Women Take Lead in Wellness Investing

It's great to have on with us, Ellie Rubinstein. She is co founder and CEO of Mandatari Manatory. Excuse me, it's a private equity firm. It invests in the wellness area. Her name, if it sounds familiar, it should. Her dad well known in the financial space, and he is a Bloomberg contributor on radio and TV, David Rubinstein. He's also been a guest on our broadcast. And Ellie joins us via zoom from San Antonio, Texas. Ellie is so good to have you here with Tim and myself. How are you?

Thank you so much for having me. I'm doing wonderful. I appreciate you having me on. Well, it's great to have you on This is definitely a space that we spend an awful lot of time, certainly at Business Week talking a lot about because there's a lot of money going into it. Tell us about your background. You grew up in Alaska, you spent a lot of time, it sounds like in the great outdoors. How did that shape you in thinking about where you wanted to focus kind

of your investing time on. But for sure, so I think one of the things I always tell people is you learn more from your failures, or you learn more from what your passions are. And so I spent the last ten years starting my career actually focus within the seafood markets or um within water. And we kind of have a running joke in my family and my father eventually said, do you have to source all your own food? Was huntered as German? He said, can't you go buy

a seafood or a beef companies? Dad, It's not that simple. But you know, in our family, usually when someone says what you can't do, that motivates me. So that was the emphasis for it, married with a very strong emphasis on culture of where I wanted to live, how I wanted to live, and really the people that surrounded myselfs with So that was why I just decided to go and start my own firm. I would say that, um, I did step out of my family, and that I did move to bail at a young age and be

a professional ski racer. And you know, while I might have gone east for college at Harvard, I put my foot down again and said, you know, Dad, I love you, I appreciate the support and the advice, but I'm not going to go back to Harvard for grad school. And and so I feel like I started to become my own person when I took charge of my life. And for me, that meant the decision of going to Purdue and receiving my double masters, my master's and AGCON and

my MBA and food and aggrobusiness. And why that matters was I wrote my essay on my passion for sourcing food, smoking my own food and really taking charge of the health aspect when you control your own supply chain. I did not anticipate Mandatory would become as big as it did, but that was really where it came from, was what I didn't enjoy doing. We got to ask you for our folks here obviously in Bloomberg Radio, but you're also on YouTube right now, where are you? Because it looks

like you're in a lodge. You're skeys are behind you. We can see. This is the magic of zoom, Carol. Where have you been called out on it? So I am for my job on the road a lot. So I am today in Texas, where I've been spending the winner for work. So that is the background of my office in bil Um. But today, being Women's Day, I've got a special women's dinner with some of our women investors in Texas, so we put that background up. I think it's a little too sunny in Texas. The natural

lighting I don't think would work on this. So as if I'm in veil and still around snow, there's my background, well said, I love it. Hey, um, elliot, I want to I'll talk a little bit about where you're putting your money right now. I mean, there's probably not a better time to talk about it, because we're talking so much about rising commodity costs, rising food costs around the world. Uh, much of the world being cut off because of Russia's

invasion of Ukraine from so much grain. So we talk a lot about commodity prices and I'm wondering how we should be thinking about diversifying when it comes to where we're getting our food, how we can be sustainable when it comes to food supply because there are are there is so much out there that can disrupt it. Yeah, you know, this is one of the reasons why I think that degree from Purdue a agcon is one of the best degrees because it's really a macro economic of

the global food supply chain. So when we started Mandatory, it was an anomaly at the time to say we are a firm focus on the global food supply chain. And what that means is it allows you to manage to risk number one the supply chain and number two the geopolitical risk. So we think a couple of areas that we tend to focus on would be number one globalization to localization, uh number two companies disrupting the supply chain logistics, and then number three clean protein and and

how that can be a hedge against some commodities. So a couple of examples of that globalization and localization. Gotham Green's is an indoor ad company. It is the leader in the space. We've had in New York City. We have had we've actually had We've actually had the founder on garage. Yeah, go with it. Ye talk about a dynamic CEO. So you know, this is an area that I'm not sure we would have ever invested in. But what they have is an impressive model that cuts that

supply chain down in half. And usually Leafy Green takes about a week to reach the grocery store, right, but instead they cut that in half, which allows it to stay on the shelf in the grocery board two times as much. It's also focused on in areas so Walton, New York. Let's be clear, t in Brooklyn, they tend to locate in uh food deserts, right, And so they have a very unique algorithm. Instead of looking at population, it's looking at where can they help get people leafy green.

I'm a huge fan of this and and of course it's great for the environment. You know, it cuts down and it's a very big proponent of e SG. But I think that they're really changing the game in terms of farming, and so that would be one area. Um, hang on for a second because we're gonna have to do a little bit of news. We'll take a break and come back and and talk some more because we want to hear where else you are investing in It sounds like to you would want to listen to or

check out a company called app Harvest. It's somebody we have had on who is very much involved in this space in terms of local food production and figure out how to reduce the impact on the climate as well as doing it cleaner. Uh. Ellie, We're gonna come back to Ellie Rubinstein, she's co founder, chief executive officer of Manda Tree via Zoom from San Antonio. Will continue with her big history and veil too. We never crossed past them even though I lived there right after college for years.

We'll talked about that too. This is Bloomberg Radio. I want to get right back to our guests that we've been speaking to. Ellie Rubinstein, the co founder and CEO of Anna Tree. She joins us to be a Zoom from San Antonio, Texas. We should note that Ellie is the daughter of our colleague here at Bloomberg, David Rubinstein is a Bloomberg contributor. Uh and uh MANA Tree is a private equity firm and investment companies that improve human

health through nutrition. That's what we were talking about before the break, Ellie, UM, I want to talk more about that and get an understanding of how you find the next company to invest in, what's your due diligence process, how do companies get on your radar, and how do you decide to say yes to a company? Sure, I want to first point out I think one of our advantages has actually been our diverse leadership. UM. So if you look at only of women PE managers, it manager,

seventy of us are diverse leadership. And why that matters is that in our portfolio companies there are forty percent that's either CEOs are co founders UM that are that are women. And so when we're trying to attract companies that either need female perspective on their boards or female founder, that really matters. So a couple of themes that we've

looked at. We've talked about supply chain. There's one called Cheeta Logistics, which is a female founded CEO, and so that is an Amazon like uh supply chain distruction company that assists restaurants with kind of on the go UM and healthier options for restaurants. Another one that I would love to emphasize is Evolved UM. It's in the gut infant gut pro bi audux space. And so our managing

director is actually the only women on the board. So I think what we've always tried to look for is for things you know, um, I would say, where can we add creativity, Where can we lead with conviction? Where can we provide confidence? And also our culture. If you visit us in Bail, Colorado, at our office, we have team workouts, we have a kitchen. You'll see us eating together, and so usually we actually try to influence potential founders by bringing them to Bail and make sure that they

can fit into that mandatory family and culture. You know, we really live out our our investment thesis of improving human health through nutrition and so making sure that that alignment is there is a big part of who we are. You know, there's so much going on in this space, and I can only imagine the people who are knocking

Elie on your door. And you talk about some of the criteria in terms of picking um in a world where we're thinking about impact on climate, when we're thinking about innovation disruption, you know, how do you though usually kind of weed through everything that comes through your door. So, first of all, we are growth equity, and so that'll weed out some of it in and of itself. We try to be the second largest check in behind the founder. We we obviously our hands on UM and we're really

kind of that last stage in. But I will say that there's there's themes that we stick to, and so those would be clean protein, precision nutrition, supply chain disruption, UM and usually they have to get through our lit mistress of are they actually improving human health? And so we call ourselves an calary conversion business. That's a big

thing for it. We've seen plenty of companies that might not be healthy, so we go after much larger kind of the themes that we've seen, such as functional beverages, were decline in soda sales. It's got to be a category leader with a very large addressable market. So we're not in just kind of these niche sweet spots. One last thing I'd say is we almost go in unsexy gregories.

Another company we just close called Good Culture, and they're the market leader in disrupting sour cream and cottage cheese. It's a great example of both E S. G um in the regenerative agriculture, which it appears that if you know, the animals are treated better and the land is treated better than that in product, and the consumer is also healthier. So that's usually the way that we think about it. All right, just got about a minute left, hair, I wish we had more. You have to come back and

talk about as these uh investments continue. Um, but just about seconds. Your dad, how does he inspire you in all of this or or do you pick his brain or do you say, hey, dad, you might want to think it. Take a look at this. My father is the greatest supporter of women I admire. He's relentless, he's humble, he's focused. He emphasized partnership to me, and he always emphasized say thank you, prioritize your LPs, prioritized most importantly

your team. And so he's a guy who famously went broad and built Carlisle and now we're helping us go deep and focusing on improving human health. So I look up to him. Um, you know, he's really been my key support and cheerleader. And that is why mana tree is how it is. I will give him credit. He came up with the name mandatree. It means food from heaven, just like he believes private equity is the greatest calling of mankind. So we're doubling ensure that with being in

private equity as well as food. Ellie, before we let you go, you are based in Vail, Colorado. Your favorite ski run on Vail Mountain or do you prefer to Beaver Creek. I'm Beaver Creek girl, guys male athlete, and the World Cup. So anything on the World Cup hill in downhill. Alright, Birds of prey, that's what you're looking at. Birds of prey, of course. All right. Ellie Rubinstein, co founder and CEO of Mandatree, joining us not from Veil today via zoom from San Antonio, Texas,