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WORK-FAMILY BALANCE IS ONE OF THE REAL KEYS TO HAPPINESS
For six summers they drove from their Hyde Park homes to the ballparks, talking about everything, especially the stock market. "My dad had given me a few shares of Pfizer," recalled Bobrinskoy, now 45. "My friend John's dad had given him a few shares of General Motors and Commonwealth Edison. We thought we were Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch. They may not have become Buffett and Lynch, but they have become teammates once again, this time at one of Chicago's leading financial organizations. Bobrinskoy, former head of Salomon Brothers' North American investment banking branches, joined Ariel Capital Management LLC as vice chairman, reporting to his former teammate, John W. Rogers Jr., company founder and chairman. Q. Is this where you thought you'd end up? A. In high school I wanted to be a U.S. senator. My roommates at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business gradually convinced me that the best place to be was on Wall Street as an investment banker. I was raised in Hyde Park with my brother, two years younger, who is a financial professional in San Diego. My mom stayed home with us. She was treasurer of our church. My dad was a lawyer at Mayer Brown & Platt, where his most famous cases were representing the children of composer Igor Stravinsky and, later, the children of Ernest Hemingway in suits against their respective stepmothers, who were trying to take away their inheritance. In getting the Stravinsky case, it probably didn't hurt that my dad's father, my grandfather, a former Russian count, had emigrated here during the Russian Revolution. That grandfather headed the University of Chicago's Slavic languages department. Q. At what point did what you're doing now become your goal? A. I was a founding investor in Ariel but never really thought about working here. I spent the last 20 years very focused on my own firm, Salomon Brothers, which eventually merged into Citigroup. Last summer John asked me if I'd come to Ariel and manage the investment side of the firm: research, portfolio and trading. The entrepreneurial aspect of the job intrigued me. Q. Who mentored you or helped you get here? A. Besides John, Michael Klein, who runs the corporate and investment bank at Salomon and Citigroup, took a personal interest in my career, and Lou Susman, my predecessor as investment banking head. Outside of Salomon, John Canning, Madison Dearborn Partners' founder, is a great manager of investment professionals. He showed me how to recruit, train and retain an elite group. Jack Greenberg, McDonald's former chairman, was very helpful in learning how to manage people. George Gillett, who owns the Montreal Canadians hockey team, taught me a lot about being willing to take risks when I helped him purchase Swift & Co. for $1.1 billion. Q. Sometimes the best laid plans get changed due to national events, unforeseen circumstances or something else. Did something like that change your career trajectory in any way? A. I've been very lucky to have missed a lot of land mines. I joined Salomon's high-yield department during the first Reagan bull market. I was transferred out just before the junk bond market collapsed. In the 1990s, I considered becoming a full-time technology banker but didn't for no logical reason. I'm starting to believe in guardian angels. Q. How did you deal with any career setbacks or projects that didn't achieve expectations? A. As an investment banker, I've had the opportunity to lead a company's stock offering or give merger advice. Over the years I've won and lost a lot of assignments. Even the best investment banker never wins more than 20 percent of the time. For every win, you lose four. I remember thinking we were the best-positioned firm to help the client. But when they went with someone else, I was baffled. I'm a terrible loser and love to win. Q. How did your personal life fare as you were moving up the ladder? A. I'm really lucky. I have a fantastic wife and seven great kids. Mary Anne is the most efficient and well-organized woman I know. She grew up with six kids in her family. So I guess having our seven children doesn't faze her a bit. Our children are Greg, 18; Amy, 17; Nicholas, 16; Michael, 15; Alex, 12; William, 10; and Peter, 8. Mary Anne has been great at keeping my personal and home life under control and not letting me drop the ball as a father. Whenever I start to mess up at home, she gets me back on track right away. Q. What advice do you have for ambitious folks who aspire to your type of job? A. If you are happy and content at home, you can be focused and successful on the job. If your home life is a mess, you will be a mess at work. Work-family balance is one of the real keys to happiness. I'm very fortunate to have achieved that balance, with a great deal of help from my wife and seven great kids.
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