Living Ratings: Brand & Digital Intelligence of Asset Managers

Kate is co-Founder and CEO of Living Group, founded in 2004. She has over 20 years of City experience covering investment banking, private client wealth management and hedge fund trading which includes eight years at UBS, latterly sales trading to hedge fund clients. Kate is responsible for Living’s financial services clients and brings extensive, invaluable knowledge of the alternative investment arena. She also oversees Living’s financial control and growth strategy in Europe, Asia and America.

Jennifer Manser O’Rourke joined Schroders in 2006 and is based in New York. As the Head of Marketing & Communications, Americas, she is responsible for developing and managing the overall marketing strategy for the distribution channels in Americas including Intermediary, Institutional and Consultant and Research Relations, Offshore and Latin America.  Her objective is to increase the overall brand presence of the firm across all marketing mediums including digital, social, content and events and to deliver the whole of the firm to our clients. Prior to Schroders, Jennifer was a Senior Channel Marketing Manager at Columbia Management (Columbia Threadneedle), the asset management arm of Bank of America, and was responsible for a team which focused on delivering and executing firm-specific marketing campaigns. Jennifer began her career at AllianceBernstein (AB) as a Marketing Associate in three different areas —Institutional Marketing, Mutual Fund Marketing and Separate Account Marketing. Jennifer earned a BS in Finance with a Minor in Communications at Villanova University, and currently holds Series 7, 24, 63 licenses.

Tom is an accomplished Digital Strategist, with over 25 years of experience in the Insurance and Financial Services industries in roles ranging from product development, to marketing and communications, as well as in technical delivery.  Tom’s passion is leading transformational change initiatives to help organizations take advantage of opportunities both created and demanded by customers in the emerging digital space.  Tom’s focus is on leveraging Customer and Employee experience optimization as the primary drivers for digitally aligning Branding, Marketing, Technology and Data to deliver measurable digital business results. Tom joined Legg Mason as Director, Global Digital Experience in January of 2017.  Since that time, he has been focused on ensuring that Legg Mason has the capabilities needed to compete in the digital space.  A few notable accomplishments in the journey so far include a redesign of the US web site, a new global web platform for hosting our international web sites, 55 new global web sites, an improved global toolset for supporting our Social Media efforts and integrating our email marketing team and capabilities into the core digital offering. Before joining Legg Mason, Tom was Vice President – Digital / Marketing Technology for New York Life where he was directly responsible for the Corporate Digital Strategy, Lead Generation, NewYorkLife.com, the Employee intranet, the NYL Agent Portal and served as the business owner for the Corporate Digital Marketing Platform.  Prior to that Tom was Vice President eBusiness at AIG where he led a team that supported global digital efforts in the form of websites, email marketing and display advertising campaigns.  Tom’s focus has always been on working across disciplines in an organization to unlock the potential of an organization and its people.  Tom lives in Westchester County NY with his wife Kathy and three children.

Susan Canavari is the Chief Brand Officer for Chase leading brand strategy and development for the consumer and card brands including: advertising, integrated media planning and delivery, agency oversight, creative services, content and social media marketing. Susan built her career in the advertising industry working and building a range of brands. Prior to joining the firm in 2014, Susan worked at mcgarrybowen where she was an Executive Managing Director on the J.P. Morgan, Chase and JPMorgan Chase & Co. where she worked intimately with key leaders across the organization on planning, advertising, digital marketing and social strategic execution across all channels. Before her time at mcgarrybowen, Susan worked at Digitas where she was the first Managing Director of the Kraft One Digitas and MediaVest integrated media team which was established to serve as the Media Agency of Record for Kraft Foods. Prior to that, Susan worked at Ogilvy & Mather where she led the Time Warner Cable Brand and managed acquisition marketing activities for Lenovo. Susan loves building authentic and purpose-driven brands.  She has had the great privilege creating integrated marketing campaigns for other brands including Microsoft, General Motors, and Disney. She received her BS from Miami University with a major in Communications and Management, and her MBA from Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. Susan lives on the Upper West Side with her husband John, and pet Bojangles and is on the board of the Toby Project as well as the AdCouncil.

Merry Fish is a Vice President of Brand Strategy at PIMCO, responsible for managing PIMCO’s various brand research platforms, leveraging consumer and brand insights to drive strategic growth, and co-managing brand and advertising efforts. Prior to joining PIMCO this year, she worked for 3+ years at PIMCO’s brand agency, Team One, as a Strategy Director, where she helped drive the research and development of PIMCO’s new brand positioning and narrative. Before that, Merry worked at HUGE as a digital business strategist, where she worked on projects for BNY Mellon, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley. With more than 10 years of experience within investment management, she also has worked at T. Rowe Price and GMO in her career.  Merry earned her MBA from Georgetown University in Washington DC and her BA from College of the Holy Cross in MA.