Client Experience
& Engagement

Olmstead's client needed to upgrade their client reporting capability in order to decrease time and energy spent collecting, aggregating, and processing data in report production. However, before selecting a client reporting solution, Olmstead first advised through a data centric approach, a strategic data solution and architecture that would support an integrated client service model for scalable growth. This resulted in the opportunity to architect an enabling solution that provided underpinnings for not just client reporting, but the broader Client Engagement suite of CRM, Pitchbooks, Client Master, and a digital / web presence. Olmstead had responsibility for designing and implementing the Enterprise Data Warehouse and integrating in key data sources (FactSet, Advent) and client engagement solutions including Vermilion, Salesforce and Kurtosys.

Our client was looking to build and integrate reusable data sets and tables from data sources (Eagle PACE and internal warehouse) in preparation for a Seismic and Client Reporting implementation that would support Sales & Marketing. Olmstead was responsible for the data integration and helped to streamline processes used to create marketing material and reports that were previously managed manually through spreadsheets and PPT. Olmstead facilitated the data preparation and readiness for the Sales Enablement solution by de-siloing and taking inventory of data used in pitch books, fact sheets, strategy summaries, client reports, and meta-data. The result was centralized data being available for future projects including CRM and the Client Reporting initiative.

Olmstead was engaged to manage all aspects of the project including report requirements, report design, report specifications, data sources, data mapping, data integration, testing and remediation. Olmstead assumed responsibility for the program and while managing to tight deadlines worked closely with the business, systems and the vendor to ensure nothing was overlooked.

Accelerated by the pandemic, the way your clients and intermediaries wish to interact, partner, and buy has digitally changed.  Asset Managers have responded by re-imagining their organizational selling models.  The evolving external, internal, and hybrid wholesaler strategy is a prime example.  It is imperative that the Asset Manager’s distribution architecture – the underlying technology, data, and analytics – helps to fuel that change.  To do so, our industry needs to overcome its historical ROI challenges when it comes to its distribution architecture spend.    Read More

In our webinar, “Avoiding Shiny Object Syndrome” we explain how “Firms leave all kinds of horsepower on the bench”. How does this affect firms? Firms do not maximize the potential of any one tool in their distribution stack leaving features on the table. They also do not integrate their tools as effectively as possible, missing out on an ROI multiplier effect.   Read More

Asset managers were increasing their technology spend pre-COVID*, but when we polled registrants for our webinar “Avoiding Shiny Object Syndrome to improve Distribution Architecture ROI” we found that 84% of customers say that their investments in client communications solutions have not quite met the mark.    Read More

On May 18, 2018, Sergio Romo, a lifelong relief pitcher, was the Tampa Bay Rays starting pitcher.  He also was the starting pitcher the next day.  These were his first starts after 588 appearances as a reliever over his 10 year career.  Baseball norm is that a team hopes to have their starting pitcher pitch 6 innings, every 5 days.  But in this case, Mr. Romo pitched a scoreless first inning on May 18 and another scoreless inning the next day, and that’s it.  And with that, the Rays had used its closer to introduce the role of the “opener” to major league baseball.  How did we get here?  Read More

Stephen’s LinkedIn Profile
alepa@olmst.com

Stephen is CEO of Olmstead Associates. He also leads Olmstead's Client Engagement capability, helping investment managers with communications and information delivery solutions across their client lifecycle. He has 25+ years as a management consultant and financial technology executive, helping global financial markets firms of all sizes define and achieve their business objectives. Regarding our client's client experience, he drives Olmstead's services, considering all client touchpoints when devising client engagement operating models and integrated sales and service solutions.

Stephen held senior positions at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), PwC, and Arthur Andersen, where he was the partner-in-charge of the New England financial markets business consulting practice. Prior to Olmstead, Stephen held leadership positions at trading pioneers ITG and Macgregor. He architected and ran the ITG Net business unit, the firm's end-to-end electronic trading and trade processing network, building it to a community of over 750 buy-sides, sell-sides, custodians, and industry utilities. Stephen led Macgregor's Sales and Service, and oversaw the transformation of the firm's financial profile by diversifying revenue, growing recurring revenues, and reducing costs dramatically. A recurring theme through his professional experiences is the weaving together of strategy and execution, business and technology.

A graduate of Georgetown University, in his free time you can find Stephen enjoying time with his wife and three children, around a baseball diamond or on a stand-up paddle board. Stephen holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.

Scott is the Manager of Client Engagement Practice for Olmstead. He joined Olmstead in May 2021 and will focus on engaging Olmstead clients about their business operations, sales enablement tools, information management and improving user adoption. 

Scott has 29 years of experience in the mutual fund distribution industry.  He held roles at American Century that focused on sales and product management.  While with Ivy Investments, Scott supported sales operations through efficient management of several sales enablement systems and business information management.

Scott is a Kansas City native and graduate of Truman State University and Rockhurst University.  In his free time, Scott is an active leader for the Boy Scouts of America and professional musician.  Scott and his wife have raised three children who are also musically inclined.

Austin Lewis is a manager in our Client Engagement Practice; his expertise helps our clients transform their Distribution Intelligence programs, sales organizations, lead gen initiatives, and segmentation efforts to exceed their goal.
Austin brings over 16 years of industry experience spanning retail intermediary as well as institutional businesses. He is a business, data strategy, and analytics leader with a deep understanding of asset management and the data-driven processes that are the crux of the industry. He has led global teams supporting the implementation and rollout of CRM systems and integrations, data governance structures, and data and analytics solutions and outputs. His expertise helps our clients leverage data across many technology platforms and solutions to drive better decisions and outcomes for the organization.

Bob has over 25 years of asset management experience leading data projects and providing data analysis for client communications systems focusing primarily on integrating and optimizing clients’ investment data. Bob has integrated investment data for client reporting engagements (Vermilion and SimCorp CORIC), pitch books and fact sheets (Seismic, currently in process for becoming certified through Seismic Univ.), and data management platforms (Eagle PACE, PAM, GoldenSource). His unique experience allows him to structure unstructured data in a manner that enables the efficient creation of client facing retail and institutional reporting materials, including pitch books and fact sheets. 

 Jason has over 25 years in the investment management industry working in various reconciliation analyst, business analyst and data analyst roles supporting client / system implementations and quality assurance. He has been responsible for gathering and defining business requirements and has supported business and IT stakeholders. Jason’s experienced in investment data, data integration, security master, data warehousing, pricing and valuations, client reporting, corporate actions, reconciliation, and performance measurement for multi-asset class environments.