The Solutions Scoop

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 Investment 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 Investment 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 Investment 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 Investment 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 Investment 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 Investment 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. 

Non-profit institutions are increasingly choosing holistic investment solutions like OCIOs to manage some or all of their portfolios. Drawing on the exclusive market research findings in the Chestnut Solutions Institute’s new report, Defining Investment Solutions, our panel of asset owners and asset managers discuss issues including: 

• What are the key needs of different types of non-profit institutions? Why do non-profit investors find holistic solutions-based products and services so attractive today? 
• What are the biggest challenges that solutions providers face in meeting the needs of non-profit clients? 

Chestnut Advisor, Mary Jane Bobyock hosts this discussion originally recorded as a webinar on May 15th, 2024, with guests:

Mark Brovak
VP, CFO
The Foundation for Western Washington University

Bernie Reidy
Managing Director, National Endowment and Foundations Executive
Bank of America

Teresa Rodgers
Executive Director
The Presser Foundation

Jack Serhant
Vice President, Head of Solutions Distribution
State Street Global Advisors

Send us feedback

This podcast is owned and produced by the Investment 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. 

Investors seeking holistic solutions to achieve their investment goals are increasingly turning to third party advisors known as OCIO search consultants - for support in identifying the best provider(s) to meet those needs. Our guests are three of these prominent search consultants:

Brad Alford
Founder
Alpha Capital Management

Larry Coats
President and CEO
ClearView Fiduciary Alliance

Gregory Metzger
Senior Consultant, Practice Leader
North Pier Search Consulting

In this episode, originally recorded as a webinar on July 27th, 2023, Chestnut Managing Partner Amanda Tepper and the OCIO search consultant panelists  discuss key issues in the investment solutions marketplace today, including:

What different types of investors seek and value most from investment solutions providers
How OCIO search consultants evaluate the increasingly wide range of investment solutions features available to investors today
How OCIO search consultants are evaluating OCIO/solutions providers on an ongoing basis after they have been hired.

Send us feedback

This podcast is owned and produced by the Investment 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. 

Investors and solutions providers are facing several critical challenges hindering a continuation of the industry’s recent rapid growth, notably a lack of standards or common definitions of solutions offered today. In the spring of 2023, Chestnut Advisory Group launched the Chestnut Solutions Institute, a membership based independent research forum, to address these challenges by providing market intelligence and insight to the entire solutions/OCIO ecosystem. 

This episode was originally recorded as a webinar on June 20th, 2023 and covers a wide ranging discussion about all things Investment Solutions, one of the fastest growing segments of the investment industry.  Host Ravi Venkataraman, Managing Partner of Chesnut Advisory Group speaks with: 

• Dan Farley (CIO Multi Asset) from State Street Global Advisors, 
• Jen Kruse (U.S. OCIO Leader) from Mercer
• Lisa Shallet (CIO of Wealth Management) from Morgan Stanley. 

This conversation with market leaders in OCIO and Investment Solutions includes the introduction of the Chestnut Solutions Institute and its mission, definition of investment solutions, marketplace trends, choices and capabilities available to clients, benchmarking OCIO, managing conflicts, fees and business growth opportunities. 

Send us feedback

This podcast is owned and produced by the Investment 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.