CutterCast: Client Reporting - Using ESG Data

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.

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. 

Bran Pathmanaban brings more than 15 years of financial services industry experience to his current role as a Senior Research Analyst at Cutter Associates. Bran has worked across the buy side and sell side at various firms, including Credit Suisse, Aegon Asset Management, and ABRDN. Most recently, he worked in the Wealth and Asset Management practice of KPMG,where he specialized in ESG. At KPMG, he advised investment managers on the regulatory impacts of ESG, including Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) and Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). Bran focuses on ESG trends and impacts within the wealth and asset management sector and helps clients on their ESG journeys. Bran earned a master’s degree in management from Manchester Business School and an MBA from IE Business School in Madrid, Spain.

Todd is Partner and Global Head of Sustainable Investing & ESG Research with Arabesque whose expertise lies at the intersection of sustainable finance, climate finance, market governance, investment research, and technology. He has worked with global institutional investors across central banks, sovereign wealth funds, state pensions, corporate pensions, foundations, endowments, family offices, and advisors, etc. His passion is on building products (data, models, and investment) that are theoretically motivated by academic and industry research but pragmatic in their design to ensure investors and companies can more quickly transition to a more sustainable form of capitalism – one that accounts for externalities and focuses on people, planetary boundaries, enterprise value creation, and sustainable profits.

Todd attended formal training at Brown University, Harvard University, University of Chicago, and Cornell University in the United States, and secured research fellowships at Oxford University and the Max Planck Society in Europe. He holds a B.Sc. in Finance, Economics, and Philosophy, MA in Socioeconomics, Org Behavior, and Research Methods, and Ph.D. in Socioeconomics, Org Behavior, and Research Methods. He sits on advisory committees at Harvard Business School, Yale University School of Management, and NYU Stern.

Prior Positions

• Head of ESG Research & Development, State Street Global Advisors
• Head of ESG Research, Ethic Investing

• Managing Director of Research, Cornell University
• Postdoctoral Research Scientist, National Science Foundation
• Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Max Planck Society
• Visiting Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Oxford
• Doctoral Research & Teaching Fellow, Brown University

• Doctoral Research & Teaching Fellow, Harvard University
• Research Analyst, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

James Cardamone is VP, Associate Director ESG Product within the Analytics and Trading business unit at FactSet. James works with internal and external stakeholders integrating ESG, Climate risk, and regulatory content to provide comprehensive solutions across the entire Portfolio Lifecycle. James returned to FactSet via the Truvalue Labs acquisition and in his prior role served as Director, Client Solutions. Prior to Truvalue Labs, James spent 5 years at Mackay Shields as Director of Risk Oversight where he focused on enterprise portfolio and risk reporting. James started his career at FactSet spending almost 11 years mainly as a Vice President on the Fixed Income Portfolio Analytics team. James holds a B.S in Finance & Marketing from Lehigh University and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Carl is globally responsible for ESG solutions across all business areas in SimCorp, a leading provider of investment management solutions to the world's largest asset managers, fund managers, asset servicers, pension and insurance funds, wealth managers, central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and treasury. His team works in close partnership with SimCorp's most ambitious clients to further evolve ESG solutions, services, and partnerships that enable SimCorp's clients to meet their long term ESG objectives. Prior to working with ESG and Sustainable Investing, he was responsible for Advanced analytics and modelling of derivatives.

Carl holds a PhD from Technical University of Denmark, an MBA from Henley Business School and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Michael leads the Client Communications Solutions group at SS&C Technologies, a leading global provider of cloud-based services and solutions to the financial services industry. Prior to joining SS&C, Michael was Head of Product & Sales at Varden Technologies where he helped lead the sale of and ultimate integration upon acquisition by SS&C.  Michael was previously Head of Client Reporting at Mesirow Advanced Strategies in Chicago. He has also been a key speaker at several conferences including TSAM Summit & Expo, Performance Measurement, Attribution & Reporting North America and PAICR’s Annual Conference and a member of the NICSA Technology Committee.

Rahul Ravikrishnan is a seasoned product leader at Morningstar focusing on providing best in class investment tools for the Asset & Wealth Management segment. He is currently responsible for driving the integration and adoption of ESG investment analysis and reporting in Morningstar’ flagship product - Morningstar Direct. In addition to his global ESG remit, Rahul is also in charge of driving growth of institutional software for the EMEA region. Prior to this, Rahul oversaw the development of Morningstar Advisor software, rebalancing capabilities and third-party integrations, serving the needs of Registered Independent Advisors across the United States. Rahul has been with Morningstar for over 12 years and holds bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Science in Information Technology from Northwestern University.