Ralph shared his career journey, interconnecting his path with the peaks and troughs of the global economy. He started at Goldman Sachs (GS) right at the time of the launch of its real estate principal investment business, focusing on non-performing loans (NPLs) in the early 1990s following the post-Kuwait-war global recession. Despite his young age, he was immediately thrust into the deep-end, having to think organisationally to build a global team – a level of responsibility he predominantly attributed to fortunate timing. In the mid-1990s, when NPLs dried out, his focus moved to trading securities in real estate related equities looking for dislocations, predominantly in Asia. Thereafter, following the collapse of the dotcom bubble, he founded the GS Special Situations Group.

By the time of his GS departure in 2006, the various groups he was involved with had a total of $25bn of GS’ own capital invested. Ralph explained that the transition into his next, entrepreneurial venture was made easier having already established a strong reputation and career, as well as financial stability. He quickly managed to raise capital and hired eighteen people, but found himself having to invest money in a market which he felt was approaching its peak. Consequently, he made the difficult decision to return the capital to his investors and in 2008 merged with the hedge fund, Eton Park, where he was able to short the market. Ultimately, Ralph’s intuition was proved right, leaving him in a strong position; he had avoided unwise investments on behalf of LPs, and was not left picking up the pieces of an LP with a decimated portfolio following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).