The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish

Connor Teskey: Inside Brookfield’s Culture, Capital Allocation, and Competitive Edge

March 17, 2026

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  • Brookfield's investment philosophy centers on acquiring high-quality, critical assets and de-risking them by locking in construction, offtake, EPC, and financing contracts to eliminate market risk, focusing instead on execution and operating risk. 
  • A core cultural tenet at Brookfield, exemplified by Bruce Flatt, is prioritizing the success of others over oneself, which fosters a collaborative environment where information sharing across verticals is actively encouraged. 
  • Career acceleration at Brookfield is fostered by giving junior talent significant responsibility early on, coupled with mentorship that emphasizes judgment over perfect analysis, advocating for action when a deal feels 90% right. 
  • Connor Teskey prioritizes his family and Brookfield above all else, viewing his family as a 'forcing function for prioritization' that increased his efficiency without diminishing his commitment to work. 
  • Brookfield's success in capitalizing on opportunities, such as the Oaktree acquisition, stems from their ability to remain forward-looking and immediately pivot to capitalizing on market dislocations, even during brief downturns like COVID. 
  • The ideal state for happiness at work involves continuous growth and improvement, feeling slightly stretched by competitiveness, rather than being perfectly in control or comfortable. 

Segments

Brookfield’s Global Allocation
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(00:00:03)
  • Key Takeaway: Brookfield manages a trillion dollars globally, deploying capital into attractive investment themes across 60 countries.
  • Summary: The discussion begins with the scale of Brookfield’s assets (a trillion dollars) and how that capital is allocated globally, noting the US and Western Europe as biggest markets, but with operations across Asia Pac, India, the Middle East, and South America.
Learning from Bruce’s Culture
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(00:01:03)
  • Key Takeaway: The non-obvious learning from Bruce is the importance of culture, which is built on being balanced, forward-looking, and prioritizing others’ success.
  • Summary: Connor Teskey discusses what he learned from Bruce, highlighting the underappreciated strength of Brookfield’s culture—being measured during market moves, forward-looking, and emphasizing putting others in a position to succeed.
Complementary Roles and Capital Deployment
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(00:03:06)
  • Key Takeaway: The bedrock of the business is deploying capital at exceptional returns, which requires breadth beyond just investment skills, such as team building and client interaction.
  • Summary: Teskey contrasts his role with Bruce’s, emphasizing that while capital deployment is the foundation, success at scale requires excellence in team building and communication with clients and partners.
Consistency in Investment Focus
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(00:04:17)
  • Key Takeaway: Brookfield remains consistent in focusing on high-quality assets forming the backbone of the global economy, even as the definition of those assets evolves (e.g., hydro dams to solar/batteries).
  • Summary: The discussion covers how the nature of investments has changed, noting that 70% of current investments weren’t investable asset classes 15-20 years ago, but the core focus on critical economic backbone assets remains consistent.
Product Diversification Growth
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(00:05:58)
  • Key Takeaway: While the investment approach is consistent, Brookfield has dramatically increased product offerings from four to 60 products over the last decade to meet diverse client needs.
  • Summary: Teskey explains that the business has packaged its consistent investment approach into a wider spectrum of products (flagship, mezzanine, super core, retail wealth) to service a growing client base.
Keys to Rapid Career Ascent
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(00:07:25)
  • Key Takeaway: Teskey attributes his rise to good fortune, incredible mentorship (especially from Bruce), and learning to trust judgment over perfect analysis.
  • Summary: Teskey reflects on his career trajectory, crediting mentorship for teaching him to rely on good judgment when an analysis feels ‘90% right’ rather than waiting for absolute certainty.
Forcing Function of Remote Work
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(00:10:15)
  • Key Takeaway: Moving to London and switching to the renewables team provided an ‘incredible forcing function’ for taking initiative and acting autonomously.
  • Summary: Teskey describes how being geographically separated from his boss forced him to take initiative, leading to a surprisingly high success rate when acting on his own prerogative.
Work Ethic and Availability
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(01:07:07)
  • Key Takeaway: Hard work is defined not just by crunching models, but significantly by being available to mentor and advise colleagues at all levels.
  • Summary: Teskey discusses his work ethic, noting that availability for team members seeking advice (career or deal-specific) is often what people perceive as hard work.
Learning from Early Setbacks
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(01:13:35)
  • Key Takeaway: An early setback involved being told his explanations were too complicated, teaching him that the ability to explain work is as crucial as doing it.
  • Summary: Teskey recounts being crushed by feedback early in his career that he was too complicated when presenting analysis, realizing that communication is vital.
De-risking Strategy: Execution vs. Market Risk
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(01:15:11)
  • Key Takeaway: Brookfield is comfortable taking execution and operating risk but works hard to structure deals to eliminate market risk by locking in key contracts (CapEx, offtake, financing).
  • Summary: In building a solar farm, for example, they lock in the construction cost, power purchase agreement, EPC, and financing contracts simultaneously to secure long-term cash flows.
Data Center Investment Variables
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(01:19:02)
  • Key Takeaway: Data center investment variables are construction cost, power supply, and the long-term compute contract, often backed by high-credit quality counterparties like hyperscalers.
  • Summary: Teskey details the expansion of data center investment to include funding chips and servers, all wrapped in long-term, inflation-linked offtakes with top-tier counterparties.
Brookfield’s Global Sourcing Model
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(01:22:38)
  • Key Takeaway: Local teams have autonomy to source and execute deals, but all capital deployment decisions are centralized for global perspective and control.
  • Summary: Brookfield utilizes local investment, operating, and fundraising professionals who operate independently, but final capital deployment decisions are brought centrally to ensure global perspective and capital allocation efficiency.
Information Flow and Collaboration
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(01:25:36)
  • Key Takeaway: The firm operates like a partnership with ’no walls,’ ensuring constant cross-vertical collaboration and information sharing, rather than operating in silos.
  • Summary: Investment committees involve iterative feedback sessions well before final approval, and leaders from different verticals (like Power and Real Estate) constantly share insights to prevent siloed thinking.
Early Career Learning at Brookfield
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(01:11:23)
  • Key Takeaway: Understanding Brookfield’s internal workings provided the framework for underwriting external businesses.
  • Summary: Teskey discusses how early exposure to Brookfield’s growth and value creation strategies helped him learn to underwrite other businesses and subsequently track competitors like Oaktree.
Strategic Oaktree Acquisition Rationale
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(01:12:17)
  • Key Takeaway: Oaktree was seen as an undervalued, countercyclical business, leading to a strategic buyout and partnership proposal.
  • Summary: The discussion covers the initial assessment of Oaktree in 2018, recognizing its strength in credit, and the strategic decision to partner with the founders rather than just investing.
Oaktree’s Success Post-Acquisition
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(01:14:04)
  • Key Takeaway: Oaktree sustained growth by broadening its product offerings and maintaining readiness to capitalize on opportunistic credit cycles, like during COVID.
  • Summary: Teskey explains how Oaktree successfully navigated a strong market period by expanding its strategies and effectively deploying capital during the brief COVID downturn.
Prioritizing Family and Work Capacity
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(01:15:20)
  • Key Takeaway: Family and Brookfield are the top two priorities, and having children acted as a forcing function to become more efficient without diminishing commitment to work.
  • Summary: Teskey addresses work-life balance, stating he dedicates maximum capacity to both family and work, finding that less valuable activities naturally fell away.
Information Consumption Habits
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(01:19:03)
  • Key Takeaway: Reading materials ahead of time leads to more informed conversations, and daily headlines provide a necessary pulse on investment themes.
  • Summary: Teskey details his reading habits at work, emphasizing preparation for discussions and consuming curated daily updates on relevant asset classes like infrastructure.
Moments of Happiness at Work
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(01:22:34)
  • Key Takeaway: Happiness comes from being stretched and engaged in continuous improvement, not from perfect control.
  • Summary: Teskey prefers the competitiveness of trying to improve imperfect situations (X to X+1) over maintaining a state where everything is already perfect.
Organizational Resilience in Crisis
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(01:23:40)
  • Key Takeaway: Effective leaders in a crisis can digest information unemotionally and immediately pivot to mitigation and capitalizing on new opportunities.
  • Summary: The discussion focuses on predicting who thrives in a crisis and how Brookfield’s culture dictates spending meeting time on mitigation and capturing upside during downturns.