Vendor View: Turning Investment Data Into Content

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.

Neil Sheehan brings more than eight years of experience in the financial services industry prior to his research and consulting role at Cutter Associates. Neil has been involved in several system selection projects while at Cutter. His experience includes supporting the documentation of requirements, building and managing the RFP processes, and completing due diligence calls. Prior to joining Cutter in 2021, Neil was an analyst in the wealth management group at Celent, a division of Oliver Wyman. At Celent, he contributed to the wealth management team’s global research agenda, supporting advisory relationships with clients and completing and delivering on consulting engagements.

Prior to Celent, Neil was a business analyst in fintech product development at Brown Brothers Harriman, where he was responsible for business analysis and management of client-driven projects, research to support key business initiatives, and maintenance and​ implementation of products and solutions. Prior to that role, Neil served as a supervisor within the Investor Services Group at Brown Brothers Harriman.

Neil earned his bachelor’s degree in finance, with a minor in economics, from Providence College. ​

Thusith Mahanama is the co-founder and CEO of Assette, a Boston-based fintech company that helps asset management firms turn investment data into content by automating the creation, review and delivery of engaging, data-rich sales and client content. Thusith began his asset management career at Frontier Capital. There, he saw an opportunity to leverage technology advances to improve the way investment management firms communicate with clients. In 1998, he launched Assette and has been helping firms dramatically improve content and service, boost productivity and eliminate costly and error-prone manual efforts ever since.

Alistair Smith is a client relationship director in Baillie Gifford’s Digital Client Service Group. Having previously looked after clients in Asia he is now focused on working across the business to help make Baillie Gifford world class at digital servicing. Alistair joined Baillie Gifford as an investment analyst in 2006, having previously worked as a corporate finance lawyer in Edinburgh. Alistair graduated LLB from the University of Glasgow in 1998 and LLM in International Law from The Australian National University in 2000.