Leadership is the responsibility to take care of those around us and build constant improvement into our teams. International Women’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate our team and share some of the stories that make our women leaders.
Lucie Bielczykova CFA, Associate Portfolio Manager, Revolution Asset Management
Provide a brief background to your career path. What are the driving factors that motivate you in your current role? Has this changed post-COVID?
My door to the finance industry first opened during my last year of university when I joined Kapstream Capital as an intern, where I had the opportunity to work alongside and learn from some of the most respected fixed income investors in the industry. Following this I worked at Challenger as a fixed income portfolio analyst, and also several years at JANA Investment Advisers consulting investment strategy to institutional clients across Australia and New Zealand before re-uniting with the co-founders of Revolution Asset Management and joining the team as an Associate Portfolio Manager. At Revolution Asset Management, we specialise in private debt transactions. Most of the work I focus on is leveraged buy-out loans, which may sound exotic but in fact what we do is simply helping Australian medium-sized businesses to grow. Being able to see the direct impact is incredibly motivating. It is exciting to ‘see our work in the streets’ as these businesses thrive locally or expand internationally. Furthermore, our investments would often go into portfolios of everyday Australians, either directly through their investment portfolios or indirectly through their superannuation funds, so the impact is twofold where we are simultaneously positively contributing to their retirement savings!
How do you inspire others around you?
I love what I do! And I believe that passion is a powerful tool to do it well and to inspire others around. We spend most of our lives working, so doing what we are genuinely interested in is incredibly important not just for a job well done but also for a happy life and the positive impact we make along the way.
What is one key theme or investment idea for the year ahead?
The obvious key theme that has been with us for a while and continues to be at the forefront of investors’ minds is the low interest rate environment we’re in. And that’s what will drive investment ideas for the year ahead. In a world where traditional fixed income assets and cash earn investors negative real yields and equity market valuations are at all-time highs, thinking about portfolio construction becomes more important now more than ever. Private markets have been gaining popularity and will be in the spotlight in the year ahead and beyond, as investors look to diversify away and earn additional yield through illiquidity premium.
What does International Women’s Day mean to you?
Celebration, awareness, and inclusion. On one hand we are celebrating women’s achievements here in Australia, on the other we are also reminded that there are parts of the world where women still don’t enjoy the same rights.
International Women’s Day celebrates women’s rights and accomplishments, motivates young women to pursue their goals, raises conversations about global gender inequality and brings people together to consider what they can do to make the world an equal and inclusive place.