State Street Corp. Is Building Out Its Outsourcing Service Along With Its Client Portal
State Street Corp. State Street Financial Center One Lincoln St. Boston, MA 02111
SIZE OF FIRM:
More than $10.7 trillion in assets under custody and $1.5 trillion in assets under management as of March 31, 2005.
PREVIOUS POSITIONS:
Bank of Boston, head and deputy auditor of the mutual fund custody division.
EDUCATION:
B.A. with honors from Harvard University; M.B.A. from Bentley College.
WHO WAS YOUR MENTOR?
My first boss, John Stucke, who was the corporate auditor at the old Bank of Boston. He taught me the discipline of working independently yet collaboratively. Those management skills have been uppermost in my career success. I've been able to have an opinion and have strength in my convictions, yet work across teams in business effectively.
The other is Ron Logue, now CEO of State Street. He influenced my career choices, getting me the right opportunities at the right time so I could work across the organization in a broader context.
WHAT WORK EXPERIENCE HAS HAD THE MOST LASTING IMPRESSION ON YOUR CAREER?
Running the U.S. custody business for State Street, because it's such an important business for the bank. We had a mandate to grow the business, improve profitability and manage a new set of products. It was very challenging, but we were successful, so it was rewarding.
Top 3 Current Projects
Build Out Outsourcing Infrastructure
Objective:
Continue to build out the IMS Enterprise System, our back-office platform that we offer to other companies as an outsourced service. This year we're building out the actual technology, including portfolio accounting applications, data warehouse applications and Linux applications, and making them part of our core infrastructure.
Client Portal
Objective:
Develop the next evolution of Mystatestreet.com, our online interactive client portal through which we provide reports and interactive information that allow customers to do their jobs more readily.
Evolving Custody and Fund Accounting Platform
Objective:
Take eHorizon, a platform built in the 1990s, and create a blueprint to evolve it to Web services and a component-based architecture. There will be early deliverables this year to prove the concept, and we will be creating pilots with the operations unit.
2007 Initiatives
IMS Platform
Convert large investment management clients onto our new IMS platform.
eHorizon
Continue the development of eHorizon for fund accounting and custody.
Infrastructure and Data Center Blueprint
Study and plan a technology blueprint for what our infrastructure and data center will look like in the next three years with an eye toward consolidating, improving capacity and lowering costs.
Vitals
IT Budget:
About 25 percent of State Street's total operating expenses are earmarked for the IT budget.
Key Technology Management:
- Richard Ross, SVP,
- Albert Jerry Cristoforo, EVP,
- Keith Dennelly, CTO, State Street Global Advisors,
- Sharon Donovan-Hart, EVP,
- Madge Meyer, EVP,
- Brian Walsh, EVP,
- Mike Williams, EVP,
- Ronald Strout, SVP
Size of Technology Team:
3,400 globally; 1,300 offshore developers.
Percent of IT Projects Outsourced:
About 21 percent of our development staff is outsourced.
Key Technology Partners:
IBM, Hewlett-Packard, EMC, Sun and Microsoft.
Success Metrics:
We have a corporate project management office that works with the business to identify the business case for a project. It then measures performance in terms of budget, effort and time line. We don't do a post-implementation audit -- it's a matter of priorities.
Would your firm consider partnering with other IM firms?
We have a history of partnerships. For the right opportunity, we might look at partnering.
In Europe, in particular, we see the need to address the large unfunded pension liabilities. They're a continued disruption to the business model for a lot of financial services providers, which are looking to partner and outsource with firms like us to provide more of those services. On the technology front, we see the convergence of voice and data -- how we harness that for business is going to be particularly intriguing over the next few years.
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