At the InvestOps Europe conference, speakers from Vanguard and BlackRock described the role of operations as increasingly strategic.

“I really hope that, starting in 2020, this is the decade where operations becomes sexy,” said Vanguard’s head of global investment operations James Kearney, as reported by Global Custodian.

“Investment managers have found all the alpha they could find, this is the battleground where you are going to be able to make things better.”

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Letting people rotate

On stage was simultaneously Lou Rosato, global investment operations strategy and industry engagement at BlackRock, who said he is looking to train his firm’s team across the front-, middle- and back-office, to provide it with an end-to-end picture of the investment process.

“The simple thing to do – which we do – is rotate people into different roles. We’re very proud that we have high performers that go across these different activities and functions,” he said.