InvestOpsDaily
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THE OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF INVESTOPS 2019
TECHNOLOGY
BlackRock and Vanguard discuss the future of
operations teams within asset managers
ASSET MANAGERS ARE LOOKING TO TRAIN THEIR TEAMS ACROSS THE FRONT-, MIDDLE- AND BACK-OFFICE IN ORDER TO
GIVE THEM A FULL END-TO-END PICTURE OF THE INVESTMENT PROCESS.
Continued from front page
Meanwhile, his counterpart at BlackRock high-
lighted how the world’s largest asset manager
is looking to train its team across the front-,
middle- and back-office in order to give its team
a full end-to-end picture of the investment
process.
“There’s going to be fewer ditch diggers and
more cathedral builders,” said Lou Rosato, glob-
al investment operations strategy and industry
engagement at BlackRock.
“The simple thing to do – which we do – is
rotate people into different roles. We’re very
proud that we have high performers that go
across these different activities and functions.
“The traditional path would be going into
trading or client facing activities, and actually
recently we have gone the other way and have
brought people from trading and client facing
into operations. We are moulding together all
of the skillsets, so they can see the full picture
with an end-to-end view. If we’re not end-to-
end in the way we think we’re stuck.”
The comments followed a story from Global
Custodian yesterday which highlighted how
asset management operations teams are facing
up to a new era of automation and technology
innovations by changing their recruitment pat-
terns, according to a panel, where one speaker
claimed “the operational specialist is a dying
breed”.
“Certainly in my organisation, the classic
operational specialist is a dying breed,” said
Jordan O’Neill, head of operations and treasury,
Aspect Capital. “If I look at my team they are
more business analysts and process engineers,
they need to be able to sit and talk with the
technologists. What we’ve seen work best is
whereby the business user and developer are
away in a room.
“We tend to not hire too many operational
specialists these days, we look more for general-
ists with broader skill sets who can lend their
hand well to taking a process and condensing it
down.”
With technology and data becoming such
essential components in the investment oper-
ations processes at asset management firms,
being able to understand the business alongside
the technology is becoming crucial.
Discussing the relationship between the front-
and, middle- back-office, Arnaud Zeitoun global
head of transformation at BNP Paribas Asset
Management, also said the firm was looking
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INVESTOPS DAILY
to enhance the relationship between the two
teams.
“What we’re trying to do is change the rela-
tionship between the back/middle and front,”
he said. “There used to be that whatever the
front wanted they get, but the more you dig
into that you see the issues it causes through-
out the organisation.
“The more you can reverse the relationship
and have ops teams lead the framework in
which the front-office can function smoothly is
very efficient.”