By John Pettit, CTO, Backstop Solutions
I recently spoke at the OPAL Public Funds East Summit on the topic of digital transformation, a trend we've noticed a tremendous pressure on public funds to embrace. As a CIO of a public pension, you’re wrestling with the explosive growth of both qualitative and quantitative data, resource and funding constraints, asset complexity, and the need to overcome information silos.
There’s a common misperception across many organizations that “change” is some sort of discrete event or initiative, or maybe a single project or checklist of items.
The Opal Financial Group’s annual public funds conference is an important – and unique – event. The two-day gathering addresses the vital challenges and biggest opportunities public pension fund officers and trustees face today, in the form of dialogue-driven panel discussions.
Our Vice President of Product Management, Adam Hoit, recently participated in a panel of emerging Private Equity Managers at the PartnerConnect Midwest event here in Chicago on June 26-27, an event marred by inclement weather at O’Hare, which resulted in lower than usual attendance. In case you were one of those diverted to a neighboring airport, we thought we’d recap Adam’s insights captured from his panel session, titled, “Don't Neglect the Back Office: Step-by-Step Instructions on How to Set Up the Critical Functions of Your New Firm.”
We’re back with our “Big Ideas from BUC” series – we didn’t want anyone to miss out on the insights from BUC 2018 just because they couldn’t be physically present. Today, we’re sharing the big ideas that came out of our panel, “The Burning Issues Facing Pension Investment Professionals Today,” featuring portfolio executives from both public and corporate plan sponsors.
