As I mentioned last time, we have been carefully selecting our executive team and continued the trend of 2020 right into the first quarter of 2021. We started the year by adding Celeste Barone, a seasoned private capital executive, in early January and that momentum carried over into February when we announced the addition of Paul Filanowski. Celeste joined the team as Chief Client Officer and President. She brings 25 years of private capital experience with her to help us cultivate our client relationships and oversee our staff development. Growing our professionals and establishing our culture are both critical to our long-term success. Paul Filanowski joined as Director of Business Development. Paul comes to 4Pines with a strong track record of success, but most importantly, he is a cultural fit and truly understands our differentiated approach with people and technology. If you haven’t checked in with Celeste or Paul recently, I encourage you to touch base so you can learn more about 4Pines and our team.
As I mentioned at the start of this blog, we’ve been very busy!! Not just with getting our executive team in place, but we’ve been busy sharing our thoughts with different publications and platforms on a variety of topics. I recorded a fun podcast with Jonathan Watkins @ Global Custodian, which should be out soon. In addition, I’ve written an opinion piece about the value that people, and their relationships offer to the fund admin space. While we can all agree that technology will pave the way in the future, without the right people and culture in place it will be nearly impossible to effectively use /integrate technology that pushes the industry forward. If you want a more in-depth look into the topic then check it out here. Celeste is currently working on one opinion piece and another was just published in Private Funds CFO. I don’t want to spoil it, but let’s just say she’s drawn on 25 years’ experience in the industry to write it. If you want to read go check it out here. And last, but certainly not least, Bob Balfe is just finishing a piece for Enterprise AI that will surely force people to pause and re-think how they’re using technology today. I really liked the use case examples he outlined, and I know many of you will enjoy it too.
Further on the subject of technology, we’ve obviously made a big commitment in terms of people and vision with respect to technology. We’ve been very busy looking at lots of platforms and building certain pieces as we finalize our current tech stack. One major achievement so far has been the launch of our online sub doc platform. A tremendous amount of time and effort has gone into this project and we’re very excited to say we’re live!! If you’re interested in seeing it in action, please do not hesitate to reach out. We’d love to show you our platform.
Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t pause and reflect a bit on the last year we’ve all experienced. Too many challenges to speak of in this space, but we all know them, and our thoughts and prayers go out to those that have suffered in any way. At the end of the day, we’re all in this together and having compassion and empathy for each other is needed now more than ever. That said, I am an optimistic person, and we are starting to see a little light at the end of the tunnel. I’m very much looking forward to the day where I can visit with many of you in person again. While video and chat platforms have done a great job keeping us connected over the last year, as a “people person”, I believe in the power of people and I’m very much looking forward to connecting “in-person” when the time is right.
All the best,
Mike
