Providing currency hedging software and services to institutional clients, Lumint’s highly automated and proprietary technology, independence, and deep industry expertise delivers a transparent, end-to-end overlay service; from design and implementation through to execution and reporting. Our approach and process adds overlay program customization, operational rigor, and transparency to help institutions achieve their currency management objectives at a lower cost, while meeting regulatory challenges. At Lumint, my role is to bring this excellent platform out into the sun, where our competitive advantages can be appreciated. www.lumint.com Lumint. Invest like a Local.

In this role I oversaw the FX Connect relationships with both buy side and sell side, and I was responsible for directing the team to find new business. This was a global team and their expertise made my job easy. The platform was robust, chalk full of feature-functionality, integrated to each customer with bespoke workflows, and backed up by a Product and Technology team that just knew their stuff cold. ...It wasn't all roses. I was involved in KYC clean up projects, re-papering relationships, negotiating fee schedules, and worrying about the ever present competitive landscape. They always pick on number one, and FX Connect was (and is) the one to beat. In my time there, I learned a ton about technology infrastructure, contributed to product development, and worked almost daily on planning for MiFID 2 and FX Connect's conversion the a Multi Lateral Trading Facility, the "FX Connect MTF". I leveraged my previous life in FX Sales to help communicate and enhance the important central role that FX Connect plays to global investors, to introduce the platform to more asset managers, and to hold the line on fee pressures by demonstrating the value and productivity of the platform to those liquidity providers who had once been my competitors.

When it was finally time to move on, I joined State Street's FX Connect platform. Having been a user of the system since 1999, when I'd advocated for it at ABN Amro, I knew the platform well. As a former customer who had paid FX Connect bills, I was asked to use my sell side experience to help FX Connect improve its bank relationships, to help the liquidity providers understand the value proposition of the platform, and to do this from a global perspective. A little less than a year later, I was given responsibility of the buy side customers as well, and tasked with adding new buy sides to the FX Connect eco-system.

In early 2015, I was named Co-Manager of the efforts of thirty-two FX Sales staff globally, a de-facto role I'd had since mid 2013. Along with my excellent colleague in London, I successfully increased market share and profit in all market segments of directly negotiated FX dealing during a very difficult time. I was successful in attracting, developing, and retaining emerging talent, fostering a goal driven sales environment, and building an esprit de corps. I continued to leverage new e-commerce capabilities, automating negotiated dealing with innovative solutions focused on increasing production: not eliminating sales people who had long, hard won relationships. This strategy rebutted the axiom that increased volume is dependent upon additional headcount, or that "relationships don't matter anymore". I orchestrated global road shows with our Research team (both flow research and traditional macro/ fundamental), presenting BNY Mellon on every continent to local and regional investment groups (CFA, Economics Clubs, CAIA), media outlets, and many hundreds of face-to-face meetings. Yes, this role came with compliance and monitoring of staff for Dodd/Frank swap dealer requirements, Credit and Risk limits, on-boarding requirements and homogenization of best practices, globally, but the tough stuff makes talking markets with clients that much more fun.

As a North American Sales Manager, and then later Western Hemisphere, I managed as many as eleven FX Sales staff covering real and alternative asset managers, corporations and supra government agencies, increasing our volumes, and increasing profits. I led our Dodd/Frank efforts, (one of the few people I know who actually read the law) developing compliance and training plans, and implementing them globally. I led the implementation of our customer relationship manager platform (Salesforce), developing FX Sales specific requirements. I was responsible for the Sales perspective for the development of our e-commerce business architecture, including product development, product testing and acceptance, on-boarding, pricing, deal routing, risk transfer, order boards, credit and risk limit monitors, key metrics, and ...the implementation of the plan globally. I did this all, I might add, under the worst possible conditions, working through the politics of a merger, as the world recovered from the Great Recession, and whilst my firm was being publicly lashed in the press on a monthly basis. "The Merger" happened in 2008. I was a member of the merger integration team, attending and contributing to the planning sessions, and supporting the work of the merger consultants. In the new entity, I was made co-manager of North American Sales, apparently proving I'd built a business in Boston worth keeping. I'd initiated the concept of “one desk in two locations” (New York and Boston) and integrated the two teams, (a handy feature to have later during Hurricane Sandy), and thus insured the survival of the BNY Mellon FX Sales desk in Boston to this day. Through the merger, I was able to advocate the Mellon model of “custody agnostic” FX Sales; focused on volume and increasing wallet share, no matter who held custody of the assets, by marketing our product as a Service Delivery Team, with FX Sales, Risk Management, Middle Office and Back Office folks working together.

Although I loved Chicago, and was working with a great team at a top tier bank, Mellon Bank asked me to boomerang and rejoin the Mellon FX Sales team in Boston. I said yes, and having learned so much in Chicago, I hit the ground running with my old firm. I'm not going to lie to you, I barely remember those years, because I traveled every week. I went everywhere. I built a bigger business, which wasn't too easy if you remember the performance of the non-dollar markets during that time. A few years later, I was made head of North American institutional sales.

In early 1999, the good people at ABN Amro in Chicago asked me to join them in Chicago on the FX Sales desk. The job was much the same: find investors who would trade FX with me at a new home. This was a great experience, since unlike a custody bank, the foreign exchange flow at ABN Amro might come from their bond desk, the equity desk, derivatives, or from their fairly decent corporate business. Cross selling was well taught there, so many of my prospective sales calls were with people selling other asset classes. Brilliant! Working at ABN introduced me to the real size of the FX market. Billions were priced at a clip. The forward trades were immense, and it was during this time that I was schooled in the use of balance sheet, and how to monetize it. The trades were even bigger at the home office in Amsterdam. I was fortunate enough to be there when the new ABN Amro building was opened by the first President of the European Central Bank, Wim Duisenberg. (Alas, this was before selfies, so no pic to share). I was with ABN Amro just a bit more than a year. Boston was calling.

I joined Mellon Bank a few months after Mellon bought The Boston Company, and its custodial entity, Boston Safe Deposit and Trust. Mellon was diversifying away from traditional bank lending into fee based financial services, and this purchase gave them custodial and asset management footholds. The job? FX Sales. Become a liquidity provider to asset managers by leveraging whatever custodial connection they had with Mellon Bank. I hit the road, shaking hands with every asset manager who would see me. By 1995, I had gold status with two airlines, and a new list of customers.

I started my career at Putnam Investments manning the phones or processing new accounts; punching-in between studying and playing baseball at UMass Boston. I was a mediocre ball player, so it was fortunate that I was hired at Putnam full time after I graduated. I made my way up to the back office and then to the front office, working in the Global Fixed Income group under the late, great bond investor, Mark Turner.