Pricing and Profitability Analysis
Improve profitability with the right pricing strategy across products, platforms, and markets.
Consulting
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Boost Your Operating Margins
Cerulli’s data collected on various factors impacting pricing—vehicles, assets under management (AUM), fees, distribution partners, and plan types—can help you optimize pricing and bolster profit margins. Our consultants help our clients deliver strategic pricing adjustments that quickly make a profitable difference.
How We Do It
Data
For more than 30 years, we have captured critical data on the financial services industry and synthesized groundbreaking trends.
Independence
Our ownership structure provides us with an unbiased, objective approach to identifying new market opportunities.
Network
Our vast research network enables us to go to market quickly, testing market assumptions and developing accurate market sizing and sentiment analysis.
Client Success Stories
CASE STUDY
Investment Vehicle Optimization for U.S. Asset Manager
Cerulli was approached by a large U.S.-based asset manager to evaluate the profitability of various vehicle types, the impact of a shift toward fewer asset manager partnerships, discounting practices, and regulatory impact. Cerulli developed a revised pricing framework based on fee benchmarking and client demand for the firm’s institutional strategies, with the goal of optimizing its operating margins for the business line.
CASE STUDY
Fees and Service Benchmarking for U.S. OCIO
A U.S. based OCIO modernized its fees and services to become more competitive with industry peers. Cerulli delivered a revised pricing and services model that is in line with the evolving institutional market demand, enabling it to improve mandate profitability and gain deeper client penetration.
CASE STUDY
Managed Accounts Fee Strategy for U.S. Broker/Dealer
A broker/dealer revisiting its managed account offering engaged Cerulli to review its program-level pricing. Cerulli conducted a thorough pricing analysis through its existing managed account database and extensive research interviews with managed account executives. Based on this research, Cerulli was able to deliver new pricing schedules and recommendations for how to implement them.
Meet Our Consultants
Jared F. Baucom
Managing Director, Global Sales & Marketing
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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
Associate Director
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Andrew Blake
Associate Director
Andrew is a member of Cerulli’s Wealth Management practice, leading coverage of asset manager distribution strategy for products sold through financial advisors. With a focus on the wealth management landscape, Andrew assesses trends related to advisor use of investment products as well as their relationships with clients and varying practice types.
Prior to joining Cerulli Associates, Andrew worked at John Hancock Investment Management and a Boston-area RIA. He has spent over a decade working with financial advisors and researching distribution best practices.
Full biography here.
Asher Cheses
Director
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Asher Cheses
Director
Asher is a member of Cerulli’s Wealth Management practice, specializing in trends that impact high-end advisory firms and high-net-worth investors. In his role, Asher is responsible for leading various strategic consulting engagements within the wealth management practice, focusing on multi-family offices, RIAs, private banks, and trust companies.
Prior to joining Cerulli, Asher worked as an Investment Analyst at a Boston-based multi-family office, where he conducted fund due diligence and portfolio analysis for high-net-worth investors.
Full biography here.
Michele Giuditta, CFA
Director
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Michele Giuditta, CFA
Director
Michele is a director of the Institutional practice and leads research for annual reports and strategic consulting engagements. She specializes in environmental, social, and governance investing and outsourced CIO research.
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, and held 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.
Laura Levesque, CFA
Director
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Laura Levesque, CFA
Director
Laura has over 15 years of institutional investment management industry experience. She is a member of the Institutional practice, where she leads research for two annual reports. Her focuses are institutional investment solutions including OCIO, and sales and services models. Her experience and knowledge of the institutional asset management space provide a directional framework to ongoing consulting projects. She also regularly contributes to The Cerulli Edge series.
Prior to joining Cerulli Associates, Laura held equity research, product, and analytics roles at Columbia Threadneedle and MFS Investment Management. She is a CFA charterholder and member of the CFA Society Boston.
Full biography here.
Shawn O'Brien, CFA
Director
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Shawn O'Brien, CFA
Director
Shawn oversees the Retirement practice at Cerulli Associates. In this role, Shawn oversees and mentors a team of analysts responsible for publishing research on the trends in defined contribution (DC) and IRA markets. Additionally, Shawn provides strategic oversight to Cerulli’s consulting projects focused on opportunities in the retirement space. Shawn frequently speaks at industry summits and conferences. Shawn is also responsible for overseeing the firm’s Data Analytics team.
Prior to joining Cerulli Associates, Shawn was a researcher at Harvard Business School where he co-authored case studies alongside professors Adi Sunderam and Luis M. Viceira focused on investment management for individual and institutional investors. Shawn started his career in investment operations at SSgA where he covered the firm’s equity collective investment trusts and institutional separate accounts.
Full biography here.
Brendan Powers, CFA
Director
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Brendan Powers, CFA
Director
Brendan is a member of Cerulli’s Product Development practice, which focuses on trends related to asset managers’ product development and management functions. This broadly includes assessing the opportunity for product development, evaluating emerging product trends, and understanding distribution and product positioning for investment products across retail and institutional channels.
Prior to joining Cerulli, Brendan worked as a Senior Client Associate at Eaton Vance Management, focusing primarily on the firm’s exchange funds.
Full biography here.
Michael Rose, MST
Director
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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
Director
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Scott Smith
Director
With more than 20 years of financial services industry experience, Scott leads Cerulli’s research efforts focused on investor behavior and advisory relationships. In his time at Cerulli, he has authored more than two dozen in-depth reports on topics ranging from wholesale distribution to digital advice platforms. His research helps Cerulli’s clients understand how to optimize their platforms given the evolving demand for financial advice.
Scott started his career wearing a headset at Putnam Investments’ service center in 1996, before moving to more strategic roles at MFS Investment Management starting in 2000, and then to Cerulli in 2007. In addition, he currently serves as member of the CFP Board’s Digital Advice Working Group, and as a judge for the wealthmanagement.com Industry Awards.
Full biography here.
James Tamposi, CFA
Associate Director
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James Tamposi, CFA
Associate Director
James (Jack) is the lead author of Cerulli’s North American Institutional Markets report and sets the agenda for The Cerulli Edge—U.S. Institutional Edition. Jack has led U.S. market entry strategy and U.S. institutional pricing optimization projects, supporting both foreign and domestic asset managers. During his time at Cerulli, he has contributed to reports across Cerulli’s suite of institutional research, focusing on topics such as insurance general accounts, outsourced chief investment officers, alternative investments, and U.S. subadvisory.
Prior to joining Cerulli, Jack worked as a Research Associate for Chatham Partners.
Full biography here.
Bing Waldert
Managing Director, U.S. Research
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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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