With FundForum 2017 only a week away, we asked some of our key speakers what important conversations they are most looking forward to having with more than 1400 of their industry peers in Berlin.
Jim McCaughan, CEO, Principal Global Investors
"Since the most influential people in Global Asset Management will be at FundForum I look forward to hearing ideas about what capabilities will be in demand and how we can do more business by better satisfying the needs of fund distributors and investors. It is also a great gathering to hear about the risks we face, which are likely to continue to be dominated by a changing political and regulatory environment."
Jim McCaughan will be taking part in the panel discussion, Finding yield among the investment shockwaves of 2017.
Euan Munro, CEO, Aviva Investors
"I am looking forward to exploring the opportunities and dangers for our industry in a world where nationalistic economic policies appear to be winning favour over the view that global trade combined with economic specialisation will create the greatest common good. I am also interested in exploring which parts of our business are most ripe for technological disruption."
Euan Munro will be taking part in the panel discussion, Resetting Europe's business model around the end customer's investment outcome: challenges and solutions in the light of Mifid II.
Paolo Sironi, FinTech Thought Leader at IBM Watson Financial Services
"Regulation is progressively eroding the asymmetry of information and forcing the industry to face strong polarisation with compression of margins: on one side, commoditised beta-driven investment offers (eg. passive investment, robo-advisors), on the other side the search for new sources of Alpha Time and Relationship Gamma within the investment offer (eg. sentiment analytics, discontinuous trading, goal-based investing). I am eager to discuss which strategic initiative manufacturers and distribution networks must take to transform successfully out of existing models of product-centric profitability."
Paolo Sironi will be moderating the panel discussion, What does the product or solution look like that justifies a fee?
Dr Oliver Roll, Founder of 4AlphaDrivers
"As always at FundForum International, I am looking forward to many stimulating 'cross-border' discussions. Given the political unsettledness we are in this year, I am also hoping to find evaluations of the implications without blinders, and what they demand of clear-sighted asset owners."
Oliver Roll will be moderating the panel discussion Institutional investors: what are the emerging allocation models for Europe’s top institutional investors?
Oren Kaplan, Co-Founder at SharingAlpha
"I look forward to discussing the idea of using a user generated rating platform to rate funds and the importance of building a proven track record in terms of both fund selection and asset allocation."
Oren Kaplan will be taking part in the working group, making the digitalisation of fund selection work in your favour: building your profile like Amazon.
Clive Hale, Director at FundCalibre Ltd
"I am looking forward to putting forward the case for active managers, and looking and whether we are being regulated out of business. Considering the global political situation right now, i'm also looking forward to discussing the future of the euro post-french elections, and assessing how Trump is getting on."
Clive Hale will be taking part in the fund buyers workshop Building portfolios to make the international evidence work in your favour.
Note: This article was originally published on 22nd February, 2017