Rusty Guinn

Rusty Guinn

Co-Founder and CEO

 @WRGuinn

Rusty Guinn is co-Founder and CEO of Second Foundation Partners, LLC, and has been a contributing author to Epsilon Theory since 2017.

Before Ben and Rusty established Second Foundation, Rusty served in a variety of investment roles in several organizations. He managed and operated a $10+ billion investment business, led investment strategy for the second largest wealth management franchise in Houston, and sat on the management committee of the 6th largest public pension fund in the United States.

Most recently, Rusty was Executive Vice President over the retail and institutional asset management businesses at Salient Partners in Houston, Texas. There he oversaw the 5-year restructuring and transition of Salient’s $10 billion money management business from legacy fund-of-funds products to a dedicated real assets franchise.

He previously served as Director of Strategic Partnerships and Opportunistic Investments at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a $12 billion portfolio spanning public and private investments. Rusty also served as a portfolio manager for TRS’s externally managed global macro hedge fund and long-only equity portfolios. He led diligence, process development and the allocation of billions of dollars across a wide range of indirect and principal investments.

Rusty’s career also includes roles with de Guardiola Advisors, an investment bank serving the asset management industry, and Asset Management Finance, a specialized private equity investor in asset management companies.

He is a graduate of the Wharton School, and lives on a farm in Fairfield, Connecticut with wife Pam and sons Winston and Harry. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Houston Youth Symphony, and with Pam has been a long-time supporter and founding Friend of the Houston Shakespeare Festival. He plays guitar and drums on the worship team at his church in Connecticut, and dabbles in cooking, whisky, progressive rock and beating Ben at trivia.

Articles by Rusty:

In the News | Week of 12.3.2018

By Rusty Guinn | November 28, 2018 | Comments Off on In the News | Week of 12.3.2018

Key articles for companies reporting the week of December 3, 2018

Deals Are My Art Form

By Rusty Guinn | November 26, 2018 | 2 Comments

The emphasis of asset owners on private assets investments is meta-stable – robust to a lot of potential changes in market environment. The reason? The deals! Meme.

Gratitude

By Rusty Guinn | November 22, 2018 | 10 Comments

To our readers, to our supporters, to our engaged commenters, and to the people who have compared Epsilon Theory to drinking paint, a word: thanks.

Say Uncle!

By Rusty Guinn | November 21, 2018 | 2 Comments

I don’t know what the Fed should do in December. But I do know how financial media (and Donald Trump) want you to think about what they should do in December.

That’s Just Putting On a Nice Sweater

By Rusty Guinn | November 18, 2018 | 1 Comment

When something becomes as necessary, accepted and right-sounding as ‘process’, it can be tough to tell the difference between the Cartoon and the genuine article.

When That Fire Hits

By Rusty Guinn | November 15, 2018 | 1 Comment

Our brains’ responses to memes are mostly existential – fight or flight. We can’t turn off these responses. But we can train our behavior to question them.

The Sicilian Offense

By Rusty Guinn | November 14, 2018 | 4 Comments

I don’t know that any investor’s mean expectation for Amazon ought to have moved an inch. But should a poorly played metagame change investors’ probabilistic outlook? I think so.

The Fiat News Index

By Rusty Guinn | November 11, 2018 | 14 Comments

Common criticisms of the news media tend to focus on bias. But when it comes to learning to resist the unavoidable influence of Narrative and meme on our brains, our focus should be on how much we allow others to explain things to us. We’re working on tools to allow citizens to do exactly that.

Hey, Maybe It’s the Needle

By Rusty Guinn | November 9, 2018 | 5 Comments

A good model isn’t just right. A good model has to be relevant. And in a world of abstraction and narrative, engaging in relevant ways demands much more of us.

Draft Day

By Rusty Guinn | November 7, 2018 | 9 Comments

We are wired to associate outcomes with the biggest single visible variance. This is a process-breaking flaw for general managers and portfolio managers alike.