Angela Centeno, CPA
Senior Research Lead
Angela Centeno has more than 25 years of experience in financial services. Prior to joining Cutter in 2015, Angela worked for The Northern Trust Company in multiple roles including sourcing and procuring enterprise market data, investment operations outsourcing, and vendor and custodian relationships. She previously held senior positions in operations management, project management, data management, and solutions implementation. Angela earned a bachelor of science in accounting and a bachelor of science in business administration from the University of Kansas, as well as an MBA in finance from DePaul University. She is a registered CPA.
Recent research assignments and publications include the following:
- AI Use Cases in Investment Management: Infinite Possibilities
- Alternative Investments
- Client Reporting Systems
- Cutter Benchmarking: Alternative Investments
- Cutter Benchmarking: Derivatives and Collateral Management
- Cutter Benchmarking: Firmwide ESG Capabilities
- Derivatives and Collateral Management Solutions
- ESG Data Management
- ESG: It’s a Jungle Out There ─ A Look at the Data Provider Landscape
- ESG Investing: One Vision, Many Lenses
- Market Data Administration
- Private Debt
Alijah Poindexter
Senior Research Analyst
Alijah Poindexter is an experienced professional in financial services research and consulting, with a background spanning banking, healthcare, asset management, and fintech. He joined Cutter Associates in 2025, where he supports the firm’s research initiatives with a focus on research production and design, analysis, and content development. He has co-authored reports on investment data platforms, data management, and investment management trends. Prior to Cutter, Alijah was a senior research associate at Datos Insights, producing market research on commercial banking, digital payments, and healthcare payments. He also led multiple client consulting engagements, delivering strategic, data-centric advisory work. Earlier in his career, he served as associate editor at Bank Automation News, where he focused on banking coverage and industry events, and held program and research analyst roles. Alijah earned his BBA from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.
This report analyzes investment management firms' responses to the 2026 Investment Operations and Staffing member survey covering Operations organization and structure, functions and staffing, relationships, and budget and spending practices.
“How do we compare with similar firms?”
We hear this question a lot from our Cutter Associates’ clients. Operations leaders want to know how their staffing levels and organizational frameworks compare with those of others in the industry. But it’s a hard question to answer, since no two firms are identical. How much money do you manage? What types of assets do you manage? What’s the profile of your client base? How much of the Operations function is outsourced? All of these factors affect the answer. This report gathers data and metrics comparing firms’ Investment Operations staffing levels and organizational structures to help firms understand how they compare with those of their peers