Michele Willis Email & Phone Number

Hartford, Ct, Us

Hartford, Connecticut, United States

Responsibility for the day-to-day management of the EAIC platform, in collaboration with the entire Investment Product team, serving as the subject matter expert for the investment strategist/director, client-facing and sales teams when required. More specifically focused on Day One Funds and other asset allocation separate accounts offered by Empower.Manage ongoing relationships with Investment Managers including negotiation sub-advisory terms and fees, leveraging the broader enterprise scale and knowledge of the competitive landscape.Work in partnership with investment analysts, Compliance and Law teams to perform the investment oversight function for all EAIC funds, including Target Date, Target Risk, guaranteed and single-asset class options.Collaborate with the Data & Reporting teams to oversee production, maintenance and updating of the internal and client-facing reports we use to run our business.Support data preparation and analysis for relevant governance bodies, presenting to senior leaders across the enterprise and with 3rd-party partners.

Hartford, Connecticut, United States

Manage business critical vendor relationships, monitor their performance, and escalate issues as needed and identified by the business.Oversee $3.5 million annual vendor spend while consistently looking for opportunities to reduce spending and ensure the right relationships are established to effectively support relative business activities. Renegotiate terms with vendors to ensure best pricing, tailored to services actively being utilized only.Oversee all investment related strategic initiatives. Manage teams of subject matter experts (SMEs) to ensure each initiative has the right people involved and oversee the evolution of each project from business requirements development through implementation. Facilitate organizational readiness through engaging business partners such as Law, Compliance, Risk, Technology, Product Managers, Finance, Client Facing , and Vendors as needed, to appropriately manage the initiatives. This ensures that the right resources are identified at the beginning of each project ensuring that no rework is required in later stages of projects.Oversee the Investment Master Data Management (IMDM) system and transfer knowledge to those currently managing the system through one on one training and engaging with data and reporting teams to ensure clear understanding of system functionality and proper system management.

Hartford, Connecticut, United States

Manage business critical vendor relationships, monitor their performance, and escalate issues as needed and identified by the business.Oversee $3.5 million annual vendor spend while consistently looking for opportunities to reduce spending and ensure the right relationships are established to effectively support relative business activities. Renegotiate terms with vendors to ensure best pricing, tailored to services actively being utilized only.Oversee all investment related strategic initiatives. Manage teams of subject matter experts (SMEs) to ensure each initiative has the right people involved and oversee the evolution of each project from business requirements development through implementation. Facilitate organizational readiness through engaging business partners such as Law, Compliance, Risk, Technology, Product Managers, Finance, Client Facing , and Vendors as needed, to appropriately manage the initiatives. This ensures that the right resources are identified at the beginning of each project ensuring that no rework is required in later stages of projects.Oversee the Investment Master Data Management (IMDM) system and transfer knowledge to those currently managing the system through one on one training and engaging with data and reporting teams to ensure clear understanding of system functionality and proper system management.

Hartford, Connecticut, United States

Managed the IMDM Project, a multi-year, $19 million strategic initiative delivering an enterprise solution focused on centralizing the management of investment data, and delivering refreshed dynamic investment data capabilities through reports, websites and centralized tools. Coordinated and developed business requirements, collaborated with technology on data design and system development, developed a detailed plan to review and convert data to IMDM, developed organizational communications and training modules and supported the project through implementation. - Collaborated with and managed diverse teams across many departments, to develop strategic direction for project while ensuring SMEs were properly engaged throughout the project and all feedback was incorporated into requirements. Requirements created were reflective feedback received from across the teams and organization. - IMDM’s implementation moved Prudential to a more proactive, centralized approach to investment data management while reducing risk, organizational costs, and technology expenses, while increasing efficiency and speed to market through reduced data processing time.Managed the Investment Data & Reporting Tactical Program which consisted of 21 projects designed to improve process efficiencies and implement tactical solutions that reduced risk and alleviated resource concerns until IMDM was implemented. - Closed portfolio of projects with $380k reduction in annual licensing fees, $180k reduction in annual temporary resource costs, reduced 551 manual fact sheet templates to 4 systematic templatesEnabled Prudential to further grow its external relationships through developing strong relationships with Financial Advisors and Investment Consultants to ensure data needs were met.

Hartford, Connecticut Area

Developed Revenue & Capacity planning model for RPS consultants to plan client revenue goals. This planning model also provided them the ability to see which activities should be shifted to other resources to ensure time is focused on billable activities thus increasing revenue. This work included creating and implementing various reporting tools to assist managers in evaluating capacity.Evaluated time-tracking vendors from Request for Proposal (RFP), Proof of Concept, Selection and Implementation. Post vendor selection, managed the implementation of the new time-tracking system, sunset two inefficient systems and brought consistency to time-tracking data across the organization. Implementation involved managing a team of SMEs from different parts of the team as well other business partners throughout the organization.Partnered with Financial Advisors, Investment Consultants and Brokers (intermediaries) to ensure data needs are met. Continued to cultivate established relationships with intermediaries to enable Prudential to further develop the relationships with these partners. Created and led the Intermediary Data Feed project to build a warehouse of data points and deliver custom feeds to intermediaries in a more timely and automated fashion. The custom feed creation reduced business risk, increased data quality and delivered feeds in a timelier manner while increasing intermediary satisfaction.

Hartford, Connecticut Area

Managed a diverse team of 10 junior and senior associates. Exercised talent development through the creation and maintenance of career development plans tailored to each associate’s ambitions, created opportunities for associates to upskill, and supported their mobility within the organization as opportunities became available.Partnered with Client Facing teams to ensure the delivery of accurate investment information for each client meeting in a timely and efficient manner. This work contributed to meeting client satisfaction, profitability, and retention goals.Led project to develop the Sales Partner Website Analytical Tool, a self-service web tool for intermediaries to collect data on investments that Prudential Retirement offers. The tool enables intermediaries to more efficiently self-serve investment related information and access information on demand.Developed strong relationships with intermediaries and was often requested in meetings by the intermediaries to ensure their data needs were understood and met in a timely and efficient manner.Managed the production of the Prudential Retirement Due Diligence Advisor Program including the research and analysis of Investment Managers within the program.

Hartford, Connecticut Area

Manage Client Analytical & Presentation Support Teams and Global Portfolio Strategies Operations. Partnered with Investment Advisors and Relationship Managers in meeting client satisfaction, profitability, and retention goals. Led project to develop Investment Monitor, an automated Investment Client Presentation bringing together record keeping data and investment information. Re-engineered numerous processes, creating efficiencies that created capacity within the team's positions. Developed and implemented plans to broaden the distribution channels of Prudential Retirement investment products such as introducing Prudential Retirement products into 3rd party databases that many distribution channels subscribed to. Maintain relationships with outside Investment Consultants, Financial Advisors and Brokers to ensure investment data needs are met.This is the same position from CIGNA but it crossed companies because in April 2004 CIGNA Retirement & Investment Services was purchased by Prudential Retirement.

Hartford, Connecticut Area

Manage Client Analytical & Presentation Support Teams and Global Portfolio Strategies Operations. Partnered with Investment Advisors and Relationship Managers in meeting client satisfaction, profitability, and retention goals. Led project to develop Investment Monitor, an automated Investment Client Presentation bringing together record keeping data and investment information. Re-engineered numerous processes, creating efficiencies that created capacity within the team's positions. Developed and implemented plans to broaden the distribution channels of Prudential Retirement investment products such as introducing Prudential Retirement products into 3rd party databases that many distribution channels subscribed to. Maintain relationships with outside Investment Consultants, Financial Advisors and Brokers to ensure investment data needs are met.This is the same position in Prudential but it crossed companies because in April 2004 CIGNA Retirement & Investment Services was purchased by Prudential Retirement.

Hartford, Connecticut Area

Managed other data analysts supporting client facing and sales activities. Responsible for the operations related to the production of the CIGNA Due Diligence Advisor Program® a detailed analytical report for all funds offered to Defined Contribution and Defined Benefit Clients. Performed performance and risk analysis for client Investment Reviews as needed. Created templates/models to map funds to their appropriate style classification. Assisted in the process of screening/selecting new managers for the CIGNA Manager-of-Managers program. Responsible for distribution of various analytic reports by posting to the CIGNA Intranet using FrontPage 2000 and some html coding.

Bloomfield, Connecticut

Responsible for the operations related to the production of the CIGNA Due Diligence Advisor Program® a detailed analytical report for all funds offered to Defined Contribution and Defined Benefit Clients. Performed performance and risk analysis for client Investment Reviews as needed. Created templates/models to map funds to their appropriate style classification. Assisted in the process of screening/selecting new managers for the CIGNA Manager-of-Managers program. Responsible for distribution of various analytic reports by posting to the CIGNA Intranet using FrontPage 2000 and some html coding.

Bloomfield, Connecticut

Created performance charts to support client and sales presentations. Created performance related exhibits created to highlight differences in the performance of different funds. Provided presentation support, customized performance and analytical information on an as needed basis. Developed a performance grid that contained performance for all funds as well as important statistical information used on a regular basis. This was created on a quarterly basis and cut down on the need to product ad-hoc requests for this information. Used many analytical tools and databases to retrieve data needed for presentations, using such programs as Morningstar, MPI Stylus, AIM Micropal (Standard & Poors), and other such programs and databases.

Bloomfield, Connecticut

Started as temporary position but was hired by Cigna in September 1998.Supported Senior Managing Director of CIGNA Investment Management and head of CIGNA International Investment offices. Administrative duties included travel arrangements (domestic and international), answering phones, distributing mail, and keeping calendars up to date. Transitioned executive from paper calendar to Outlook calendar. Assisted the team in performance Attribution for CIGNA’s International Accounts (Equity and Fixed Income) as well as collected and maintained a library of monthly research and performance reports.

Bloomfield, Connecticut

Temporary position through temp agency. Assisted three fixed income traders in in all administrative and support functions. Acted as central resource for investment houses to send their research and trade related information to the Portfolio Managers. Obtained required data for adding “new” securities to the trading system and ensure all required support material was accounted for.

Bloomfield, Connecticut

Temporary position through temp agency while staff member was on maternity leave. Provided administrative support for Chief Economist by preparing correspondence, arranging conference calls, and scheduling meetings, making travel arrangements, and handling information requests. Sorted and distributed mail for the entire group and provide light administrative support for the team as needed.

Manchester & Vernon, Connecticut

After starting as a Sunday only temporary cashier was hired as a part-time associate through the end of high school at which time was moved to a full-time position. Worked a variety of different positions such as Customer Service Desk, Switchboard Operator, Jewelry Department Manager, Money Room Manager, Chargeback Manager and eventually the Softlines Manager. As Softlines manager I was responsible for opening and closing the store while managing associates schedules and the departments I was responsible for. Softlines Manager had overall responsibilities for the Men's, Women's, Children's, Domestics, and Jewelry departments. Softlines Manager would manage floor displays, stock and ensure that associates were trained to work within one of the departments.

Master'S Degree, Banking & Financial Services Management

Bachelors, Business Adminstration

Associates, Accounting