Chris Mills on LinkedIn: Active investing, inert industry (2024)

A week in the life of Wealth & Asset Management (WAM)Back to form this week. Per ardua ad astra, as they say. This Monday morning, as I perch in my lounge, nay office, surveying my grounds, nay grass patch, and nervously anticipating the afternoon when the sun streams directly into my eyes and makes me look like a ghoul on Teams. Very much first world problems, I appreciate, and it’s a nice world that I’m grateful for.On the other hand, I was very interested in the challenges faced by St James’s Place & Schroders last week.Let’s start with: “St James’s Place has come under further pressure after it was revealed that the wealth manager faces more than 15,000 overcharging claims costing as much as £426m.” This bombshell caused a massive drop in their share price (>30% in a day, rallied to *only* ~18% drop currently), more scrutiny on their fees (to include compensation for clients going back as far as 2013, not just to 2018) and as they say “we have committed to reviewing our records to the start of 2018 to ensure clients received the services from their adviser that they paid for. If for some reason they didn’t, or we can’t find evidence that they did, we are going to refund the ongoing service charges”. I’m not sure why 2018 is so important, but it’s very clear that the FCA is ensuring that advisers/wealth/asset managers need to be responsible for demonstrating the evidence of their services. I am very confident indeed that any firms (similar to SJP) will be amassing as much evidence as they possibly can. Every little drop of evidence.Personally, I’m pleased. It’s not an alien concept for any provider requiring regular fee payments to have to (i) deliver a service for those fees and (ii) demonstrate that delivery to their regulatory body/government. Taking any less responsibility than that sounds like a sham to me. I’ll leave the legals and enforcement up to smarter folk and look forward to seeing the trustworthy and creditable firms massively improve their market position as the charlatans get called out.On Leap Year Day, Peter Harrison (Schroders, CEO) pointedly highlighted the “benefits of our long-term strategy for clients and shareholders. In 2016, we set out to build a stronger presence across Private Markets, Wealth Management and Solutions. The strong growth rates of these businesses mean they now account for 56% of our AUM and 48% of our net operating revenue”. WM alone makes up 23% of Schroder’s operating profit. Are Schroders the canary indicating a market-wide relative decline in importance of Public Markets? Is this the start of the slow decline of stock markets & public managers? Schroders are one of the larger global active managers (£750.6bn as of 31st Dec 2023) and were ahead of the curve on data science…I wouldn’t bet against them.Have fun out there.Audere est facere.https://lnkd.in/eZprGX6B

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A week in the life of Wealth & Asset Management (WAM)Unlike me, I feel a little slow this week. Maybe it’s because England lost on the weekend. Maybe I’m just itching for Spring. Maybe my biorhythms are down - but I’ve just checked and I’m at +100% physical, +43% emotional & +10% intellectual, so don’t go expecting any really smart ideas this week, clearly! In spite of this, I’ve had a recent binge-watching of Only Connect; I’ve known it was my kind of thing for ages, but never really paid attention until my eldest fell for it completely. So, two quick sequences (what’s next?) for you to ponder:EMW : AFHKNYZ : LTVX : ?0=Green : 1=Red : 2=Black : ?As you know, Monday last week was South Wales with Target. A thoroughly friendly and welcoming business – I’m confident they look after their clients well – with a boss who has boundless energy and surely laughs too much to be a CEO. I foolishly went for a run around Celtic Manor on the Tue morning and, mainly due to my dire fitness and persistence, nearly killed myself up some unexpected hills. They just kept coming, it was ridiculous. Later in the day, more ESG, data prep for a discussion with a CTO, more data (with Finbourne) and ending with our global management meeting and pipeline (healthy!).Wed, caught up for lunch with a very accomplished and exuberant fellow, Ash Brown, who is a long-time COO and starts-up hedge funds. A safe pair of hands who knows how to get investment up’n’running. But the best part was learning of our personal overlaps: teenage sons, highs & lows and the fact that we’re only just starting to flex our muscles with 25 years in the industry. There’s a huge amount of unrequited & untapped expertise in the 45+ age group…and I do see that talent being drained all over. A big risk, if you ask me.Thu, loads more prep for meetings, thought leadership research & ESG. Our CoEs on Data, Investments & Operations are coming along very strong…evolving those to have clear guiding principles but also dig into the necessary details…and develop ‘useful things that clients need’ is a mental challenge (+10% intellectual remember!)Friday was a great end to the week, with Citisoft EMEA’s monthly meeting & social. I had the pleasure of running the session, so there was a scattering of bad puns and too much about revenues. A group of hardcore Citisofters decided to visit the “Concrete & Clay: Archiving the Barbican” exhibition in the middle of their beers, which I believe went down like a ton of bricks. Sorry.Anyhow, the answers are [I, because they are the letters requiring 4, 3, 2 & 1 straight lines] and [3=Red, numbers on a roulette wheel]…which, if it’s any consolation, I failed at too. 😉Have fun out there.Audere est facere.P.S. One day, I'll try the LinkedIn button that says 'Rewrite with AI' and you might get a good summary...

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A week in the life of Wealth & Asset Management (WAM)Travelling to Newport (South Wales) this morning. Not Newport (New South Wales) unfortunately, because I could do with some sun. And thankfully, right now, I can confidently berate the locals of both locations about our superior rugby. Anyhow, more about the original Newport later.So, last week was my go-slow. Nestled amongst family time, I continued to keep my oar in at work. Citisoft are having our best year ever, and considering we’ve been going for over 30 years (longest serving WAM consultancy, surely?), that’s a great story for us and our clients. Here in the UK, in the last year alone, we’ve increased our number of clients (diversity works for consultants as well as stock picking), added 6 new FT staff (I should have said “over 5”, as that’s what you do when you answer RFPs right?) and have organised our expert team into practices to cover the whole WAM value chain. You’ll have probably already noticed our uptick in articles, thought pieces, partnerships and that’s before our new & improved GTM has even started. Building for growth, that’s us. Our new FY starts in April and we’re ready to rumble!In between my fatherly/husbandly duties, I contributed to our broader ESG capabilities (our parents, TechM, are building our product & services) which we’ll be pitching to a range of clients. It’s a hoary topic needing a good awareness of each client’s ESG views but the underlying data need and potential op structure update is certainly a sweet spot. Whether your business decides to major on ESG or not, the principles of needing to have a flexible and explainable data model are fundamental to a modern WAM firm. That bit is unavoidable if you want clients in 5 years’ time.On a separate point, it’s worth noting how many fintech & service firms that we (collective Citisoft we) see every week. I didn’t attend this week, but we have a Friday morning training update on Bloomberg over the next 6 or 7 weeks, and every Friday pm we can drop in to a demo or intro to a new fintech. This week, we tackled an Intelligent Process Automation platform…making the most of your data to optimise your workflows…all eminently sensible. Given our expertise and proximity to the client’s coalface, we’re not the easiest audience but I guarantee that all parties will learn something in those meetings!Back to Newport. Off to our sister company, Target, for the day. We’re figuring out how to work better together, how to leverage Target’s long-standing transformation and BPO skills and inevitably some joint marketing events. Their CEO, Pete O’Connor is a proper petrol head, hence our imminent roundtable on ‘leveraging data for superior performance’ at Mahindra Racing. Somebody might have organised a racing challenge in their full-spec racing simulators but I will, of course, be firmly focused on hosting a cracking debate with senior pros. 😉Have fun out there. Audere est facere.

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A week in the life of Wealth & Asset Management (WAM)I’m trying to go slow this week. It’s half term in our house and I’m trying to be supportive in the GCSE/A-level revision plans…of course, if they stray into any more French literature, I’ve got loads of Asterix quotes up my sleeve.Last Monday, I met up with our sister company with a similar phonetic name, C.T.Co, who are a Latvian-based agile development house. They already support some of the largest financial services firms with teams into the 100s and I asked them for some help on a fintech & benchmarking initiative. A clever bunch who can do stuff with tech at bewildering pace – those kind of skills never fail to wow me.Tue, strategic planning for our imminent new FY. Followed by some relationship building with a Monaco-based consulting firm; proposing to open a new Citisoft office in Lux doesn’t seem quite so glamorous now. Oh well, at least my Franglais continues to be useful.Wed started with discussions about fintech scale-ups over smashed avocado (I have to keep up appearances), skated around mainframes, skipped through a hasty Sainsbury’s sandwich (back down to earth) whilst preparing for a data/leadership roundtable, before a very pleasant pm coffee with a man I’ve known of for 20 years and finally met in person. He was nicer and funnier than I expected. I hope I reciprocated! Let’s just say that the bottom-up needs of skilled SMEs to deliver stuff are increasingly being tackled top-down and I’m having more numerous negotiations about global delivery partnerships. Smarter for all parties, I think.Thu, ESG, strategic marketing & distribution initiatives, and another client & distribution debate over coffee. Fri, more homework for a global service provider named after a very large juicy fruit, completing an RFP, honing a proposal, accelerating business with FundGuard and then missed my weekly slot for regular education on Udemy (‘Generative AI for leaders’). Will catch up asap!So, this week a time for a recharge. And seeing as France keeps popping up in my personal/work diary somehow, I’ll ponder some Napoleon: “With audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything.” Time to plan for the anything, I think.Have fun out there. Audere est facere.

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A week in the life of Wealth & Asset Management (WAM)Morning all! Drove to Gloucester for some impressive rowing, planted some bulbs, played Dune Imperium, watched some intriguing rugby (we’re still up for the Grand Slam, ha ha, if only I was Irish), released some pressure about a deal going south (I fear the clients are losing their nerve, so much for aspirations) and prepared myself for a delightful vegetable-heavy diet that is due to be imposed any day now. A good weekend!Looking further back to early last week, I helped pitch some great CX work to a WAM firm. I’ve (almost) said it before, but having a 2,000+ strong customer experience firm in your Group who can draw on years upon years of first class x-sector engagements is mind-blowing. We know WAM is years behind that kind of expertise, so seeing the smarts that are ready to be deployed in our sector…none of that cut’n’paste nonsense, proper science, proper innovation, proper competitive advantage…watch this space!Tuesday, I attended a Snowflake ‘Data & AI predictions’ event. Useful to know where the baseline is but I never get to the detail or the differentiation point in these generic events. They did a good job with a Big 4 consultant repeating what you already know they have to repeat, and a big client talking up their story, but nothing meaty. I always prefer closed-door roundtables, allowing folk to share real experiences, swear if necessary and uncover the true wisdom nuggets.I kicked off Project Canary on Wed. I thought it was a good name, until my colleague asked me who exactly was soon to be involved in a gas-fuelled disaster. She just didn’t realise that it was nearly called Project Titanic or Project You Don’t Want To Know How This Sausage Was Made. It’s a serious GTM campaign I have you know.Good old RFP kick off on Thu, discussion about an exciting event with Mahindra Racing Formula E (if you’re a racing nut and have a big spend budget, give me a call!), interesting demo meeting with Dynamo (not card magic, but managing alternative assets…impressed) and then a late Fri pm call prepping for an important CTO chat this week. Building relationships at the C-level is hard but probably my favourite challenge these days…the chance for a tough left-field question rises exponentially, but that’s what experience and intelligence is for, eh?Looking forward to my week. I’m all riled up.Have fun out there. Audere est facere.

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A week in the life of Wealth & Asset Management (WAM)Hello again…busy times. I saw some daffodils this morning, so has Spring already sprung?? Aside from those green shoots, the industry is suffering a little and is dealing with global uncertainties, a need to flex business/personnel models and the double-edged sword of AI…that SWOT analysis is very busy these days. It’s easy for me to say this but unfortunately for many, it’s increasingly clear to me that indecision is the very worst decision firms can make right now. Going high brow on my quote today, I call on Slyvia Plath who warns that “indecision and reveries are the anaesthetics of constructive action” and surely constructive action is the aim of us all.Was I constructive last week? Well…Early on Monday, I talked to the Value Exchange about the preparation for our 2024 Asset Owner Transformation survey…you have to listen to the market after all…and last year 67% of asset owners confessed to using spreadsheets in their reg reporting, and 41% of projects don’t even start because of lack of SME resources. I’m no reg expert, but eeek. And frankly, lack of SMEs? THAT’S WHAT CITISOFT IS FOR!! Incidentally, take a peek at VX’s survey on DLT too (see comments)…very interesting.Tue, I interviewed a young lady as part of icanyoucantoo, a coaching & mentoring programme to help 16-21 year-olds get more exposure and understanding of further education & employment. The idea is brilliant and easy and oh my god, my interviewee blew my middle-aged brain…she was simply awesome and one of the best interviews I’ve ever had. Committed, keen, smart, navigated my tricky questions etc etc etc. icanyoucantoo are doing an awesome job in preparing these students. Inspiring.Wed, blockchain & DLT – details for another day! Thu, my Citisoft Monthly Breakfast. As always, thought-provoking, great networking and you learn at least 3 useful things and inevitably 3 other strange stories or crazy facts dug up from the archives of some delightful industry veteran. Chatted with a global data architect…about Snowflake (ubiquitous?), Finbourne (need to focus on data, not PMS), AI (market data pah, client data is the competitive advantage) and need for SMEs (shall I shout it again?).Friday, debated hybrid working and noticed a nice Ignites survey citing those in fully remote roles had the highest positive impacts from their work environment (69%) followed by those in hybrid settings (56%). In contrast, employees in FT office roles were more likely to experience negative effects from their work environment (27%), though most said it had no noticeable effect on them. It’s all about the job roles, I think. Some roles clearly profit from f2f, others need more alone time. I did check the demographics though, and given that 64% of the respondents were men and 40% between 45-54, it’s probably just the grumpy middle-aged men having a moan before the weekend…!Have fun out there.Audere est facere.

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Another Citisoft Monthly Breakfast - a feisty one to kick off the year! We started off surreal, jogged through complicated word clouds (of Outlook 2024s), cantered around the buzzword bingo of some Big 4 predictions (told us absolutely nothing of note) and ended up with the professionalism of Charlie Attenborough talking about behavioural science and making 35,000 decisions a day.Verbatim feedback "Amazing insights from all. Powerpoint animations. Quantum. CX." Can't ask for more really!Anyhow, if you'd like to participate, please get in touch and prepared to be intellectually assailed, your wisdom shared, to leave with an optimistic bounce in your step and some great ideas to get stuff done.

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"Foster freedom for a high-performing team" says David Higgins.He's dead right and, for the record, he does exactly that at Citisoft too. This is a great article with some nice reminders for those grappling with delivery: big, small or ugly!

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A week in the life of wealth & asset management (WAM)Good morning! After a few mighty gusts last night, it looks like things are warming up. You can always rely on an Englishman to talk about the weather - what do other nation's folk default to? Answers on a postcard, please. Anyhow, back to the Whether. I was reminded last week that Change & Innovation are very tricky things, not because they require new thinking, but more because they require new doing. Given that firms are ideally optimised to run a carefully designed business model, Change requires them to prioritise a long/medium-term gain for a short-term investment/loss. The Whether is very important to understand. Whether to carry on Business Model v1 or to switch to Business Model v2. And what are those Business Models anyhow, the Whither, if you will? Creating the right prioritisation & decision-making process seems to be a real competitive advantage…and thinking out loud, I’m not sure I know of (m)any firms who can actually point to theirs.Last week, last week. Caught up with another ‘blast from the past’ who allowed me to reminisce about the irritatingly curious, over-enthusiastic and sagely cynical man I used to be. Nothing has changed. 😉 He was adamant that Regulatory Change is a source of competitive advantage…reg data can help firms get ahead, better preparing them for changes and spotting business opportunities. He’s been doing it for 20 years, has evidence, so he has a strong case!I met up with an ex-Cerulli research guru – sounds like Cerulli are retrenching to the US – and we talked research & market intelligence & ‘asking big questions and finding the answers through research’. IMHO, how else does anyone work out that Whether & Whither with any degree of confidence without good old Research & Development? He’s kick-starting his new R&D firm, so if you need quality insights allied with some wonderful Citisoft magic to get stuff done, drop me a line!I talked more Distribution, lunched with a high-flying ex-KPMGer who appears to be starting a few illustrious Directorships in very high places (she is scarily proficient & please don’t forget the little people on the way up!), and also a friend who is well-skilled in the art of legal & compliance and, in spite of all his efforts, has become the UK CEO of a global asset manager. He’s one of the humblest and most practical men I know – perfect in steadying a ship, leading by example and thoughtfully improving his firm step by step. Impressive.I ended the week on ESG, providing a briefing to a Canadian-based CIO/sustainability team about the trends and lessons learned from the ESG exploits of EMEA. It *is* a fascinating topic, because I think ESG has been a reminder and a catalyst for firms to get the right data strategy powering the right investment insight/process to deliver the right client solutions. ESG politics aside, that is what the WAM business is all about after all.Have fun out there, audere est facere!

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A week in the life of wealth & asset management (WAM)Hello again. I had some time off. Probably my longest official time off in my working life, albeit it didn’t last. Obviously, a few important & urgent meetings popped up and my holiday was eroded but in my Sisyphean task of ‘profitable revenue-generation for Citisoft’ these things go with the territory. And, with no apologies, I enjoy my work. The alternative was trying to get my teenage boys to revise for their mock exams so you get where I’m coming from.Enough already. The clamouring crowds want to know 2 things: What did I get up to last week? And what the heck is going to happen in 2024?Well, last week? A great catch-up with an old friend of mine currently under-loved in a large FinTech. Seriously, anyone needing a Chief Solutions Officer who has vision, understands tech and can deliver to business needs, talk to me. Rare birds, but I know one or two. A great intro to another smart fellow in IQ-EQ, proactivity from Calastone, Simcorp reinventing themselves with Axioma & Deutsche Börse, some interesting little joint marketing planning with Moody’s Analytics, an RFI or two and a new Visual Identity, yes VI, from Citisoft to end the week.I like being busy, as long as I’m not that busy fool so this week I will be finalising my 2024 plan of attack. I have a Top 30 target list (across asset owners, managers & service providers) with all the lovely people I need to speak to and convince of a better way to get stuff done…that is always my Important, and I need to safeguard time away from the ever-greedy clutches of Urgent. Good old focus. And funnily enough, topically borrowing from Joe Biden who allegedly said “the greatest gift is the ability to forget – to forget the bad things and focus on the good”. That could well be a useful 2024 mantra for us both!What am I excited about for 2024? Three big things: tokenisation, AI and talent. For the buyside, we’ve played with all three last year and this year is the time to get serious. The ground work has been done, the glamour projects and PR has been written, and I believe that all three will move ahead significantly and with real business outcomes. I’ll be devoting healthy chunks of time, effort and brainpower to delivering on each and would love to engage with anyone who knows something I should know! I’m doubling down on roundtables, workshops and whitepapers as the best engines to mobilise smart people…and taking a scientific and data-driven approach to assess ‘what good looks like’. By the way: talent, what do I mean? I mean how we best utilise individual and collective brain power within and without our industry to come up with strategic and tactical solutions…we haven’t worked out hybrid working, we are hugely wasteful of our skills (e.g. hiring & firing boom & bust), but the uptick if we get it right is enormous. And there are great case studies to learn from too.Always up for a chat. Have fun out there!Audere est facere.

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