The Right Vintage
Emmanuel Roman, MBA ’87, spoke to the class of 2026 about the importance of timing in their careers.
- By
- December 05, 2025
- Career Impact
Emmanuel Roman, MBA ’87, is CEO of global investment-management firm PIMCO. He is also a 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award winner, University of Chicago trustee, and wine connoisseur. He spoke at the graduation ceremony for Chicago Booth’s Full-Time MBA Program and Stevens Doctoral Program in June. Read an excerpt from his speech below.
The title of my speech is about wine: “It Is All About Picking the Right Vintage.” Let me own it—I do love fine wine.
As a Booth student in 1986, I supported myself by doing regression analysis for a member of the faculty who was writing a newsletter about wine. In the great tradition of Chicago, the faculty member was trying to predict the price of a bottle based on various exogenous variables: crop, weather, location, the 1855 Bordeaux classification, etc.
It was a worthy venture until Robert Parker came out of Baltimore and scored every bottle on a scale from one to 100, and then, I would argue, the whole model went out the window because everyone started to talk about wine as a number. The ’82 Bordeaux were deemed to be great because Parker gave half a dozen estates a 100-point score. The winner took all, and Robert Parker scores still matter a lot to this day.
Other wine critics came up and pointed out weaknesses in the taste buds of the great man—his takes on Burgundy, for example. What was obvious is that great vintages really matter. It was hard to make a bad Bordeaux in 1990, but equally near impossible to make a good one in 1991.
Think of your introduction to finance—the market beta really does matter. You are the Booth 2025 vintage, and I have every belief it will be a great one.
After Booth, I got a job at Goldman Sachs. The odds to survive at Goldman were not great, but the late ’80s was the beginning of the derivative markets. My education was a decisive competitive advantage. I understood option theory and econometrics well enough to develop an edge and became a partner early on. Everyone in my generation has been incredibly lucky with outsized returns in equities and bonds. It was hard not to do well, and I spent 18 happy years there.
“Each and every single one of you is going to make great wines. There will be many different grapes, countries of origin, vinification, and style, but what will unite you is your vintage, your friendship, and your skills.”
— Emmanuel Roman
For a moment, I did not feel so lucky—or so smart, for that matter. I retired from Goldman in 2005 and joined GLG Partners, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, as its CEO. We went public in June 2007 at a very high valuation, and for the summer of 2007, it looked brilliant. Then, it all went south and we barely survived the Great Recession. A dozen times, I thought we were about to go bankrupt, either on our own or with the whole financial system. We did survive, and two years later merged into Man Group, which I ran for six years. Surviving and staying in the game is sometimes all you need. It may also be your only option.
I now run a very large money management company called PIMCO, which manages more than $2 trillion in assets. The boundaries between public and private markets are starting to blur, allowing PIMCO to pursue relative value across a much broader landscape. This new environment should favor investors who can master asset selection and portfolio construction.
An analogy would be Burgundy, where the same plot of land is broken into many different parcels with as many different winemakers. So, 2005 is a great vintage in Burgundy, and Richebourg a great appellation, but who makes the wine is of enormous importance.
Each and every single one of you is going to make great wines. There will be many different grapes, countries of origin, vinification, and style, but what will unite you is your vintage, your friendship, and your skills.
Remarks have been edited for space and clarity.