’s game. This decades-old analogy goes back to a book by Dr. Simon Ramo, Extraordinary Tennis for the Ordinary Player.

With this background, you’ll know why the following ad is so meaningful to our firm. As a minor sponsor for the April 2018 Men’s Clay Court Championship, Hill Investment Group was proud to support an event that has been in play for more than a century – and held near our Houston office since 2001. As our sponsorship ad expressed, we enjoy helping investors play a winning game, by embracing a “long view” game plan.