Wikimedia Commons. Invirtiendo en el poder de las mujeres
Goldman Sachs is helping women such as Ayo grow their small businesses. Through the 10,000 Women Program, they are providing business skills to women entrepreneurs worldwide. Since participating in the program, Ayo has relocated her catering business from her home and has opened a restaurant. Now her small business is driving economic progress in her country.
The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women initiative is a five-year investment to provide underserved female entrepreneurs around the world with a business and management education.The initiative operates through a network of more than 80 academic and nonprofit institutions. These partnerships help develop locally relevant coursework and improve the quality and capacity of business education worldwide.
The women selected for the program enroll in customized certificate programs ranging from five weeks to six months. Topics covered include marketing, accounting, writing business plans and accessing capital.Students are offered mentoring and post-graduate support by partner institutions, local businesses and the people of Goldman Sachs.
Investing in the Power of Women
Investing in women is one of the most effective ways to reduce inequality and facilitate inclusive economic growth. Research conducted by Goldman Sachs over several years has shown that investing in education for women has a significant multiplier effect, leading to more productive workers, healthier and better-educated families, and ultimately to more prosperous communities.
In the wake of the financial crisis, advisors to either institutional investors or high net worth investors need a drastically different set of skills and personal qualities to succeed, according to a white paper just released by BNY Mellon, the global leader in investment management and investment services.
“The Conscientious AdvisorSM: A New Paradigm in Wealth Management Sales” co-written by Tracy Nickl, Executive Director of Sales for BNY Mellon Wealth Management and Jennie Hollmann, PhD. of Caliper Management, asserts that today’s successful advisor must be more methodical and conscientious when dealing with clients and prospects. Furthermore, the paper contends, firms should establish a conscientious platform that helps their advisors succeed and prepares them for career advancement. The result, say Nickl and co-author Hollmann, whose firm is a workplace productivity and talent recruitment and development consultancy, is not only having happier clients but also more satisfied and more successful employees.
“It’s clear to us that since 2008 high net worth investors have become more skeptical about our financial system. What these investors want and need in a trusted advisor has changed dramatically. Our paper offers some insights into what Conscientious Advisors—and their companies—must do to better serve these clients,” said Nickl.
In addition to retaining and winning new business, companies that adopt the Conscientious Advisor/Conscientious Platform model stand to benefit in other ways. “BNY Mellon adopted the Conscientious Advisor model in early 2010 and by the end of 2012 our sales force turnover dropped by 50 percent and the average new business revenue for a sales director had jumped by nearly 20 percent,” said Nickl.
Nickl contends that a Conscientious Advisor shows:
Commitment: Cares about clients and focuses on empathy, listening, over-preparing for every client interaction
Collaboration: As part of a team over-prepares for each meeting and offers holistic solutions, not product
Credibility: Asks the right questions, exhibits professionalism and transparency that reinforce one’s personal brand
Consistency: Follows repeatable processes, executes flawlessly, always follows up and always follows through
Just as importantly, Nickl adds, firms must do their part to support their advisors with a conscientious platform that promotes and rewards conscientiousness through:
A defined, repeatable sales process
A “think tank” model for developing solutions for clients
Foto: Frydolin
. Las redes sociales cobran fuerza entre las empresas de wealth management
The advent of social media presents a valuable opportunity for wealth management companies. As internet access and smartphone adoption increase, a growing number of internet users are becoming involved with social networking. Companies are developing their processes to be able to respond to web-oriented consumers. Banks and other wealth management institutions are engaging customers with social media, which is shaping up as a strong channel for promoting new schemes, identifying customer needs and receiving feedback online, as a Trimetric Report.
Companies have started to use social media sites as a marketing tool to communicate with external customers and to promote their products and services. These companies use YouTube and Flickr to post videos relating to products and services, key developments, events and conferences. Online video is an important part of the modern internet landscape, reaching a large number of people in an engaging context that is attractive to marketers and advertisers. Companies are marketing their services by posting presentations and brochures on open sharing platforms such as Facebook and Slideshare. Many have launched their own social networking forums and blogs to connect with customers. The cost-effectiveness and large reach make social media one of most preferred advertisement channels among wealth management companies.
Due to the growth and popularity of online channels, wealth management companies are now expected to deliver a personalized online customer experience through social media tools. The sector today is investing in platforms such as sites, blogs and video sharing to create awareness and to expand their reach.
The ultimate goal of adopting social marketing is to attract new customers and generate increased loyalty across existing customers, which will help companies to increase their revenues and profitability in the long run. Social Media interactions provide companies with a platform to reach out to customers and deal with issues in real time, therefore increasing both the quality of their service and their levels of consumer trust.
Global social media sites continue to dominate the social media landscape; however, local companies are beginning to show signs of resistance and are now competing for a share of the market. Social media has been one of the preferred digital advertisement channels among wealth management companies. Wealth management companies are increasing their investments in analytical tools to understand the consumer behavior.
Social media marketing is gaining in popularity as the companies are using it to inform consumers about their product campaigns and other product launches. The increasing prevalence of the internet and widespread adoption of Smartphones have fuelled social media expansion. Companies have started to use social media sites as a marketing tool to communicate with external customers as well as to promote their products and services.
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have managed to establish themselves across the globe but local social networks continue to play a huge role when it comes to brand awareness and customer outreach. Wealth management firms have still not fully exploited the benefits pertaining to their presence on social networks and are actively seeking more innovative ways to gain followers. Wealth managers, financial advisors and family offices have still not made significant progress in social media due to limited awareness, concern for data security, as well as the legal and reputational risks associated with the media.
Wikimedia CommonsPhoto: European Popular Party (Flickr: EPP Congress Marseille 7592) . Spain: Investors can get used to anything
Maxime Alimi, economist at Axa IM has published a report about Spain’s fiscal sustainability. Spanish fiscal sustainability remains in question. In the first part of his analysis, Maxime Alimi shows that Spanish real GDP growth in the coming ten years is likely to remain low, at about 1.3% on average. This is due to shrinking working-age population, a very gradual decline in the unemployment rate and modest improvements in productivity growth.
Investors seem to have now learned to live in Europe’s new normal: banking crises, political uncertainty and growth disappointments
“This is one lesson we have learned from three years (and counting) of the European sovereign crisis. While the first episodes of the crisis led to unprecedented stress in euro fixed income markets, investors seem to have now learned to live in Europe’s new normal: banking crises, political uncertainty and growth disappointments.
Still, this apparent resilience should not lead bond investors to lose perspective. At the end of the day, what matters is getting your money back, which implies picking solvent issuers. And while markets have calmed down, the fiscal position of most euro-area sovereigns is deteriorating, with budget deficits still large (although shrinking) and debt stocks increasing. Worse, the market’s silence has led to more complacency vis-à-vis deficits: the European Commission has recently approved a new fiscal trajectory for Portugal in 2013- 2015 and the European Semester should reveal similar leniency for Spain, France and the Netherlands, to name but three.
Spain has been at the center of investor concern and remains one large European issuer whose fiscal sustainability is rightly being called into question. This analysis attempts to shed some light on whether Spain will be able to stabilize and eventually lower its debt to GDP ratio over the next ten years.
Fiscal sustainability is a highly complex issue to address due to the large number of moving parts: projecting debt to GDP over time implies assumptions about real GDP growth, prices, primary deficits and interest rates paid. This being the case, the first part of our work will focus on just one element: real GDP growth…you can read the full report following this link.
Foto: Kai Mörk . Hillary Clinton, invitada de honor al evento INSITE 2013 de Pershing
Pershing LLC, a BNY Mellon company has announced its schedule of keynote speakers for its annual INSITE conference, one of the biggest industry events for registered investment advisors (RIA) and broker-dealers. Taking place from June 5-7 in Hollywood, Florida, INSITE 2013 will bring together global thought leaders as well as highlight the developments and trends in global investing that are impacting RIAs, broker-dealers and the investment community.
INSITE 2013 will feature presentations from renowned speakers including:
The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton, Former Secretary of State and Former U.S. Senator from New York, will provide the keynote address
Walter Isaacson, president and chief executive officer of the Aspen Institute will discuss innovation and his experiences while writing his best-selling book Steve Jobs
Peyton Manning, Super Bowl winning quarterback and four-time NFL MVP, will discuss leadership and his motivating secrets for success
Danny Meyer, chief executive officer of the Union Square Hospitality Group who will reveal his unique, but successful philosophy around putting his team first
A View From the Toppanel featuring several key executives, including Robert Reynolds, president and chief executive officer of Putnam Investments and Eric Schwartz, chairman and chief executive officer of Cambridge Investment Research
In a broad array of seminars and breakout sessions, conference attendees will have the opportunity to learn directly from industry leaders about what is shaping the capital markets, the challenges facing retirees, and the trends in managed accounts and alternative investments. Discussions will include:
After the Fiscal Cliff: The Fundamental Outlook for 2013 and Beyond
Don’t Stand Still: How Practice Management Can Help You Grow Through Difficult Times
Fiduciary Redefined and Compensation Transparency
Investor of the Future: The New Modern Family
Breaking Out of the Box: The Next Frontier of Recruiting
As an added benefit, conference participants will be able to earn Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards (CFP® Board), CFA Institute and Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA) continuing education credits.
INSITE 2013 is expected to attract more than 2,300 attendees, including investment professionals, independent RIAs, dually registered and hybrid advisors as well as senior-level product and marketing executives. It will be held at The Westin Diplomat, Hollywood, Florida. For additional information and to register online, please visit www.INSITE2013.com.
International investment manager Henderson Global Investors has launched the Henderson High Yield Opportunities Fund (HYOAX, HYOCX, HYOIX), a mutual fund that seeks to obtain total return and current income by investing in high-yield bonds and select investment grade fixed-income securities.
The Fund will be managed by Henderson’s six-member US credit team, headed up by Kevin Loome. The team joined Henderson in February this year from Delaware Investments and this is the first fund to be developed for them. The team utilizes a fundamental credit research process and leverages a bottom-up security selection approach – emphasizing cash flow projections, total return potential and liquidity analysis – to create a diversified and focused portfolio of between 50 and 100 holdings.
While the Fund primarily invests in high-yield corporate bonds, up to 20 percent of the portfolio’s assets may be allocated to fixed- income securities rated investment grade. Those securities include US and non-US government securities, collateralized bond obligations and corporate bonds, with much as 25 percent of the Fund’s net assets invested in securities from foreign issuers.
“The combination of our investment approach, underpinned by fundamental and proprietary credit research, and our global team’s close collaboration allow us to construct a focused ‘best ideas’ portfolio of high-yield bonds and select investment-grade securities from issuers all over the world,” said Kevin Loome, Henderson’s Head of US Credit and the Fund’s Portfolio Manager. “At a time when interest rates are hovering at historic lows, Henderson is offering investors access to the most attractive high-yield securities from across the globe.”
Chuck Thompson, Director of US Retail, added, “This fund is a key addition to our fixed income fund line-up as it completes the credit spectrum and reinforces our dedication to provide our clients with products that are both global and truly differentiated. Henderson is now recognized as a global leader in both equities and fixed-income with an experienced credit team managing over $27bn in assets1”.
Advisors and investors can access more information about the Fund through the Henderson Global Funds interactive iPad app, which was launched earlier this year. It offers a deeper understanding of Henderson’s global products and investment expertise. The free app is part of Henderson’s broader strategy to connect with advisors and investors via YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, as well as the Henderson website.
The ING Global Opportunities strategy uses a thematic approach to identify attractive investment opportunities. The sub-theme ‘Big Data’ helps identify companies that will benefit from a growing global requirement to collect, organise, mine and analyse large and diverse datasets.
Data growth is exploding. Before 2003 mankind created 5 exabytes of data, now we generate 5 exabytes of data every 3 days. Decoding the human genome took 10 years before 2003 but now it can be achieved in one week. Wal-Mart handles more than 1 million customer transactions every hour with the equivalent amount of data as 167 times the books in America’s Library of Congress. Large amounts of data offer opportunities but putting it all together requires new IT solutions. Enter Big Data!
What is Big Data?
The benefits to a business of using its own data are frequently higher when addressing the variety of the data it collects as opposed to the volume. Unfortunately traditional data warehouses are not well-equipped to do this and certainly cannot handle modern unstructured data such as videos, images, texts and music. Fortunately, there is a new and on-going form of innovation within the IT sector that is permitting many organizations to deploy large amounts of complex data at a much faster rate and sophistication than previously was possible. This is what we call Big Data.
In practice Big Data has two main definitions. It usually refers to a special type of data: high volume, high speed and complex; or to a set of new technologies used to collect, organise, mine and analyse large and diverse datasets.
What is driving Big Data?
The real commercial treasure is considered to be the ability to analyse the large volumes of social content and related behaviour. Of course, in order to do this you would need to have the right kind of software and also a certain level of speed to ensure timely application of any business opportunities.
The benefits of combining large volumes of complex data with analytics and velocity are still yet to be discovered in some industries while in others they are already being implemented. In retail, for example, predictive big data analytics based on shopping habits have been around for a while.
Sub-theme within the Global Opportunities strategy
Leveraging Big Data will be a necessity for running the companies of the future. Adopting Big Data solutions could be like opening a treasure chest for many businesses. The ING Global Opportunities team seeks to identify the winners from this trend. Big Data is a sub-theme within the strategy’s ‘Digital Revolution’ investment theme, which is one of the seven main pillars of the team’s thematic approach to global investing.
To view the complete story, click the attached document above.
Foto: Gaf.arq
. Latin Markets celebrará uno de los mayores eventos de gestión de patrimonio en Brasil
Latin Markets is bringing over 400 industry leaders to the Private Wealth Brazil Forum on June 11 at the Tivoli Hotel in Sao Paulo. The one day forum focuses on providing updates regarding regulation, investment management, trust issues and strategies to protect and grow wealth.
With the highest number of HNWIs in Latin America and third highest among BRIC nations, Brazil continues to be a spot-on opportunity for investors to capitalize on returns. Brazil has been adding 19 millionaires per day since 2007, and now has a total of 137,000 millionaires and approximately 30 billionaires, with 70% of the country’s wealth concentrated in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. High net worth investors are also currently more likely to invest in Brazil than any other foreign country, according to new research from Spectrem’s Millionaire Corner.
More than forty speakers will be attending the Private Wealth Brazil Forum from Brazil’s largest wealth managers, private banks, family offices, high-net-worth individuals, the asset management community, and technology and law.
Participants from private banks and family offices include:
This forum will be a vital networking opportunity for anyone interested in leveraging their place within the international private wealth community. To register for the 2013 Private Wealth Brazil Forum click here.
Latin Markets continues to cover key issues in this specialized market as part of the Private Wealth series at The Private Wealth & The Caribbean Forum at the JW Marriot in Miami on October 24-25.
To register for the 2013 Private Wealth Latin America & The Caribbean Forum click here.
Wikimedia CommonsFoto: Pgecaj
. Howard-Sloan nombra a Alan Goldstein director de Wealth Management
Howard-Sloan, an executive search firm specializing in the placement of top tier executives for legal and financial practices, is pleased to announce the addition of Alan Goldstein. Mr. Goldstein will serve as the firm’s Global Practice Director of Wealth Management.
“It gives us great pleasure to welcome Alan to the Howard-Sloan team,” said Howard-Sloan CEO, Mitchell Berger. “Alan enters our firm with a multitude of knowledge about the wealth management sector and his extensive work with clients throughout the U.S., Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Asia will help Howard-Sloan expand its verticals both domestically and internationally.”
Goldstein comes to Howard-Sloan with over 20 years of experience in the industry. Through his role he will be concentrating on sectors including, but not limited to, private bankers and relationship managers, financial advisors, and private client investment management.
“I am delighted to join an organization as highly regarded as Howard-Sloan,” Goldstein stated. “The firm’s tremendous track record and success in legal and compliance recruitment dating back to 1957 speaks for itself. I look forward to contributing to the company’s wealth management division by pursuing additional verticals that will serve as a natural progression for Howard-Sloan’s well-established current practices, which include legal, compliance, accounting and IT.”
Goldstein reiterated that firms in the wealth management, family offices, asset management and hedge fund spaces should not hesitate reaching out to him regarding recruiting and hiring executive talent.
For over fifty years, Howard-Sloan Professional Search has specialized in the placement of legal, compliance executives, accountants and IT professionals worldwide. At Howard-Sloan, we are committed to providing the highest level of service to our clients and candidates. We conduct our business honestly, with the greatest sense of integrity
