CutterCast: Maturing Data Governance

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.

Arnie Wachs, Head of Consulting at Cutter Associates, brings extensive business and technical knowledge to the role, with over 30 years of investment management industry experience. Arnie advises clients on their strategic technology direction, data governance practices, trading platforms and practices, portfolio management tools, and operational organization, as well as data management architecture, tools, and practices. He has extensive experience working for investment management firms, financial software vendors, and consulting firms, in roles that included business analyst, developer, system architect, development management, project management, product management, sales, and executive positions. He has a deep understanding of investment management system use and design. He also leads the firm’s Technology and Architecture practice.

Prior to joining Cutter, Arnie worked for ITG, where he led the product management efforts for the development of the next-generation OEMS platform. Prior roles include Head of Equity Systems at BlackRock Solutions, Senior Product Manager at Charles River Development, and Vice President at Fidelity Investments, where he designed and developed the firm’s global trading platforms. Arnie also led efforts at State Street Global Advisors to create an enterprise-wide, cross-asset class security and benchmark master. He holds a Bachelor of Science in physics from Clarkson University.

Larry is the global head of the data governance, data architecture and data strategy functions at Allianz Global Investors. In addition, he is the product owner of the firm’s Data Access Layer, a cloud-enabled platform being built with the goal of globalizing and democratizing Allianz Global Investors’ data. In this role, Larry is also involved in the deployment of data catalog, data virtualization and data visualization solutions. In conjunction, Larry is focused on leading the firm’s transformation towards an entrepreneurial, data-driven culture based on self-service and use of data as a strategic asset. Larry began his career with Accenture and has been with Allianz Global Investors since 1996 with an emphasis on the implementation of business-facing technology and data solutions supporting Investments, Operations, Distribution, Client Service and Marketing.

Sylvain Pendaries is a senior leader with over 25 years of experience in major Financial Services organizations (sell-side & buy-side) with Data and Technology executive experience.

He is the Global Head of the Enterprise Data Office for Janus Henderson Investors, a global Investment Management firm, where he leads all initiatives pertaining to Data Governance, Data Architecture and Data Strategy.

Prior to joining Janus Henderson, Sylvain held several executive Data roles at Franklin Templeton, PSP and CDPQ, all Investment firms in the USA and Canada. As a consultant, he also advised many CEOs and COOs on their data organization, strategy, governance processes and data operations.

Sylvain also worked in technology executive positions as Chief Information Officer for CDC Ixis North America (Natixis CIB) in New York and Société Générale (SG) in New York and Paris.

Sylvain received his DEA (Post-Graduate) in Artificial Intelligence from Pierre & Marie Curie University in Paris, France. He holds a Master’s Degree and Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Paris VII University.

Mark is responsible for directing Federated Hermes’ Enterprise Data Office, defining and overseeing enterprise data governance policies, procedures, and practices, as well as actively working with the firm’s information technology and business units on the implementation of Federated Hermes’ Enterprise Data Strategy.

Mark joined Federated Hermes (then Federated Investors) Information Technology organization in January 1995, serving in a variety of IT management roles until his transition to Enterprise Data Officer in April 2019. Prior to joining Federated, Mark worked for 3 years as Software Manager for GSI Transcomm (since acquired by Adonix and then Sage X3), a logistics and distribution software vendor. Mark began his career with Innovative Systems, then a specialized vendor of banking CIS (customer information systems) name and address maintenance software, working for 7 years in various positions of increasing responsibility ranging from Programmer/Analyst to Client Service Manager and finally Internal Systems Manager.

Mark graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1985 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems and Industrial Management. He returned to Carnegie-Mellon to attend the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (now the Tepper School of Business), earning a Master of Sciences in Industrial Administration degree in 1992.