The Australian Financial Review.
It's actually not the first mistake that defines you, it's actually the following subsequent
actions that having much more profound impact on business, on career, on personal life.
Every time when you take a big step forward, there are so many resistance, so many people,
including could-be-friends.
Hi, I'm Sally Patton, editor of BOSS from the Australian Financial Review, and welcome
to 15 Minutes with the BOSS, a podcast about success and failure and everything in between,
and along the way, we're hoping to get some really great advice from our leaders.
My guest today is Junbei Liu, the founder and portfolio manager at Tencap.
Hi, Junbei, how are you?
I'm very good, how are you, Sally?
I'm very well, thank you, very well indeed, and thank you so much for coming into our
beautiful dark studio.
Now, Junbei, you're the founder and lead portfolio manager of Tencap, a new fund that
invests in Australian shares.
But until recently, you're working for another fund manager called Tribeca, where the fund
you were responsible for had shares worth $1.5 billion, and that fund produced a return
of 17.7% last year before fees, which is a long way ahead of the stock index, so congratulations.
You must really love shares, do you?
Thank you so much.
Look, I just love finding undervalued companies, and when share price goes up, I feel very
In a way, I always say it's like treasure hunting.
Now, Junbei, we've only got 15 minutes.
Let's start the clock right now.
My first question is about your morning routine.
What time do you get up?
When do you have your first cup of coffee?
I actually do wake up two o'clock in the morning.
That's right, two o'clock in the morning.
Only for a few minutes when I look at the U.S. market to see what it's done.
Then I go back to sleep.
I do wake up again at about 5.30, and I'm trying to stay ahead of my kids before they
get up, get their breakfast, get their lunch, feed my pets.
The good thing is my kids are quite big now, 14 and 11.
I get them to the train station, and they sort themselves out.
So when you get up at two o'clock in the morning, can you go back to sleep very easily, even
if the U.S. has had a really bad night?
It is a struggle.
I get very excited, and that's why I can't sleep, because I'm thinking about all these
different positions, what I could do the next day and the like, how I should move my portfolio,
how I should protect all my positions, and what I should do.
That tends to be the one that gets me not to sleep so well, but over 20 years now I've
I get used to that kind of anxiety, and I go back to sleep.
I know sleep is very important.
Do you do the breakfast thing, or do you don't do the breakfast thing?
I didn't do breakfast for a bit, but as I get older, and especially requires a lot
of energy, it's very important for me to have a lot of energy in the morning.
I'm a highly energetic person, so I started doing a lot of shakes, like blueberry shake
After that, I kind of make myself a coffee as well.
One of the things about funds management, you just can never have enough coffee, and
the problem is we always end up having too much coffee.
So I have my coffee in the morning as I go to work, and then start my morning routine.
My next question is about a pivotal moment in your career.
Can you tell me about a project that you worked on or a job change that you did that really
changed the whole trajectory of what you were doing?
One big one is moving from China to Australia when I was 16.
That was a big one for personal development, Queensborough English, then learning English
Professionally, really, after I had my second child, I had realized that I'm ready to take
on the next level.
The Alpha Plus Fund, the current fund I'm running now, that just lost the fund manager,
and the fund was struggling, clients were leaving, so the money was going.
At the time, it was about $300 million, that fund, five and a half years ago.
I looked at it and I thought, this is my opportunity.
I went around to see all the existing clients at the time and said, let me have a go.
I've got enough experience.
I've covered all the market.
I know all of that.
Let me have a go.
This is my chance.
Surprisingly, that $300 million of clients, they all stayed.
Since then, I grew that fund into over one and a half billion, which is now I took over
completely into my new business.
Pivotal moment is really that moment that just want to prove people wrong.
Did it take you a long time to settle into that role?
I almost feel like I never really fully feel comfortable, 100%, because I always feel it's
such an honor that I'm still surprised to me today why those clients followed me.
Every day, I worry, especially the first couple of years, I felt, I can't let those people
I can't let those clients down.
It's their super fund.
It's their client's super fund.
They need to answer to their client.
If I can't deliver, well, I promise that I'll deliver.
For me, I can't fail.
I can't let those people down.
I do everything I can, find the smartest people, find the right tool, and do everything I can
to deliver those performance for them, as I promised.
My next question is, what is the best piece of career advice you've ever been given?
I think the best career advice is, and people always say, don't let them tell you you can't
Every time when you take a big step forward, there are so many resistance, so many people,
including could be friends, not really out of malicious intent, it's really just telling
you that they think you're not capable of doing, and they're scared that you might fail.
Don't let people tell you you can't do it.
When you set up the current fund, TenCap, did people tell you that you couldn't do it?
Absolutely, the whole time.
Look, I think that's what growth is.
Personal growth and professional growth is about knowing what we're comfortable with
and continue to expand and take it to the next level.
I always feel if you're not moving forward, you're kind of moving backwards.
I guess also in your job, as well as in your career, you must love learning because you're
constantly learning about different stocks and different companies, right?
Yeah, absolutely, I love learning.
I think natural curiosity is a very, very important part of finance, the investing market,
or any job, really.
I find it very fortunate to do what I do.
Every company is different.
Learning about all the AI, not very long ago, is all about talking about Trump, what is
he going to do and the tariff and all that.
A few years ago, we were all medical experts, we're talking about COVID.
I just think we're very, very fortunate to be able to be in the room with the smartest
people, whether it's regulators or the experts, the politicians sometimes, and also ultimately
those smart people that set up those amazing businesses.
We're just learning so much from them and all from very different sectors.
I think it's just fascinating.
Okay, so you sound pretty busy in your job.
Do you take breaks?
Do you rest sometimes?
If you do rest, what do you do for rest?
I find, especially when you have a very stressful and anxious day, exercise is fantastic to
really bring focus back.
I love to do hot yoga.
You just sweat it out.
And then all that stretching really de-stressed the body because when we're stressed, we tend
to hold the position in one spot for a long time, and I get back pain and others.
If I start doing my yoga, it's fantastic.
I sometimes go for a run.
I do it after work.
I don't do it on the weekend.
Whichever day, I can sort of find it, make it work.
It's just fantastic for the body and for the mind.
That is the end of our first section.
We're going to take a short break, but don't go away.
When we come back, we're going to open this really beautiful chatterbox.
I'll see you in a minute.
Welcome back to 15 Minutes with the Boss.
I'm here with Junbei Liu, the Founder and Portfolio Manager at TenCap.
Now Junbei, as mentioned previously, this is our chatterbox section.
In front of you, as you will see, is this really beautiful shiny brown box, inside which
are today, I would say about 15 questions.
I'm going to ask you to pick out one by one and we'll answer some more questions.
Have a fish in the box.
I'm super excited.
Tell me about a time when you failed at something.
How did you recover and what did you learn?
As a share market investor, you fail all the time.
We make mistakes.
You learn from it and then you get better.
It's almost the only way you can move forward is to make mistakes.
Experience of recovering from it is really about, first of all, what I do is that recognize
what has changed, what is the new information that I didn't expect.
In the share market, there's a lot of things that's unexpected and so share price moves
Once we work out it's my mistake, the question is review that.
How did I make that mistake?
Why did I make that mistake?
Is it because I was too, I don't know, behavioral biased, too greedy, too fearful what has happened?
And then next day, I think the hardest thing is not to be influenced by the mistake I made
the day before for the share market investor.
The best outcome is that make the mistake, learn from it, go home, exercise, refresh,
next morning wake up as if nothing's happened except the learning you have got from that
mistake and then you start the day afresh.
So that's kind of what we do almost day in, day out from a lot of those mistakes.
So you don't want to be fearful the next day, which would stop you from doing something
or making a key decision the next day.
I almost feel it's actually not the first mistake that defines you.
It's actually the following subsequent actions that having much more profound impact on business,
on career, on personal life.
So did it take you a long time to learn not to be fearful the next day, to try and make
it into a one-day mistake, not a multi-day mistake?
It does take a really long time to practice, but I think with my personality, which is
I'm very optimistic, so I tend to wake up feeling, here we go again, let's start this
day afresh, see what's possible and then bring the learning across.
So probably personality counts, but it's just many years of practice.
Don't let some of those things that weigh you down.
Really it's about future.
It's not about the past.
And hot yoga helps in the meantime.
Let's have another fish in the box.
In your experience, what is the best way to get a promotion?
I always feel the best way is to get yourself known, to always speak out in any meeting
just so that people know that you're in the room and know your thoughts.
One of the earlier mistakes I made when I was younger and before I had the opportunity
to take on the role and become more senior is that I often hide behind people and I always
feel my English is not very good, that I don't understand people's jokes, so I tend to hide
behind everything.
I hardly ever finish my sentences in those days and I just sort of become very quiet
in the meeting room.
I hardly ever said anything.
Just as I had kids and everything else, I realized that I need to step up.
I need to speak about my view because I have a view and then ask questions when I feel
I don't quite understand and then also be more vocal about what I think, what I want
I think I've become quite vocal and that's important because a lot of times the bosses
don't really know that you're keen to get promoted or whether you're keen for what
you do or whether you love what you do.
So I think definitely speak out, be passionate about what you do, speak about your view and
that people know that you're interested to grow.
So how did you train yourself to do that?
Did you set yourself a target and say, I'm going to speak out in at least one meeting
a day or one meeting a week to start?
Because it's hard to go from nothing to everything, right?
You give yourself little milestones, you know, this meeting, I have to ask a question gradually
you build the confidence, but knowing the difference in ourselves is actually what makes
us unique and what actually give us the leg up.
But certainly, ultimately, it's just simply about asking questions, you know, speak out
in a meeting and don't let some of those worry about how other people feel about you drag
So when you first started doing that speaking out, did you create a debate?
Did you ever think, oh, I wish I hadn't said that?
I actually received a really positive feedback.
So people almost that, oh, she's in the room.
So positive feedback, rarely have I got negative feedback.
It's really just myself.
A lot of time it's ourself punishing, you know, our own performance.
So I say something and, you know, other people are great.
And afterwards, I always thought, oh, you know, I shouldn't have said that.
That sounds really silly.
And, you know, why did I do that?
So I still get that even today, even after I go on big stage, say with the song, hearts
in mind or AFA or TEDx talk afterwards, I always feel, what was I doing?
You know, I must sound horrible and all of that.
You can't help it.
But I think I just watch it and then let it go.
And if it can propel me forward, it's great.
It's very good advice.
Have another fish in the box.
What's the most common piece of advice that you think is actually BS?
So I think I've repeatedly received this piece of advice throughout my life.
Why don't you just dreaming the things that's more realistic, just happy with what you have
and, you know, and that advice is, has been told to me since I was very small, constantly
just dreaming something that's more realistic.
For me, that advice doesn't work.
It's really come from the, you know, the people who's trying to protect me and trying to,
you know, help me through their own lens.
And to me, you know, it's, yeah, it's something I'm glad I didn't quite listen.
That is actually in itself very good advice.
Dream big would be your response to that.
Don't dream small, dream big.
On that note, that is the end of our chatterbox section.
You've passed with wonderful colours.
I've got one more question to ask you, and that is, if you were not the portfolio manager
at TenCap, what would you be doing?
Look, if I wasn't managing people's money, I'd want to have my own talk show.
Look, I, because, you know, I really just love what I do in terms of investing, understand
very strong opinion about what I, what I think the, you know, what, you know, what the outcome
So yeah, no, I always thought that that might be the case.
So do you have a talk show where you had other guests who would come on?
Because that's my way of really still learning from those smart people, you know, people
who's in from different industry, whether it's companies, regular, everyone, absolutely.
And do you think it would be a general entertainment show or more of a business show?
It'll be a business show.
I think, you know, I, my background is business and it is finance.
And I want people to understand business, not just, not boring.
It's very interesting and it's fascinating.
And most of all, you get to meet all these smart people, incredible people with incredible
You know, they, they actually, you know, it's not just business, it's entertainment, it's
So who would be some of the top picks as your guests and why?
I think one of my top pick will be, you know, some of those, you know, most successful,
fast growing businesses, you know, here in Australia and they're overseas, whether, you
know, I think these are great companies or not, but it's just the fact they, they started
those businesses, you know, is incredible testament to their ability to convince investors,
to bring everyone along.
So people like Mike Cannon Brooks.
And especially their interest outside their own business, you know, what they intend to
do in changing the world.
On that note, Joan Bae, our 15 minutes is up.
I've loved so much chatting to you today.
I love the way that in order to get a promotion, your advice is to speak up, make yourself
Don't hide under a bushel, get out there and speak your mind.
I love the fact that you're really passionate about what you do.
You're keen to grow.
And in fact, curiosity is something that clearly propels you ahead.
I love the idea that the first mistake that you make is not the problem.
It's often the subsequent mistake.
So the advice there being reduce your mistakes to just that first one and also dream big.
Don't be content.
Don't listen to people who tell you just to be content.
On that note, thank you so much for allowing us to spend 15 minutes with the boss.
Thank you so much for having me.
And thank you to everyone for listening.
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