As the OCIO marketplace continues to expand, traditional investment evaluation techniques focused solely on performance and fees are no longer sufficient. The Chestnut Solutions has introduced the Holistic Value Measurement (HVM) framework — a powerful new governance tool for evaluating OCIO and investment solutions providers that can be used by asset owners, OCIOs, solutions providers, and search consultants.

In this episode, originally recorded as a webinar on June 26th, 2025, Chestnut Managing Partners, Ravi Venkataraman and Amanda Tepper introduce the HVM framework and discuss business and client applications with JP Morgan's Joshua White, Head of NAI and Insurance Investment Specialists for the firm's OCIO business.

Learn how HVM can enhance due diligence, provider selection, and
ongoing monitoring by assessing value across three critical dimensions:
📊 Investments
⚙️ Operations
🤝 Service

Accompanying slides may be found on Chestnut’s website here.

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This podcast is owned and produced by the Chestnut Solutions Institute, an independent forum for investment solutions providers and their partners, dedicated to advancing the future of the investment solutions industry.

The Institute is part of the Chestnut Advisory Group, a boutique, practitioner-led management consulting firm dedicated to asset managers and investment solutions providers. Visit us at www.chestnutadvisory.com to sign up for more insights and events from the Chestnut Solutions Institute and follow us on LinkedIn.

This material does not constitute advice or a recommendation or offer to sell or solicitation for any security or financial product.

Bernie Reidy, National Endowments & Foundations Executive at Bank of America, plays a pivotal role in shaping and executing his firm's national strategy serving endowments and foundations across the United States. He leads a team that develops customized OCIO mandates tailored to nonprofit clients’ missions and objectives. In this thoughtful executive conversation, Bernie and Chestnut Solutions Institute co-founder Amanda Tepper discuss a wide range of topics, including:  

• How Bank of America’s suite of value-added non-profit operations and strategy advisory services can impact clients’ investing approach
• Existential questions such as ‘What is an OCIO?’ ‘What is a fiduciary?’
• Why two OCIOs are not (generally) better than one
• The broader value of strategic nonprofit advisory

Our executive conversations are one-on-one discussions with senior leaders from across the investment solutions ecosystem, where we can dive deep into big issues facing the solutions industry and also get to know a bit of the person behind the title.

Send us feedback

This podcast is owned and produced by the Chestnut Solutions Institute, an independent forum for investment solutions providers and their partners, dedicated to advancing the future of the investment solutions industry.

The Institute is part of the Chestnut Advisory Group, a boutique, practitioner-led management consulting firm dedicated to asset managers and investment solutions providers. Visit us at www.chestnutadvisory.com to sign up for more insights and events from the Chestnut Solutions Institute and follow us on LinkedIn.

This material does not constitute advice or a recommendation or offer to sell or solicitation for any security or financial product.

Carol W. Geremia is president of MFS Investment Management and co-head of Global Distribution. She leads the firm's worldwide client-facing teams as well as product and marketing strategy. As a member of the firm's Enterprise Leadership Team, she helps drive MFS' long-term corporate strategy. In these roles, Carol oversees the management of the company's global institutional and retail businesses, which span US and non-US markets.

This special episode was recorded when Carol presented at the Chestnut Solutions Institute in-person 2025 Spring Forum in Boston. Rather than talking about markets and the issues that are out of our control like interest rates, signs of recession and geopolitical risks, this talk explores how we rise above the “noise”, build resilience and Playing a Bigger Game. It is a mindset or a philosophy that looks beyond the immediate to consider transformational change, which starts with:

■ Assessing where we are and how we got here
■ Reexamining the purpose of the industry relative to the real world
■ Facing our fear of getting it wrong. Our “GULPS”
■ Investing our energy differently
■ Embracing new allies/organizations who can drive change
■ Moving to Bold Action to ensure we can build better outcomes in a world of intense uncertainty

Please check out the accompanying paper at https://www.mfs.com/content/dam/mfs-enterprise/mfscom/insights/2025/March/pdfs/mfse_wp_3135734.pdf to fully appreciate Carol’s fascinating remarks and references.

Send us feedback

This podcast is owned and produced by the Chestnut Solutions Institute, an independent forum for investment solutions providers and their partners, dedicated to advancing the future of the investment solutions industry.

The Institute is part of the Chestnut Advisory Group, a boutique, practitioner-led management consulting firm dedicated to asset managers and investment solutions providers. Visit us at www.chestnutadvisory.com to sign up for more insights and events from the Chestnut Solutions Institute and follow us on LinkedIn.

This material does not constitute advice or a recommendation or offer to sell or solicitation for any security or financial product.

This podcast is being jointly presented by the Chestnut Solutions Institute and Rosemont Investment Group, two firms that are deeply involved and invested in the successful growth of the solutions industry, each playing a very different and unique role in the solutions ecosystem. 

The conversation features:

Chas Burkhart, CEO, Rosemont Investment Group
Brad Mook, Managing Director, Investments & Finance, Rosemont Investment Group
Ravi Venkataraman, Managing Partner, Chestnut Advisory Group
Amanda Tepper, Managing Partner, Chestnut Advisory Group

In our roundtable we discuss:

• How investment solutions are penetrating the wealth management business
• Operating and ownership best practices for a successful solutions business
• A new provider evaluation framework to help providers and clients ensure that any investment solution product or service is actually creating value for the end client

Send us feedback

This podcast is owned and produced by the Chestnut Solutions Institute, an independent forum for investment solutions providers and their partners, dedicated to advancing the future of the investment solutions industry.

The Institute is part of the Chestnut Advisory Group, a boutique, practitioner-led management consulting firm dedicated to asset managers and investment solutions providers. Visit us at www.chestnutadvisory.com to sign up for more insights and events from the Chestnut Solutions Institute and follow us on LinkedIn.

This material does not constitute advice or a recommendation or offer to sell or solicitation for any security or financial product.

Canadian institutional investors are increasingly joining the growing trend of seeking custom investment solutions to help them achieve their unique investment goals.   The Canadian Institutional Client Network of PMAC (The Portfolio Management Association of Canada) invited Chestnut Managing Partner Amanda Tepper to speak with them about trends in the solutions & OCIO marketplace today.  

Amanda’s presentation is an up-to-date primer on the global investment solutions and OCIO industry today, including:

• The definition of an investment solutions and an OCIO engagement
• The factors driving investors to adopt custom solutions
• The business of solutions, from the size of the marketplace to types of providers and investor market segments
• A peek into Chestnut’s soon-to-be released tool for holistically evaluating OCIOs and other solutions providers
  
  Several PMAC members engage with Amanda over the course of this session. We thank PMAC for their continued partnership with Chestnut.

Send us feedback

This podcast is owned and produced by the Chestnut Solutions Institute, an independent forum for investment solutions providers and their partners, dedicated to advancing the future of the investment solutions industry.

The Institute is part of the Chestnut Advisory Group, a boutique, practitioner-led management consulting firm dedicated to asset managers and investment solutions providers. Visit us at www.chestnutadvisory.com to sign up for more insights and events from the Chestnut Solutions Institute and follow us on LinkedIn.

This material does not constitute advice or a recommendation or offer to sell or solicitation for any security or financial product.

Institutional and retail investors alike are increasingly seeking custom investment solutions - from multi-asset products to full OCIO engagements - to help them achieve their unique investment goals for 2025 and beyond.  In this strategist roundtable, host Amanda Tepper speaks with three senior investors who each manage a range of solutions portfolios for their clients about how they are thinking about and positioning their clients’ portfolios to succeed in 2025.

Jonathan Barry, FSA, CSA
Managing Director, Investment Solutions Group
MFS

Michael Strauss
Managing Director, Senior Institutional Portfolio Strategist
Bank of America

Dan Farley
Chief Investment Officer - Investment Solutions
State Street Global Advisors

Send us feedback

This podcast is owned and produced by the Chestnut Solutions Institute, an independent forum for investment solutions providers and their partners, dedicated to advancing the future of the investment solutions industry.

The Institute is part of the Chestnut Advisory Group, a boutique, practitioner-led management consulting firm dedicated to asset managers and investment solutions providers. Visit us at www.chestnutadvisory.com to sign up for more insights and events from the Chestnut Solutions Institute and follow us on LinkedIn.

This material does not constitute advice or a recommendation or offer to sell or solicitation for any security or financial product.

Pension plans face an array of choices in managing and overseeing their investments depending upon their circumstances, objectives and resources. These critical decisions require active engagement with constant evolution and innovation. Ravi Venkataraman hosts this discussion with our guests that include leading pension solutions practitioners and a CIO that oversees one of the largest US pension plans:

Jeanmarie Grisi
Chief Investment Officer, Pension Investments
Nokia

Jared Gross
Managing Director, Head of Institutional Portfolio Strategy
JP Morgan Asset Management

Eumene Lee
Managing Director, Head of Defined Benefit Portfolio Solutions
Morgan Stanley Asset Management

• This wide-ranging discussion on the pension solutions marketplace includes:
• The current state of the defined benefit marketplace
• The wide range of pension risk and investment products and services available today
• Key considerations in pension plan asset allocation and portfolio construction approaches 
• When and where it makes sense to outsource oversight of a pension program to an investment solutions provider?

Send us feedback

This podcast is owned and produced by the Chestnut Solutions Institute, an independent forum for investment solutions providers and their partners, dedicated to advancing the future of the investment solutions industry.

The Institute is part of the Chestnut Advisory Group, a boutique, practitioner-led management consulting firm dedicated to asset managers and investment solutions providers. Visit us at www.chestnutadvisory.com to sign up for more insights and events from the Chestnut Solutions Institute and follow us on LinkedIn.

This material does not constitute advice or a recommendation or offer to sell or solicitation for any security or financial product.

Lisa Shalett is Chief Investment Officer and Head of Global Investment Office at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.  In this conversation, Chestnut Solutions Institute co-founder Amanda Tepper and Lisa discusses a wide range of issues, including:

• How Morgan Stanley’s wealth business has evolved and the strategic role it now plays at the firm
• The structural and cultural changes a traditional wealth firm must make in order to deliver holistic solutions to many different types and sizes of wealth clients
• The role of custom benchmarking in measuring the success of any truly customized investment solution

Our executive conversations are one-on-one discussions with senior leaders from across the investment solutions ecosystem, where we can dive deep into issues facing the solutions industry and also get to know a bit of the people behind the titles.

Send us feedback

This podcast is owned and produced by the Chestnut Solutions Institute, an independent forum for investment solutions providers and their partners, dedicated to advancing the future of the investment solutions industry.

The Institute is part of the Chestnut Advisory Group, a boutique, practitioner-led management consulting firm dedicated to asset managers and investment solutions providers. Visit us at www.chestnutadvisory.com to sign up for more insights and events from the Chestnut Solutions Institute and follow us on LinkedIn.

This material does not constitute advice or a recommendation or offer to sell or solicitation for any security or financial product.

Asset owners of all types are increasingly adopting Investment solutions and OCIO products and services, yet the industry lacks standards and norms. The Chestnut Solutions Institute has introduced a new framework designed to help all investment solutions stakeholders develop a mutual understanding of objectives and achieve optimal investor outcomes more easily.

In this conversation, Chestnut Solutions Institute founders Ravi Venkataraman and Amanda Tepper introduce this framework and discuss: 

• The breadth and depth of the current OCIO and solutions marketplace, explaining often-confusing industry definitions,
• An overview of the Institute’s proprietary framework for evaluating different types of solutions providers and their key capabilities,
• The Institute’s Asset Owner Solutions Toolkit, including a guide to selecting and evaluating providers, a due diligence checklist and access to a new web portal with resources dedicated to verified asset owners.
  
  If you are an asset owner, you may register on our website and once verified, you will be given access to CSI’s new online resource center with complimentary investment solutions research reports, proprietary Institute insights, and a solutions due diligence checklist designed specifically for asset owners. If you are an asset manager or advisor, you will also find this discussion helpful in articulating your solutions proposition to asset owners.

Send us feedback

This podcast is owned and produced by the Chestnut Solutions Institute, an independent forum for investment solutions providers and their partners, dedicated to advancing the future of the investment solutions industry.

The Institute is part of the Chestnut Advisory Group, a boutique, practitioner-led management consulting firm dedicated to asset managers and investment solutions providers. Visit us at www.chestnutadvisory.com to sign up for more insights and events from the Chestnut Solutions Institute and follow us on LinkedIn.

This material does not constitute advice or a recommendation or offer to sell or solicitation for any security or financial product.

Accelerating demand for alternative assets by investors of all types is being met by a wide range of new and often customized investment solutions products and services.  Join Eva Xu, PhD, CFA, and Chestnut Advisor as she hosts a panel of alternative investing experts at some of the industry’s leading asset management firms:

Brandon Dees
Head of Alternative Investment Solutions
Morgan Stanley OCIO & Family Office

Jake Pflaum, CFA
Partner, Private Investments Team
American Century Investments

Kenneth Pitman CFA, CAIA
Principal, Alternative Investments Director
Mercer

This panel discussion, originally recorded as an Institute webinar on July 24th, 2024 covers:

• What types of alternatives solutions are available - and what are not yet available to investors today?
• What is the outlook for various alternative asset classes?
• How should investors using solutions think about and evaluate the all-in value proposition of alternatives investments:  risk/return, fees, liquidity, documentation, etc?

Send us feedback

This podcast is owned and produced by the Chestnut Solutions Institute, an independent forum for investment solutions providers and their partners, dedicated to advancing the future of the investment solutions industry.

The Institute is part of the Chestnut Advisory Group, a boutique, practitioner-led management consulting firm dedicated to asset managers and investment solutions providers. Visit us at www.chestnutadvisory.com to sign up for more insights and events from the Chestnut Solutions Institute and follow us on LinkedIn.

This material does not constitute advice or a recommendation or offer to sell or solicitation for any security or financial product.