I’ve written in the past on how the investing industry is overdue for innovation. I’m now launching a research project to better understand the emerging investment opportunities. We are seeking Partner-level investment professionals at hedge funds, mutual funds, VCs, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, family offices, and other institutional investors to interview for this research project.
My co-authors are Katina Stefanova (former senior executive at Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund) and Brent Beardsley (the global head of wealth and asset management at the Boston Consulting Group). We tentatively plan to publish our results in the Harvard Business Review, Institutional Investor, Forbes, and other leading media where we have published our past research. You can learn more about our research project at our new site, DisruptInvesting.com . We’re not aware of anyone else – either investors or academics – who has conducted any formal research on this topic in a comprehensive way.
If you’d like to participate, contact McPhillips.Jen(@)BCG.com, our research coordinator, with your name, title, company, professional biography, location, and time slots when you are available for a meeting or call and one of our co-authors will reach out to you. We are interviewing sources continuously until March 31, 2015. Our team travels frequently and may be able to meet you in person, depending on logistics.
Specific questions we’d like to explore:
– What trends do you see impacting the asset management industry?
– If you would identify the most important “job” investors hire money managers to do, what would that be? (e.g., maximize returns, inflation protection, diversification, target sector exposure, etc.
– Who are the best providers at executing each of those jobs?
– What would you change about the providers whom you hire if you could?
– What challenges do you worry about? How are you making sure you remain competitive as the industry evolves?
– What do you view as the greatest white space for entrepreneurs in the asset management industry?
– Who do you think is effectively building innovative businesses in asset management, and disrupting the industry in the classic Clay Christensen sense of the word?
The opinions expressed in this research project, paper, and at DisruptInvesting.com are mine alone and do not represent the views of ff Venture Capital, any other employee thereof, or of any other institution with which I am affiliated.
