Welcome Aboard – Meet Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez, Our Newest Team Member!

Alli Morse:

Hi everyone and welcome to a Bird’s Eye View of the Bond Market with Merganser Capital Management, where we invite members from our investment team to offer their analysis on the U.S. investment grade bond markets and share insights into key economic developments. My name is Alli Morse and I’m a Relationship Manager here at Merganser and I’ll be hosting today. I’m thrilled to be joined by Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez, an analyst from our credit sector team who focuses on the government sector. Marcela joined Merganser over the summer and is the newest member of the team. So on today’s podcast, we’re going to take a slightly different approach and spend a little time getting to know Marcela. Marcela, thanks so much for joining us today and I think it would be helpful for our listeners to just learn a little bit more about your background. Talk about maybe where you went to school, college, where you grew up…

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

Hi everyone. Hi Alli. Thank you for having me. So I grew up in Columbia. When I was 16 I got accepted into an international school in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is in Eastern Europe. I spent two years there finishing high school, doing the International Baccalaureate and from there I decided that my next move was going to be here in the U.S. in Minnesota Macalester College where I wanted to do Econ and explore Stats and German.

Alli Morse:

Great, and so how did you learn about Merganser?

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

Actually, I was taking a class in college and talking with the teacher about my interest, she said she thought I could be interested in fixed income and suggested that I read about what Merganser is doing to get acquainted with the industry. And from there she connected me with Todd, who is also a Macalester Alum. That’s how I got to learn about what Merganser is doing.

Alli Morse:

Great, and so then you interned with us in 2023 and then started full time. When you were thinking about your job and your career after college, why Merganser versus all the other asset managers out there? What appealed to you most about the company?

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

Well, there’s various points to that and I think one of the strongest ones was there is a very strong learning culture here at Merganser. People are very communicative with what they know. They’re always willing to answer questions to make the best decisions and that it’s an environment that I appreciate and where I feel like I could blossom the most in my knowledge. I also knew that I was going to be trusted with tasks that had an impact in the company. That’s also given me a great, great opportunity to learn and expand and I genuinely admire the people who work here both professionally and personally. They are people that I look up to.

Alli Morse:

That’s great. So you want to talk a little bit more about what your focus is on the team?

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

My focus on the team right now is to hedge the trades done by my team, making sure that the withdrawals are covered, checking that loss sensitive accounts are within loss limits, keeping track of new issues, of macro developments and also of course being involved in some ad hoc projects.

Alli Morse (02:49):

Definitely a pretty interesting time to be involved in the Treasury markets. Do you want to talk a little bit more about even just the past five months that you’ve been on the team, some of the challenges of being a treasury analyst and trader?

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

I think one of the challenging aspects of being a treasury trader is knowing when a change in yields is due to noise and when it’s actually warranted. With the bulk and the volatility of the data seen lately, it has been interesting to see how the team thinks of these economic releases and when it’s fair to go with your own view and thesis. But also it’s very interesting to contrast it to what I know of the Colombian market and how these systems work within models that I just learned in college, but also these models are changing. So there’s a lot of changes that have been happening over the last months that just make it overall interesting and challenging in the sense that it forces me to obviously expand my curiosities and knowledge.

Alli Morse:

That’s a great point. I think I want to expand a little bit upon what maybe school prepared you well for as you’ve transitioned into your career versus things that school didn’t necessarily help you with.

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

School I feel prepared me very well to remain curious and it also encouraged me to stay communicative of those curiosities. That has proven extremely helpful in my transition to the professional life, especially in an environment that is very welcoming of those questions. And the second part of your question is much harder to think of. I think when I got to college with everyone from my class as well, it was a new environment for all of us, which differs from me starting here in the professional life where there’s people in different stages of their careers that come from different parts of whether Boston or Massachusetts. So the ranges of experiences are vastly different than those that I got used to seeing and witnessing in college. And I think that was something that I’m learning how to handle and how to thrive in.

Alli Morse:

That’s definitely a good point. I can remember that even when I graduated college and started my career here in Boston. So besides Merganser, did you intern anywhere else?

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

Yeah, I interned in Chicago. I was also an intern for the investment office at my college.

Alli Morse:

And did those help shape your career in thinking about what you wanted for that?

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

Yes, definitely. These internships helped me gain a very awareness of the different approaches to investment, different asset classes, different strategies. It gave me a lot of exposure that helped me to distinguish interests.

Alli Morse:

What about Columbia? I’m sure you miss your family and your friends, but what else do you miss most about the country?

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

Yeah, I definitely miss my family and friends. They are top of the list there, but I would say besides people probably my favorite bakery in town, I miss it a lot. At 5:00 PM they had the best bread in the world, so that’s the time to go. I miss that. And I also miss the mountains. I used to live in the valley, so mountains is everything that you could see and I miss that view.

Alli Morse:

So what are you enjoying most about Boston? I’m sure it might not be the weather, but I guess you did go to school in Minnesota, so the winter is probably not too bad.

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

Yeah, actually this is not too bad at all compared to how cold it could get in Minnesota, but I really enjoy of Boston how easy it is to move around and the relative feeling of safety that I get in the city. But actually maybe my favorite, favorite thing so far has been my commute. I love going through the Esplanade every morning when I go to the office and feeling the breeze, the trees, seeing the wildlife and the docks. I think it’s the thing I have enjoyed the most so far.

Alli Morse:

I can remember I also used to walk to work my first job out of school and I’d go through the Public Garden. It was one of my favorite things in rain, snow, everything. So I’m glad you’re loving that as well. Alright, so a few fun questions to finish here. Tell me something that you believe to be true that few people would agree with you on.

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

So, I have a very hot take that David Gorovitz’s restaurant recommendations are always on point.

Alli Morse:

Oh wow, that is a good one. And for our listeners, Dave Gorovitz is another member of the credit team and let’s just say he eats dry Honeynut Cheerios every morning and frequently has oatmeal for lunch. However, we both appreciate Falafel King, so I am curious what some of these restaurant choices have been that are on point.

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

Last year when I was interning, he was very kind to show me around Al’s Cafe, so great sandwiches overall. And then recently he recommended Vija Mexico here in downtown, both life changing.

Alli Morse:

Okay, that’s great. Someone recently asked our co-CIO Andy smock this on another podcast and I thought it was a great question. So what would be your walkup song?

Marcela Saavedra Gonzalez:

Oh, that’s a great question. I usually get very hyped with salsa, so I would have to go with Quimbara by Celia Cruz. I admire her as a person, so that also adds to the hype. Yeah, I think it’s just a great walkup song for me.

Alli Morse:

Maybe I should have said walkout song. Since that is our last question for Marcela and definitely a good one. I’m going to add that to my Spotify playlist. So thank you Marcela for joining and thank you to our listeners for tuning into another episode of the Bird’s Eye View of the Bond market. We look forward to sharing another update with you soon.

Jeffrey Addis:

This presentation is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or a recommendation of any particular issuer, security, strategy, or investment. Product opinions and estimates offered constitute our judgment and are subject to change without notice as our statements of financial market trends, which are based on current market conditions. We believe the information provided is reliable but do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. This podcast contains or incorporates by reference certain forward-looking statements which are based on various assumptions, some of which are beyond our control. Actual results may differ materially. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.