A longtime member of the Windsor (VWNDX) and value investing team at Wellington Management’s Radnor offices, James Mordy, 50, feels it’s his job, and that of his team, to “turn around” the performance of the fund. My sense, speaking with him is that after more than two decades of being a member of the team, he’s energized to be the trigger-pulling portfolio manager. As always, the buck stops with the portfolio manager, and with the majority of Windsor’s $17 billion in assets under his control, Mordy knows what’s expected of him.

Dan Wiener:  Jim, you’ve been on the Windsor team for more than two decades. How’d that happen?

Jim Mordy: I joined here straight out of Wharton, spring of 1985. It was too good to pass up, so I’ve been here ever since. I was hired as an analyst. John Neff was a big believer in the concept of having teams of  analysts around the portfolios, and I think we’ve always had one of the deeper and stronger teams here at Wellington as a result of that legacy. He had me follow a number of companies and a variety of industries over the years.

DW: Anything in particular?

JM: For John I followed home builders, steel companies, electric utilities, a little bit of retail, and the rest of it was kind of all over the map. I did a number of the same things for Chuck [Freeman], and added some technology coverage along the way in the areas of PCs, hardware and semiconductors. I also added the waste management industry.

DW: How will running Windsor, versus being an analyst on Windsor, change the way you work?

JM: Starting in the beginning of 1997, I became a portfolio manager for our mid-cap value book of business, which was kind of brand new at the time. I’ve been running those portfolios for the last 11 years. As time has gone by, I’ve actually given up quite a bit of my analytical responsibility to the younger members of the team.

DW: You’re also a listed advisor to the Hartford Value Opportunities fund and solo manager on Hartford’s MidCap Value fund. Are you in fact a mid-cap expert, a large-company expert, or just a value guy who fishes everywhere?

JM: I would say the latter—I’m a value guy. Although, clearly in recent years, my main focus has been in the mid-cap space.

DW: And how will that change?

JM: Well, I’m getting up to speed on a lot of the larger-cap holdings that we’ve owned in the Windsor fund and that we are adding to the Windsor fund, so that is a burden on me, and I’m lucky to be surrounded by a talented team here in Radnor, where each of the analysts has already been following those companies and has a deep understanding and appreciation of those companies. I’m certainly leveraging that expertise as well as the tremendous amount of expertise that we have in Wellington generally, in regard to all of these stocks.

DW: What’s your investment style, and how is it either similar to or different from John’s or Chuck’s or Dave Fassnacht’s style?

JM: My style is really a continuation of...