Thomas Paulson

612-986-6475
Equity Research,
Portfolio Management, and TheThomasPaulson@gmail.com

Business Development www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-paulson-09ab52b

Professional Profile
Years of success as an analyst and investor in mid- to large-cap Talent and Knowledge Set
equity, predominantly on large AUM products. Portfolios held  Buy-side equity analyst of the e-commerce, retail, CPG,
around 50 positions with a long-duration time horizon. Product consumer branded goods, digital advertising, media, telecom,
focus was US equity, but investments were global best-in-class.
and internet service industries. Pitched and completed dozens
Investment viewpoints were grounded in thorough qualitative and
of $50Ms -$500Ms sized investments within these industries.
quantitative research, done from the tops-down and bottoms-up.
 Equity portfolio management and the capital markets.
Highly regarded buy-side analyst of consumer products and
services. Honed understanding of how to help CIOs and PMs  Portfolio modeling and analytics (factors and performance).
succeed. Lastly, extensive experience with product launches
 Well-traveled and have done best-in-class global investing;
and business development.
solid understanding of the consumer, economic, and societal
Investment success has primarily come from my ability to: dynamics in China, Latin America, and Europe.

 Identify when and why industries are going to change.  Qualitative and quantitative analysis of markets, competition,
 Identify differentiating consumer and economic forces. economic moats, and unit economics.

 Foresee the implications of new technologies and the
related consumer behavioral change.
 Select those companies that have the assets and strategy
to win market share and avoid those that don’t.
 Identify and avoid underpriced risk. And,
 Recognize that when wrong, quickly admit the mistake.
Examples:
Understanding and Sizing Amazon’s New Market Entries:
Persuaded my senior manager to buy shares at $118/sh for clients,
and at other pressure-point prices, based upon robust qualitative
and quantitative analyses that revealed significant opportunities
for new Prime initiatives, the mobile transition, AWS, the Echo, and
the ad business. Accurately foresaw the market share that Amazon
would capture based upon market models created from primary
and 3rd party data, web-analytics, and consumer surveys.
Target’s Failed Expansion into Canada: Traveled to Canada in
2013 to evaluate the competitive landscape facing Target,
including pricing, brand affinity, store locations, and consumer
interviews. Concluded that the expansion would cost far more,
for far longer than Target was expecting. Advised my manager
to not to invest $175M of client-investor assets into Target,
avoiding a large loss for these clients. Eventually, Target
withdrew from Canada for a total loss of over $7B.
Outcome: Work and story shared with future prospective
clients, directly resulted in a new client--a $350M account.
 Strong macro-economic analytical talents. Can see and
capitalize on the big picture.
 Accounting, financial statements / modeling, and valuation
(intrinsic value, DCF, IRR, and EVA).
Accomplishments
 Generated substantial excess investor returns (+472% vs.
market's +193%) as an industry analyst and professional
investor, demonstrating exceptional business judgement.
 Leadership position at four de novo start-ups, demonstrating
the ability to work in X-functional teams and get things done.
 CFA Level-1 and Series-65
Education
 M.B.A. – Finance
University of Minnesota-Carlson School
 M.S. - Mechanical Engineering
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
 B.A. - Mathematics and Economics
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Communication and Presentation Skills:
- Talent for creating and delivering compelling presentations
that provide thoughtful and novel insights, hundreds done.
Natural storyteller exhibiting authenticity, candor, and humor.
- Eleven years of client-facing investor / consultant / prospect
meetings, presentations, and communication. Frequently
created thought leadership pieces for clients and prospects
on major industry trends and investment themes.
Thomas Paulson resume, page 2/2
Present Independent Consultant
Market & industry  Support Wall Street analysts with industry / company coverage launches, ideation, topical research,
insights, due due diligence, content creation, revenue forecasting, and financial modeling. Ongoing.
diligence, and
 Acquisition screening, analysis, FDD, and financials / transaction-IRR modeling for PE-SPAC group.
equity research
 Demographic, economic, consumer, and industry analysis to inform strategy, investment prioritization,
and resource allocation a $4B global apparel company.

2017 – 2019 Inflection Capital Management, LLC Principal, Portfolio Manager, and Analyst
Asset management  Formed an RIA and created and launched a novel equity strategy product based upon empirical research
using Morningstar-Direct, FactSet, and Bloomberg, i.e. significant data analysis.
Product development,
 Recruited three partner-employees, completed the legal and regulatory requirements, designed the
consumer & industry business processes, created the marketing materials and plans, created the budgets and forecasts, and
insights, and equity sourced and retained the external service providers (data, research, legal, IT, and regulatory compliance).
research  Marketed product to over 200 investment consultants, FOs, wealth advisors, and HNW investors.
 Produced a +25.4% (net) return versus the S&P 500’s +14.6% on a 0.95 beta with the concentrated,
long-only, core-equity strategy from January 13th, 2017 through 2018.

2006 – 2017 Cornerstone Capital Management Vice President and Senior Analyst
 Senior consumer sector analyst and member of the US growth equity team. Primary coverage of
Asset management consumer tech, media, telecom, internet services, advertising, retail, consumer brands, and CPG, with a
panoramic cross-industry and globally holistic point-of-view. Additionally, contributed to the firm's long-
Consumer, market, short product, concentrated equity strategy, and dynamic-growth strategy.
& industry insights,
 +16.2% (gross) annualized returns vs. +15.3% for my coverage vs. +10.0% for the market from ~2006 to
strategy review,
investment due Q4’16, averaged +188 bps in grossed-up alpha per year on the large-cap growth product.
diligence, and  Actively engaged with prospects and clients; in close collaboration with colleagues in sales and marketing,
equity research helped grow product AUM from nil to $5B and grow Cornerstone’s AUM from $50M to over $16B.
 Investment results stemmed from the successful due diligence of hundreds of companies including:
market and competitive analysis, customer studies (who are they, what do they want, & how do they like
it), products (in-market position & pricing), web scrapes, search analytics, and interviews with target
company’s management, former employees, suppliers / partners, and feet-on-the-street work.
For example: In 2012, persuaded my manager to buy Home Depot ($52/sh) for clients over Lowe’s due
to Depot's: 1) superior store locations relative to the dynamics of the housing recovery at that time, 2)
superior positioning with, and focus on the professional contractor, and 3) sagacity to invest in its
website and delivery. Work involved a significant number of store and market visits to evaluate
differences (merchandising, brands, service levels, store labor feedback, and Pro customer surveys), GIS
demographics / income evaluations of the store portfolios, and website evaluations (scrapes, search
analytics, and transaction mapping). Additionally, the work included rigorous econometric, industry, and
company financials modeling and forecasting, along with in-depth due diligence of company financial
reports, SEC filings, trade and shareholder communications, and interviews of management, suppliers,
and SMEs. Outcome: $90M in profits for clients.
 Created detailed financial and valuation models for hundreds of companies (revenue build, IS, CF, BS,
DCF, IRR, NPV, etc.) and new business cases (ex. mobile commerce and voice-search use cases).
 Created hundreds of investment presentations / reports on covered companies and industries (ex. the
retail industry’s troubles and its future, the boom of private label in retail, consolidation in media, and
OTT) and at the country-level (China’s forthcoming ’13 slowdown and Brazil’s forthcoming ’15 crises).
 Helped to develop and train four junior analysts. The four moved into full analyst roles at the firm.

2001 – 2006 AllianceBernstein Associate Portfolio Manager and Research Analyst

Asset management  Member of the large-cap growth team stewarding $89B in equity AUM at peak.
 Generalist research analyst. Substantial investor returns ($B) made from owned recommendations
Due diligence and
of AZO, EBAY (the opportunity of two-sided marketplace at scale), GOOGL (the nature of search
equity research
advertising), and GILD (foresaw how its drug Truvada would significantly increase the HIV treatment
market by fostering compliance and AIDS survivorship, and thus, more customers).
 For the mentioned did / contributed to the commercial / financial due diligence and forecasting / valuation.
 PM for growth portion of the Focus-Blend product ($125m), a new product launch. Additionally,
piloted an options over-lay strategy and a dividend capture strategy.
 Organized and moderated the nearly weekly visits by C-Suite Fortune-100 leaders to our team.
 My C o v e ra g e In d e x
Pe rfo rm a n c e Re t u rn Re t u rn
2018 -0.1% na -4.4%
2017 24.6% na 19.8%
2016 10.5% 7.5% 4.7%
2015 33.3% 13.8% 4.0%
2014 2.9% 11.3% 13.0%
2013 29.0% 32.9% 33.5%
2012 17.2% 14.1% 15.2%
2011 13.1% 12.3% 2.6%
2010 25.5% 21.5% 16.7%
2009 39.6% 29.5% 37.2%
2008 -13.3% -24.5% -38.4%
2007 2.6% 8.5% 11.8%
2006 13.7% 9.2% 19.6%

17 - '18 a re n e t o f fe e s v s. S&P 500

06 - '16 a re g ro ss o f fe e s v s. RLG 1000
Fig u re s a re fro m Fa c t Se t PA a t t rib u t io n
re p o rt s a n d G IPS c o m p lia n t

Thomas Paulson resume, page 3/3