Competitive Benchmarking and Optimization

Optimize your product and solution offerings, service models, pricing, and distribution strategies. Learn how we can help you better allocate resources, pursue strategic opportunities, and maximize client relationships.

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Jared F. Baucom

Jared F. Baucom

Managing Director, Global Sales & Marketing

Boston HQ +1 617.437.0084

Why Cerulli Associates

Enhance Your Market Position

Improve your competitive position with Cerulli’s objective and unparallelled knowledge of the U.S. asset and wealth management markets and their key constituents. Compare your products, services, pricing and resources with those of the broad marketplace, as well as key competitors, to optimize your business. Learn more about Cerulli's advantages:

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Data

For more than 30 years, we have captured critical data on the financial services industry and synthesized groundbreaking trends.

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Independence

Our ownership structure provides us with an unbiased, objective approach to identifying new market opportunities.

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Network

Our vast research network enables us to go to market quickly, testing market assumptions and developing accurate market sizing and sentiment analysis.

Consulting in Action

Client Success Stories

We provide our clients with the results they need to secure their competitive advantage.

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CASE STUDY

Advisory Solution Strategy for Global Bank

Cerulli strengthened the competitive positioning for a global private bank, analyzing its advisory service model and platform capabilities against key competitors and delivering recommendations to retain and grow assets. Cerulli’s team evaluated its technology and digital offering, advisor support tools, investment and product capabilities, and advisory fees.

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CASE STUDY

Retirement/Wealth Platform Plan for U.S. Wealth Manager

A leading U.S. wealth manager, focused on retirement assets, sought to grow their advisory experience through benchmarking fees and key platform features. Cerulli’s team identified leading capabilities of key competitors to develop a roadmap for the business, which prioritized the most impactful features.

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CASE STUDY

Brand Awareness and Competitor Analysis for U.S. Custodian

A large custodian engaged Cerulli to better understand how its U.S. RIA custody offering compares to key entrenched competitors and emerging competitors. The Cerulli team developed a taxonomy of custodial capabilities (e.g., trading, rebalancing, money movement) and leveraged its proprietary Advisor Research Collaborative (ARC) to conduct a custom survey of RIAs. Cerulli delivered perceptional findings on core capabilities, as well as brand awareness metrics.

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CASE STUDY

Fee Benchmarking Strategy for U.S. OCIO Provider

A boutique outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) provider sought to benchmark its business against the OCIO space at large, as well as close competitors. Cerulli’s benchmarking analysis included a thorough and complete vetting of the OCIO landscape, resulting in the identification of 13 peers (i.e., a targeted peer group). In addition to building a profile of competitors’ business offerings, Cerulli conducted a fee benchmarking analysis (both of published fees and actual/negotiated fees paid). The Cerulli analysis also included the representative asset allocation of peers and the representative performance of peers, allowing the client to bring published and negotiated fees into context and further hone in on its pricing strategy.

Subject Matter Experts

Meet Our Consultants

Jared F. Baucom

Jared F. Baucom

Managing Director, Global Sales & Marketing

Bio →

Jared F. Baucom

Jared F. Baucom

Managing Director, Global Sales & Marketing

Jared is responsible for global sales, business development, and client service, including oversight of and coordination with the marketing team.

Prior to joining Cerulli, Jared worked as an equity analyst at Baring Asset Management, where he was responsible for the U.S. Utilities sector and also contributed to the U.S. Industrials sector. Prior to Barings, Jared spent two years at State Street Bank.

Full biography here.

Andrew Blake

Andrew Blake

Associate Director

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Andrew Blake

Andrew Blake

Associate Director

Andrew is an Associate Director in the Wealth Management practice. He specializes in asset manager distribution strategies for products sold through financial advisors and is the author of The Cerulli Report—U.S. Intermediary Distribution. Before joining Cerulli Associates, he gained distribution experience at several firms, including Manulife John Hancock Investments. He also authored The Cerulli Report—U.S. Advisor Metrics, which explores trends in advisor practices, such as the use of investment products, client relationships, fees charged, and service offerings.

In his role, Andrew is also responsible for various strategic consulting engagements, focusing on key areas such as growth strategies, practice management, service expansion, M&A due diligence, product development, and distribution strategies.

Full biography here.

Asher Cheses

Asher Cheses

Director

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Asher Cheses

Asher Cheses

Director

Asher is a Director in the Wealth Management practice, specializing in research and consulting related to high-net-worth investors and advisory firms, including multi-family offices, RIAs, broker/dealers, private banks, and trust companies. As the co-head of Cerulli’s Wealth Management practice, Asher leads a team of analysts dedicated to developing data and insights to support Cerulli’s published research and consulting business. In his role, Asher is also responsible for leading various strategic consulting engagements, focusing on key areas including growth strategies, practice management, service expansion, M&A due diligence, product development, and distribution strategies.

Full biography here.

Michele Giuditta, CFA

Michele Giuditta, CFA

Director

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Michele Giuditta, CFA

Michele Giuditta, CFA

Director

Michele is a director in the Institutional practice, specializing in research and consulting related to institutional investors and third-party allocators, including defined benefit plans, endowments, foundations, insurance companies, healthcare organizations, investment consultants, and outsourced chief investment officers (OCIOs). As the co-head of Cerulli’s Institutional practice, Michele leads research for annual reports and strategic consulting engagements. During her tenure at Cerulli, Michele’s research has covered topics including investment consultants and OCIOS, responsible investing, alternative investments, and institutional distribution trends.

Prior to joining Cerulli Associates, Michele worked at Cambridge Associates as an Associate Director in the Client Relationship Management Group. Additionally, she worked at Manulife Asset Management in the Institutional Investment Sales & Services Group, holding roles in Product Management and Client Relationship Management. She began her career as an analyst in the Investment Policy & Research Group at John Hancock.

Full biography here.

Brendan Powers, CFA

Brendan Powers, CFA

Director

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Brendan Powers, CFA

Brendan Powers, CFA

Director

Brendan is co-head of Cerulli’s Product Development and Institutional practices.

The Product Development practice focuses on trends related to asset managers’ product strategy, development, and management functions. This broadly includes assessing the opportunity for product line expansion, evaluating emerging product trends, assessing optimal pricing strategy, and understanding distribution and product positioning for investment products across retail and institutional channels.

The Institutional practice specializes in research and consulting related to institutional asset owners, including defined benefit plans, endowments, foundations, insurance companies, and healthcare organizations as well as third-party allocators including consultants and outsourced chief investment officers (OCIOs).

Full biography here.

Michael Rose, MST

Michael Rose, MST

Director

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Michael Rose, MST

Michael Rose, MST

Director

Michael is a director within Cerulli’s Wealth Management practice, where he researches key elements of the wealth management industry, with an emphasis on broker/dealers and wealth management technology. In this capacity, he regularly engages with constituents across the wealth management ecosystem, including retail investors, financial advisors, and executives within wealth management, asset management, and technology firms, in order to support Cerulli’s market research initiatives.

Prior to joining Cerulli, Michael spent eight years working as a financial advisor, providing comprehensive wealth management services to high-net-worth individuals and families. Prior to his role as a financial advisor, Michael served as a research analyst for IDC, where he was responsible for researching trends within the technology industry and advising senior business executives on product strategy.

Full biography here.

Scott Smith

Scott Smith

Senior Director

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Scott Smith

Scott Smith

Senior Director

As the Senior Director of Advice Relationships, Scott leads Cerulli's coverage of fee-based managed accounts and investors' engagement preferences. With more than 25 years of wealth management experience, Scott adds valuable context and perspective in assisting Cerulli's clients with optimizing their advisors' and investors' platform experiences, given the evolving demand for financial advice.

During his tenure at Cerulli, Scott’s research and consulting work has covered the full spectrum of wealth management topics, from product development and wholesale distribution to portfolio management and comprehensive financial planning.

Full biography here.

James Tamposi, CFA

James Tamposi, CFA

Associate Director

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James Tamposi, CFA

James Tamposi, CFA

Associate Director

James (Jack) is an Associate Director in the Institutional practice, specializing in research and consulting related to institutional asset owners – including defined benefit plans, endowments, foundations, insurance companies, and healthcare organizations – and third-party allocators such as consultants and outsourced chief investment officers (OCIOs). Having contributed to reports across Cerulli’s suite of institutional research, he is the lead author of Cerulli’s North American Institutional Markets report, and he leads a team of analysts dedicated to developing data and insights to support Cerulli’s published research and consulting business. Supporting the firm’s consulting business, Jack has led institutional market entry strategy and pricing optimization projects for U.S. and non-U.S. asset managers.

Jack serves as President and Treasurer for the Massachusetts Air & Space Museum, a non-profit focused on fostering education through the preservation of aviation history. Prior to joining Cerulli, Jack worked as a Research Associate for Chatham Partners.

Full biography here.

Bing Waldert

Bing Waldert

Managing Director, U.S. Research

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Bing Waldert

Bing Waldert

Managing Director, U.S. Research

Bing Waldert leads Cerulli’s U.S. Research team comprising seven research practices that cover all elements of the U.S. asset management, wealth management, and retirement markets. He has authored Cerulli reports on the wealth management industry, high-net-worth market, the annuity industry, and retirement markets. He is a frequent board-level and C-suite speaker and well-regarded industry thought leader. He has spoken in front of the Investment Company Institute (ICI), the Asset Management Association of China (AMAC), the Investments and Wealth Institute (IWI), and the Money Management Institute (MMI).

He has worked on client projects on emerging manager expansion strategies, independent registered investment advisors (RIAs), multi-family offices (MFOs), investment platforms, and the outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) industry. In addition, he has advised multiple private equity firms on acquisitions in the wealth management space.

Full biography here.

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SOLUTIONS BY FIRM TYPE

Firms We Help

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Asset Managers

We help institutional and retail asset managers globally understand how and where to expand in an increasingly competitive and fee-compressed environment. Learn how we can help you with your product development and distribution initiatives.

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Wealth Management

What products, services, and pricing models will gather and retain investor assets? Cerulli will provide you with the strategic direction you need to help your advisors scale their businesses and help investors achieve better outcomes.

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Private Market Firms

Cerulli can help you with each stage of the investment lifecycle—investment due diligence, management of portfolio companies, and product development and distribution into the wealth management industry.

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Financial Technology

Cerulli can help you innovate toward the future with comprehensive market sizing and addressability for your services, insight into asset and wealth management trends that impact your business, and technology adoption analysis.

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