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The AMP-ASX sharemarket game for high school students must have sparked many careers: it certainly lit a fire under Joel Fleming, who remembers it like yesterday. “My team didn’t do very well,” he laughs. “But it really brought to my attention the idea that you could buy companies – some of them household names — and actually make judgments about them. You could do some work, take a view and hopefully make some money. I found that whole idea intellectually gripping.”

That spark of curiosity never went out. Today, as a portfolio manager at Yarra Capital Management, Fleming oversees one of the most respected micro-cap strategies in the country – the culmination of a career built on persistence, humility and an enduring fascination with how businesses grow.

Fleming’s path to funds management wasn’t mapped out. “I didn’t even really know what people in stockbroking or funds management did,” he says. “But as I was finishing university (a commerce degree at Curtin), I wrote to every stockbroking firm in Perth asking if they had a job opening.”

Most replied with rejections, letters he still keeps in a folder. “JBWere wrote back saying they didn’t have anything but recommended doing the Securities Institute of Australia course. I thought, ‘That’s a lead!’”

It was a small Perth brokerage, Paterson Ord Minnett, that finally gave him his break. “I told them I’d do anything – do the photocopying, do the coffee runs, clip the newspapers, whatever. I just wanted to get in and see how it all worked.”

The job turned out to be formative. Paterson was half-owned by JP Morgan, and one of his early tasks was to dial into the global bank’s morning meeting. “I was listening to world-class analysts talking through their views,” he recalls. “It was an amazing grounding – understanding how they thought about stocks, how they communicated conviction.”

That exposure, coupled with regular company presentations, helped him grasp the rhythm of markets early. “By the end of the first week, I’d seen the world’s biggest gold deposit and five cures for cancer,” he jokes. “You quickly learn that every company has a story – your job is to work out which ones will actually deliver.”

Fleming’s analytical streak soon defined him. “I realised I wasn’t a sales guy. I wanted to understand companies and how they worked,” he says. Mentored by senior analysts, he learned to build models, write research and eventually pick up company coverage of his own.

But after a few years, he found himself frustrated. “You come up with ideas, but clients don’t answer the phone, the desk isn’t interested – it’s like shouting into the void,” he says. So, when a former colleague who had moved into funds management called about an analyst role, Fleming jumped at the chance.

“For me, it was that idea of a scoreboard. You make a call, you put it in the portfolio, and you can see whether you’re adding value or not.”

His first funds management role came in the early 2000s with RCM, an investment management company that became part of Allianz, covering small- and mid-cap stocks. “I remember watching companies like Ramsay Health Care and Reece grow from small players into major businesses,” he says. “It was exciting to be part of that journey and see what good management and compounding growth can do.”

That experience confirmed what would become a lifelong preference. “I’ve always loved small caps,” he says. “There’s greater breadth, more opportunity, and your good ideas really move the needle.”

A move to ING Investment Management gave Fleming the next major step – and the mentorship of Sinclair Currie, whom he credits with shaping his philosophy. “Sinclair was an excellent boss. He invested in me and made sure I really understood portfolio construction – how positions work together, correlations, mandate rules. He’d say, ‘The only real way to show conviction is to show it.’”

Currie encouraged him to run a small internal portfolio – real money, real accountability. “It was a profound experience. You learn quickly that managing money isn’t about having ten good ideas and making them all maximum size. It’s about managing through tough periods, staying disciplined, and communicating clearly with clients.”

That grounding became crucial when ING’s business was acquired by UBS, where Fleming helped launch what would become the UBS Microcap Fund in 2014. “We saw an opportunity below the traditional small-cap space – sub-$250 million market capitalisation, under-researched, less liquid, but full of potential,” he says.

The launch, backed by institutional seed funding, gave Fleming his own mandate and the freedom to shape the strategy. “It was about giving investors another way to access the market – a true-to-label fund focused on genuine micro-caps.”

When UBS later exited domestic funds management in 2018, Fleming faced a decision: walk away or take the fund with him. “My gut was that if I didn’t go, it would just shut down,” he says. “I’d worked too hard to let that happen.”

Yarra Capital Management took over the platform, and Fleming came across with it. “They were like-minded investors. There was alignment, equity in the headstock, and better resources – everything from trading to back office. It made sense,” he says.

Today, the microcap fund remains one of Yarra’s flagship boutique strategies, with a dedicated analyst and access to the firm’s broader research network. “We’ve got scale and structure, but still the focus and nimbleness that this part of the market needs.”

Ask Fleming what he loves most about his job, and the answer comes instantly: “It’s the intellectual challenge and the competitive aspect. There’s a scorecard. You’re clearly right or wrong, and through time, that starts to matter.”

But that same reality makes the lows hard to bear. “You don’t like making mistakes you shouldn’t,” he admits. “Micro-caps can be unforgiving – they go ‘risk-off’ in an instant, and all of a sudden no-one cares about them. But the key is not to change your process. Stay disciplined, keep questioning, and always know why you own what you own.”

He’s quick to acknowledge how life experience helps maintain perspective. “When you get married and have kids, it grounds you. They don’t care if you’ve had a bad month or a bad quarter. You come home, take them to training, and start again the next day.”

For Fleming, the attraction of micro-cap investing is perpetual discovery. “There’s always something new – companies evolving, sectors shifting, opportunities emerging. Our universe is dynamic. We’re constantly adding and reassessing stocks.”

His focus, however, remains on quality and patience. “The best stocks we’ve ever found are compounders,” he says. “They hit an inflection point and just keep delivering. The trick is managing them — not getting out too early, but also knowing when the story’s played-out.”

And while the small-cap world can be volatile, Fleming’s passion for it is unwavering. “It’s a privilege that people trust you with their hard-earned money,” he says. “My job is to create value for them – to help them do things they might not have been able to otherwise. That responsibility never goes away. But what a great job to have.”