FI Breakfast Briefing: Blurring lines and getting deeper with your distributors

Our next New York breakfast briefing will examine the tactics of fund groups looking to take advantage of shifting distribution trends.

The briefing is an excellent way to update your knowledge and understand how your peers in the sector are approaching this vital topic at a time when advisers are reassessing their fund manager relationships and regulators are keeping a close eye on behavior.

Please join Fund Intelligence for a breakfast briefing on October 4 at the Lambs Club in New York.

Members and those interested in Fund Directions, Fund Action, Fund Operations, Compliance Reporter, Private Asset Management and Fund Map are invited to attend.

Agenda:

08:30 Registration & networking breakfast
09:10 Introduction
09:15 Panel discussion
10:00 Questions
10:15 Close

Potential discussion points include:

As wirehouses continue to cut their manager lists, how best do you maintain and deepen your relationships and expand into other channels?
How effective are practice management consultancy services, education/training support and other services when strengthening relationships?
How can you take advantage of the growth of model portfolios, and model of model portfolios. Do you launch your own models or focus on engaging with the distributor’s own solution?
How should firms think about distribution team segmentation and compensation?
With Regulation Best Interest on the horizon will this or other regulatory actions disrupt the landscape and the payments that are allowed between fund groups and their distribution channels?
Looking ahead, are we likely to see a further blurring of the lines between product manufacturing and distribution and what impact could this have on the sector?

Speakers:


Moderator Paul McMillan head of editorial content Fund Intelligence	Rocco Benedetto senior vice president, head of broker- dealer channel OppenheimerFunds, Inc.	Jillian DelSignore CIMA, executive director, head of ETF distribution J.P. Morgan Asset Management	Estee Jimerson Managing director, head of asset manager distribution and engagement Envestnet

Speaker biographies:

Rocco Benedetto, senior vice president, head of broker- dealer channel, OppenheimerFunds, Inc.

Rocco Benedetto leads OppenheimerFunds’ broker-dealer channel. As part of the Distribution Team, Rocco and his team are responsible for leading intermediary sales by delivering investment capabilities, thought leadership and market insights to the firm’s Strategic Accounts, Internal Sales and Learning & Development.

Rocco joined OppenheimerFunds in 1997 as a Regional Sales Representative covering the New York/ New England Region. Within a few years, he was promoted to Sales Manager for the Mid-Atlantic division, and in 2008, he was promoted to Director of Sales. Prior to joining OppenheimerFunds, Rocco began his career at Oppenheimer Capital in New York.

Jillian DelSignore, CIMA, executive director, head of ETF distribution, J.P. Morgan Asset Management

Jillian DelSignore is responsible for leading the sales efforts and strategy in the intermediary and institutional markets. She also currently serves as Co-President of Women in ETFs (WE), the first women’s group for the ETF industry founded in January 2014. WE achieves the mission to connect, support and inspire by organizing events globally that support our goals of education, networking, philanthropy.

Before joining J.P.Morgan in September 2015, Jillian was a Strategic Account Manager within BlackRock’s iShares ETF Institutional Asset Management Group. She was responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with institutional investors, including boutique asset managers, global institutional asset managers, hedge funds and registered investment advisory firms.

Prior to joining iShares in March, 2009, Ms. DelSignore worked in the Independent Advisory Channel of Goldman Sachs Asset Management covering GSAM mutual funds, separate accounts, retirement plans, and alternative investments. She joined Goldman Sachs in 2005. Earlier, Ms. DelSignore worked in both the Institutional Corporate Cash and Global Bank Divisions at Federated Investors from 2000-2005.

Estee Jimerson, managing director, head of asset manager distribution and engagement, Envestnet

Estee Jimerson has over 20 years of industry experience working for both manufacturers and distributors of investment products. At Envestnet, Estee is responsible for all asset management product on the platform, as well as the economic model and engagement between Envestnet and the asset managers distributing through its platform. She also heads up the team responsible for deepening relationships with asset managers across the Envestnet suite of services. Her duties include chairing Envestnet’s managed product acceptance committee, facilitating Envestnet’s strategic engagement with asset managers and advocating industry best practices.

Prior to joining Envestnet, Estee spent eight years at Morningstar Investment Services, where she led the National Accounts team charged with expanding the adoption of Morningstar’s TAMP and managed account solutions across broker-dealers, custodians and platform providers. She has also held relationship management positions with ABN-AMRO and New England Financial. Estee is on the board of MMI, Envestnet Institute on Campus’s Women in Wealth Management, on the mentorship committee of Women in ETFs and is passionate about the advancement of women in financial services. Estee attended Kean University and spent six years in the United States Naval Reserve.