The first thing that attracted me to GlobeFlex was the philosophical fit, that we manage money based on ideas that make sense economically, test everything we do in order to verify where there's merit, take risk where we expect to be paid.

Second, I wanted to join a small firm, especially once I discovered that their resources were on par with a large one. The advantage of our size is you can spend all your time doing the work and not navigating the layers. Coming up with an investment idea is hard enough but convincing others that it is good, when they may not like it because they didn't think of it, takes time away from productivity. At GlobeFlex, we put aside hubris and ego so that the team gets the credit.

Finally, there was the appeal of leaving a strictly delineated structure behind and combining portfolio management and research with an external client role. Meeting with clients reminds you everyday of why you're doing what you do. You also get ideas from clients, a lot are very experienced, and they've got their own insights on what makes stocks move. The dialogue is robust and I enjoy the sophistication curve in our business.

And here's another reason the GlobeFlex investment model makes sense - our virtual research team. In firms where you have PMs doing the research, you increase the chances of being practical but run the risk of having research pushed to the back burner (when in reality it should be first). When you have internal researchers off by themselves, you risk ivory-tower irrelevance. With our virtual team set-up, where responsibility for each research project is shared between a portfolio manager and dedicated researcher, we stay pragmatic plus someone's got the ball at all times. I think GlobeFlex is built to garner a significant long-term performance advantage.