Operational Leaders

There has to be a better way to invest in alternative funds. Meredith Moss and her team at Finomial have found one. Meredith has been leading Finomial as CEO since its start in 2011. The company has created a client lifecycle management platform enabling digital client onboarding for investors and their fund managers and administrators.

In this episode, Meredith explains the persistent problem with a paper-based system for completing investor subscription documents and why it has been such an industry challenge to automate the process. She also talks about how regulation and compliance requirements drive automation developments at Finomial. In addition, Meredith tells why her firm embraces each manager's unique set of forms rather than trying to create an unrealistic standardized set of forms.

To learn more about Meredith and Finomial, please visit the company's website.

Pete Cherecwich serves as the President of Northern Trust Asset Servicing where he oversees 10,000 employees and multiple business lines. From this position, he has a unique perspective on the asset management business.

In this episode, Pete provides background on the evolution of the asset servicing business from custodian to fund administration and to outsourced services such as data analytics and trading. He also provides his views on the future of the buy side firm and what he sees as the inevitable trend toward the core functions of portfolio management and distribution. In between, he shares some thoughts on how to grow and successfully manage a 10,000 employee organization.

To learn more about Pete, Northern Trust Asset Servicing, and Pete's industry blog called "Face Value," please see his page on the Northern Trust website.

The quest for alternative data has grown exponentially over the past few years, and so have the challenges of identifying and assessing the value of alternative data sources. Rado Lipuš and his team at Neudata have been at the forefront of helping investment management clients find, evaluate and select new data sources that will advance their investment processes.

In this episode, Rado shares his experience working in the alternative data field. He explains what constitutes alternative data, how it's identified, and who uses it. He also discusses some recent trends involving the use of alternative data, and offers some advice about the dataset on-boarding process. In between, Rado notes how he saw an opportunity to start his own firm in 2016 by bringing alternative data users unbiased evaluations and advice that could help them make better investments.

To learn more about Rado and Neudata, please visit the company website.

Over the course of his 40-year career in FinTech, Mike DeSanti has been at the forefront of almost every technological advance in the business. He believes we are in the midst of another great movement forward.

In this episode, Mike talks about his role as President of LightPoint Financial Technology, a firm he joined in 2017 to help build a flexible and modern trading, risk and accounting platform using the latest software design and infrastructure technologies. He explains some of the key drivers – including open source software and the cloud – propelling the ability to create an integrated system for multiple middle and back office functions. Mike also discusses the inherent challenges in replacing fragmented legacy systems, when it may be time to replace those legacy systems and the advantages startups have in adopting new systems from the outset.

To learn more about Mike and LightPoint, please visit the company's website.

For the past 20 years, Melissa Kelley-Hilton learned her investigative skills in a variety of roles and increasing leadership positions. She recently decided to strike out on her own and start Hilton Global Associates, an investigative due diligence firm.

In this episode, Melissa talks about her experience in the business, what lead her to start her own firm and the types of assignments her firm performs in the investment management space. She is also joined in this episode by her firm's new Chief Operating Officer, Randy Shain. No stranger to the asset management industry, Randy has more than 30 years of experience and authored the industry-defining book Hedge Fund Due Diligence: Professional Tools to Investigate Hedge Fund Managers. Together, Melissa and Randy talk about investigative due diligence – what it means, why it's done and what clients should expect.

To learn more about Melissa, Randy and Hilton Global Associates, please visit the firm's website.

In 2003, Frank Byrd served as co-portfolio manager for one of the year's biggest hedge fund launches. Today he is the Founder and CEO of Fielder Capital Group, a firm that serves as an outsourced family office.

In this episode, Frank discusses his journey and transition to an outsourced family office, including some of the key moments along the way. He also explains why he is excited about the financial advisory role that he plays at Fielder Capital, the advantages he sees in the family office model, and the importance of being an independent, fee-only fiduciary. He also expresses his conviction in the need for top-end fee-only family office advisory services.

To learn more about Frank, his team and Fielder Capital Group, please visit the firm's website.

Leslie Picker spends her days steeped in the investment management industry looking for the next big story – whether breaking news, identifying an emerging theme or landing an exclusive interview.

In this episode, Leslie talks about her career and how this rising star went from Kansas to New York City. She discusses her passion for journalism, her transition from print media to television and digital media, and how reporting through different formats requires slightly different skill sets. She also explains how an interesting story and quality research remain at the heart of all good journalism. In addition, Leslie reveals a few observations about the asset management business, including the correlation between a manager's ability to successfully engage with the press and a manager's ability to raise assets.

Leslie appears almost every day on CNBC and you can follow her on Twitter using @LesliePicker.

Sometimes the decision to make an investment can turn on the contents of a fund's offering documents. Few people understand that better than Ed Kless. Ed has been a trusted advisor to some of the nation's top endowments and other leading institutional allocators for over 25 years. He has held the position of General Counsel at the University of Virginia Investment Management Company, and for the past five years, he has served his clients as outside counsel and partner at the Hirschler law firm.

In this episode, Ed covers a wide-range of topics involving investment agreements, including a review of top issues allocators worry most about and why the fiduciary-duty standard is such a key provision. He also explains why basic terms in agreements tend to be the same across the hedge fund industry – from large, established managers to new entrants – and why that doesn't always make sense.

In addition, Ed weighs in on private equity documents and the significance of an allocator's leverage, or lack thereof. He concludes with some observations about changes to key provisions in fund documents over the past 10 years and some of the more significant issues that industry is grappling with now.

To learn more about Ed Klees and the Hirschler Law Firm, please visit his webpage.

Christine Chang has spent the better part of her career in the investment management business, and a significant amount of that time working in family office organizations. Most recently, she held the position of Chief Executive Officer.

In this episode, Christine recaps her career. She explains how, with a liberal arts background, she rose to the position of CEO by consistently seeking out roles involving the most quantitative challenges. She also talks about her experience in family offices, including how they operate, how they invest and how they vary from one office to the next. In addition, she discusses some of the latest trends in the family office space.

Christine is also an active supporter of several charities. One of her favorites - where she served as past Chairperson - is Bottomless Closet, a not-for-profit empowering women in NYC to achieve financial self-sufficiency. To learn more Bottomless Closet, please visit the organization's website.

Jason Duffy started selling insurance to hedge funds in 2000. At about the same time, he founded Fieldstone Investment Group, a specialized insurance and benefits brokerage focusing primarily on alternative asset managers, as well as family offices, investment advisors and other professional firms. His firm brokers a full range of insurance products.

In this episode, Jason take time to discuss one of the more critical but complicated products – employee health insurance. He provides an overview of the product and explains the market's evolution, including the rise of the professional employer organization (or "PEO"). He also offers insights on how to choose a provider, how providers differ (or don't), when it makes sense to change providers or stick with the current one, and how to get the best rates. Jason starts off the episode telling how this army veteran got his start in insurance and ultimately decided to found his own firm.

To learn more about Jason Duffy and Fieldstone Investment Group, please visit the company website.