The idea of culture and brand
'Asset management is a people business, so the culture of those people is key.'
Photo credit: City Hive
Good performance on its own is not enough to entice investors anymore. Performance can be ‘good’ but it can also hide a lot of things, including bad investment decision making.
Increasingly so, investors want to understand how an investment company has integrity and strong values embedded into its teams and work processes, to ensure the longevity of outperformance. “Lots of managers have good performance.
What investors want to know is what has driven that good performance and what is going to make that good performance sustainable going forward. Not just what is done, but how it is done,” said Debbie Clarke, former global head of funds research at Mercer and member of the ACT Stewardship Council, speaking at a recent City Hive and Invesco event.
Debbie adds a company’s culture is integral to the values it holds, and throughout her 40-year investment career has always been an important consideration.
“I’ve always believed in culture. Asset management is a people business, so the culture of those people is key.
“Culture is what defines your organisation, it is who you are to the outside world. It is what you want to be seen as. It is created by the people you have working at the organisation.
“Do you keep your staff? Do you deliver for clients? Is it a place with integrity? Does it invest in people in terms of personal development? It’s very important to have your culture well defined and that becomes your brand.”
Strong values at a firm need to be fed through at all levels, not just be a handful of individuals or certain teams.
“You can have a potentially strong bottom-up culture but actually you need strong leadership to pull that culture through the organisation, to have the right time frames, the right incentives,” Debbie said.
“Sometimes that does get lost in the day-to-day running of the business, but you need to focus on demonstrating the company has that positive culture and has that integrity. It needs to stay front of mind.”
To view the full article: https://www.cityhive.co.uk/think-tank/the-idea-of-culture-and-brand
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