Cutter Wealth Meeting

Dru Holmquist has over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. He has developed expertise across asset management distribution, investment management, and wealth management technology and operations. Dru is a successful senior leader with a deep track record of collaboration initiation, strategy design, team building, program management and process innovation. He has conducted strategy programs for CRM, client mastering, data architecture, client reporting, client onboarding, trading, research, and portfolio management capabilities. His knowledge spans the equities, fixed income, municipals, commodities, private debt, private equity, real estate, farmland, agri-business, and timber management sectors, as well as the following vehicle types: Mutual Funds, Closed-end Funds, ETFs, UCITs, UITs, Institutional Separate Accounts, SMAs (traditional, dual contract and models), LPs, 529 Plans and REITs.

Prior to joining Cutter Associates, Dru served as Managing Director of Technology for Nuveen Advisory Services, the business organization responsible for delivering the investment and asset management expertise of Nuveen. Dru was responsible for all business applications and technology that supported the Sales, Client Service, Marketing, Product and Fund Administration business teams. He oversaw the deployment of Salesforce as a CRM application, that unified multiple investment manager affiliates by redesigning the lead generation process, sales pipeline stages, sales reporting, distribution analytics, marketing analytics, and client engagement model. In addition, Dru implemented a product and account master, and initiated the business case to begin a client master effort. He was the technology leader that owned the business transformation efforts for the advisory services organization.

Jason Inzer has over 20 years of experience managing data, analytics, and technology at leading investment firms. He has worked directly in the front office throughout his career, specializing in data management and data analytics for front-office applications. Jason has successfully led multiple data and digital transformation projects for large organizations and has helped firms develop a data-driven culture to optimize business processes and create new sources of value. He has a strong technical background, with in-depth knowledge of modern data platforms and tools. Prior to joining Cutter, Jason spent five years as Chief Data and Technology Officer for Sustainable Insight, an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) asset management firm, and 15 years at Deutsche Bank in roles that included Global Head of Data and Analytics of Deutsche Bank equity research and Head of Research Analytics at DWS Investments. Jason holds a bachelor of arts from The Ohio State University and a master of science in business analytics (MSBA) from NYU Stern School of Business.

Onawa Promise Lacewell has a research focus on the impact of disruptive technologies on the financial services sector and on the client-facing technology that wealth managers use to support the digital experience of UHNW and HNW end clients. Specifically, she is interested in how wealth managers use digital portals and mobile apps to support the client experience of UHNW and HNW end clients. Onawa holds a PhD from the University of Missouri.

Recent research assignments and publications include the following:

• Behind the Login of Wealth Management Client Portals
• Benchmarking of Value-Added Services for UHNW clients
• The Rising Popularity of Family Offices
• AI Throughout the Wealth Management Lifecycle
• UHNW Benchmarking

Gina McCafferty has 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. She served at Cutter from 1999 to 2011 as Principal and Managing Director of CutterResearch, and she was instrumental in growing that business. Gina returned to Cutter in 2017, and established and ran the company’s Wealth Management research division. In 2019, she was appointed to Head of Research, responsible for Asset Management and Wealth Management product development and delivery to over 200 member firms around the globe. Gina was previously at Investit Ltd., where she served for six years as head of the company’s research service. Prior to that, she held senior positions at DST International with product responsibility for their global accounting and performance measurement systems, and at SunGard as Vice President of Client Services for their securities trading products.

Anna Schneider researches and analyzes market data, conceptualizes and writes research reports, and presents research to relevant networks in international settings. Anna is focused on researching the Asian wealth management landscape. She is especially focused on the China’s financial services sector, including how it is impacted by disruptive technological, economic, legal, and regulatory developments, and the related implications for wealth management industries worldwide. Anna holds a double master’s degree in Chinese-European economic and business studies from the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, China, and the Berlin School of Economics and Law in Germany. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Asian studies and management from the University of Applied Sciences in Constance, Germany. Anna is fluent in English and holds an Advanced Certificate HSK 6 in Chinese. Her native language is German.

Recent research assignments and publications include the following:

• Wealth Management in Asia
• Mobile Apps for Wealth Management Benchmarking
• Thinking Beyond the Crisis: Developing a Strategic Approach to Mobile Communication
• I, Advisor: Implementing AI Throughout the Client Journey
• Mobile Trading on the Rise - Background, Trends, and Relevance for Wealth Managers

Cindy Castellano is the CEO of Cutter Associates and has over 30 years of experience in the investment management industry. She formerly led Cutter Associates’ Client-Facing and Wealth practices, advising asset and wealth management firms on their sales and distribution, marketing, product development, consultant relations, client service, and client reporting. Cindy has conducted system searches for CRM, marketing automation, portals, pitchbooks/client presentation, content management, client reporting, client onboarding, and RFP systems. Prior to joining Cutter, Cindy served as Vice President and Head of Operations for a division of Guggenheim Investments, where she led mutual fund accounting and administration; institutional accounting, billing, and client reporting; SMA operations, performance reporting (GIPS); and fixed income performance, attribution, and risk reporting. As Vice President and Head of Equities, Cindy led the firm’s investment team and supervised equity trading activities.

Cindy also spent 10 years as a Senior Portfolio Manager and Research Analyst, managing over USD 500 million in AUM for mutual funds and VITs using social awareness (ESG), large cap growth, and mid-cap growth investment strategies. She developed the investment process, directed research analysts’ day-to-day efforts, and created the firm’s social criteria and proxy voting guidelines. Cindy, a Chartered Financial Analyst, holds a bachelor’s of business administration from Washburn University. 

Boris Bykhovsky is the Vice President of the Solutions Management & Consulting at SS&C Advent. Before this, Boris worked in a variety of roles after joining the firm in 2007.

Currently, Boris leads SS&C Advent’s asset management market strategy with a focus on Advent Genesis, the firm’s cloud native platform. Additionally, Boris oversees the US Solutions Consulting team which is primarily focused on advising asset management clients on ideal solutions for their firms’ business and technology needs.

Boris holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Stephen is the Chief Marketing Officer at Kasisto, a leader in Conversational AI that enables financial institutions to service, engage and acquire customers via human-like, intelligent virtual assistants. Stephen has over 25 years of experience within the financial services industry. Most recently, Stephen was Chief Innovation Officer at Merlon Intelligence where he leveraged his extensive industry experience to drive the company's product direction, roadmap, and go-to-market strategy. Stephen previously ran product strategy and Marketing at Mantas, a leading financial crimes and compliance solutions company which was acquired by Oracle. He was also in charge of product, field, and corporate marketing for Digital Reasoning, a leader in AI-enabled solutions. Stephen has held leading technology and product positions at Deutsche Bank, JPMC, and CDC Capital where he helped automate front office trading and back office compliance functions.

As Marketing Manager for Appway in North America, Purti works closely with the leadership team to contribute to the strategic expansion roadmap in the North American region. She drives and plans all regional marketing activities including events, content marketing, digital marketing, and lead generation campaigns. Having worked at the intersection of finance and technology for several years, Purti has gained valuable know-how about the challenges that arise when ensuring compliance with KYC activities, and the novel ways to overcome them with the right digital tools. Moreover, Purti has a keen understanding of digital client onboarding and client lifecycle management, particularly in regard to the process orchestration and workflow automation they entail.

Purti holds a BSc in Business Studies from Cass Business School London.

Jerry is the President and co-founder of Smartleaf, a pioneering developer of advanced portfolio rebalancing technology that automates the management of customized, tax-, risk- and expense-sensitive portfolios. Jerry created Smartleaf to enable wealth managers to provide all clients, of all sizes, a level of portfolio management that was once the exclusive preserve of ultra high net worth investors. Smartleaf’s system is used by banks, RIAs, broker dealers and TAMPS to manage over $50B, everything from $5 fractional share equity robo accounts to highly customized, tax-optimized $50mm open architecture UMA accounts.

Before founding Smartleaf, Jerry was a founder and director of Crimson & Brown Associates, which was sold to a division of the Washington Post, providing a tenfold return to its investors. Jerry has Bachelor of Arts degrees in Math and Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin.

Mayank heads the Data Science group at Raymond James. He is a versatile technologist with over 15 years of experience driving innovation through the use of tools from machine learning, applied probability and optimization; and a track record of leading projects that have had significant business, technological and societal impact.

Mayank obtained a B. Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and an M.S./Ph.D. from Stanford University, all in Electrical Engineering. Prior to joining Raymond James, he was with the Mathematical Sciences department at the IBM TJ Watson Research Labs for over a decade, where he worked with both internal and external clients on addressing fundamental problems in business process automation, healthcare analytics, human capital management, energy system control, memory system design and teacher professional development, amongst other focus areas.

At Raymond James, Mayank was brought on to create a Data Science initiative that would enable the company to extract value from its large data sets to solve for various needs of the client, the financial advisor and the home-office. Multiple high-visibility work-streams to address business problems relating to financial times series analysis and forecasting, regulatory analytics, portfolio management, and behavioral modeling are underway to deliver the promise of data science.

Mayank is widely published in the OR and EE literature, and is a co-author on 19 patents. He is a recipient of the “2010 Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research”, and the Applied Probability Society’s “2019 Best Publication in Applied Probability” award, both awarded by INFORMS. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a member of the ACM and INFORMS.