Episode summary
INVF UK 2026: Lara Rodriguez of People's Partnership Spoke with Muskan Arora
Summary
Lara Rodriguez, co-head of equities at People’s Partnership, says the firm helps manage about $28 billion on the equity side out of roughly $40 billion overall. She says the panel discussion centered on investor behavior, behavioral biases, and the long-running passive-versus-active debate, but argued that the real question is now where to be active and where to be passive rather than treating it as an either-or choice.
Rodriguez describes how People’s Partnership moved from a fully passive portfolio into a more selective structure. The developed-market book was shifted into climate-change index tracking funds, regional weights were adjusted to reduce U.S. exposure, and the emerging-markets sleeve moved from passive to an active quant approach. She frames those changes as long-term and strategic rather than tactical.
On opportunities, Rodriguez says she is especially interested in Latin America, including Brazil and Mexico, and also sees India as compelling, even after recent rotation out of the market. She points to emerging-market supply chains as a way to gain exposure to the AI theme, and says the team still favors lower-beta regions such as Europe, the UK, Japan, and emerging markets when cutting U.S. exposure.
Key takeaways
- Rodriguez says the passive-versus-active debate is now about selecting where each style makes sense, not choosing one universally.
- People’s Partnership moved its developed-market equities into climate-change index tracking funds and trimmed U.S. exposure in favor of other regions.
- The firm shifted emerging markets from passive to an active quant portfolio, reflecting a more selective approach to beta and behavior.
- Rodriguez is most interested in Latin America and also sees India as attractive despite recent outflows.
- She says the team prefers lower-beta regions such as Europe, the UK, Japan, and emerging markets when reallocating away from the U.S.
Notable quotes
“we made a change to move all of the assets on the developed market side to climate change index tracking funds”
“we were quite um conscious about how we were allocating that and it was to the lower beta regions”
“we are in favor of um Europe, UK, Japan and emerging markets”
How the episode opens
Hi everyone, my name is Muskan and I'm at the UK investors forum. Today with me is — Lara Rodriguez from People's Partnership. — Could you tell me a bit more about your role at the time? — Sure. Um so I'm the co-head of equities at People's Partnership. Um and I essentially help manage the um 28 billion of assets that our members have with us on the equity side. Um collectively we manage around 40 billion. Um but the FT's portfolio is is about 28 billion.
Amazing. and you came off a very interesting equity panel where you know we'll dive deeper into it as we go ahead with this but to start with could you tell me the key takeaways from the panel
Well so um I would point to um process behaviors and uh passive versus active always being sort of like a um a topic. So um behaviors um we talked a bit about behavioral finance very interesting topic um and how you know um investor behavior really drives markets um and how to try and avoid falling into those traps or biases. Um we also talked about the perennial debate of passive versus active um and you know and how do we look at it and I think it's very clear that it's not just an active versus passive um debate anymore.
It's actually a where are you being active and where are you being passive and it's more selective and like looking really where it makes sense. Um but we agreed that you know passive always has a a place in portfolios and it's about how you manage it.
Absolutely. And you also kind of spoke about the changes you made at the pension when you joined. Um I don't want to elaborate on it further so I'll let you do that.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- active vs passive debate
- investor behavior
- portfolio design
- regional diversification
- equity strategies
Companies and tickers mentioned
- People's Partnership
Watch the episode
Watch “INVF UK 2026: Lara Rodriguez of People's Partnership Spoke with Muskan Arora” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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