Aquest Podcast Daniel Lawlor

How FS and professional services firms develop an effective business strategy is the topic for this episode of The Aquest Podcast.  My guest is Annette Mahon who is a commercial strategy and business development consultant working exclusively with service providers and financial/fund services businesses.

We chat about Annette’s journey into the funds industry and her observations as someone coming fresh to the industry. 

We discuss how FS firms go about devising and deploying a business strategy to win and retain customers, keep existing staff happy and entice new employees.  Annette shares insights on what the best firms do well and how others can catch up. 

We also chat about what business strategy means for an Irish FS business that is part of an international firm – and how to plan the ideal agenda for a visit from HQ’s CEO!

Many thanks to Annette for her thoughts and advice.  Enjoy!

On this episode of the Aquest Podcast I’m joined by Adrian Mulryan, CEO of Invesco Investment Management to talk about ETFs (mostly!).

We begin by reflecting on the predictions made by Adrian the last time he came on the podcast in 2018.  His predictions were pretty accurate, to be fair, and he wasn’t shy about reminding me either.

We go on to chat about the continued growth of ETFs, both in terms of assets under management and product range.  We take quite an in-depth look at ESG ETFs and how investors are driving strong inflows here.  We also chat about product innovations, active ETFs and speculate on the tokenization of ETFs. 

Let’s see how accurate these predictions prove to be in 2029!  Enjoy

It’s time to get techie on the Aquest Podcast and who better to guide us through the intersection of technology and financial services than Dáire Lawlor, MD at tech advisory firm Interwoven.  

We chart the growing use and integration of technology in financial services firms from the early 2000s (when tech integration was patchy at best) through the global financial crisis in 2008 (which brought a deluge of new reporting and compliance obligations) and up to DORA (the Digital Operational Resilience Act) which comes into effect on 17 Jan 2025.

It’s a lot of ground to cover but it does help explain how we’ve arrived at DORA and what DORA is intended to achieve.  We also chat about the types of challenges firms are facing when implementing DORA - particularly from a critical third-party service provider perspective.

We conclude by considering the board’s role in governance and oversight of the use of ICT and the associated risks. 

Many thanks to Daire for sharing his insights on this episode.  Enjoy!

In this ‘Director’s Chair’ episode of the Aquest Podcast I’m joined by Syl O’Byrne who has many years’ experience as a financial services lawyer, both in private practice and industry.

We begin by chatting about Syl’s pathway to becoming an INED and his observations on the current funds landscape generally.

We also chat about the impact of the Individual Accountability Framework from a director’s perspective and the balance between collective responsibility and individual accountability.  We discuss the regulatory burden and barriers to entry and speculate about getting the cost/benefit balance right. 

We wrap up by discussing some of the specific topics on a director’s radar such as SFDR, DORA, valuations, outsourcing and governance.

So it’s fair to say that there is plenty to occupy the minds of our INED community.  Enjoy!

With the new EMIR REFIT (the revamp of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation) reporting requirements kicking-off on 29 April 2024, I’m joined by 2x EMIR REFIT experts to chat about what changes are being introduced and how firms are coping with implementation.

Aoife Storey (Client Solutions Manager) and Gerard Gilsenan (Chief Revenue Office) of Fund Recs join me and share their insights and expertise on the challenges with implementing EMIR REFIT, emerging market practices and governance frameworks.  We also chat about the importance of good quality data from a regulator’s perspective and how tech solutions can help firms manage oversight of enormous amounts of reported data. 

And we also have Aoife’s top tips for firms who are not there yet!  Enjoy

In this episode of the Aquest Podcast I catch up with Ann Shiels, sustainability expert with Finlexsus. Ann appeared on the show in May 2022 and I was interested to get her take on developments in market practices and regulations on ESG in the interim.

We chat about SFDR 1.5/2.0, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the regulation of ESG rating agencies and the current Common Supervisory Action on SFDR compliance. We also discuss whether some of the steam has gone out of the ESG movement and whether the pending revision of SFDR is causing investor confusion leading to ESG fund outflows.

So, in a nutshell, there has been plenty of activity in the ESG space since Ann last appeared on the Aquest Podcast in 2022!!