The May edition of Research magazine is now available online. My monthly column is available here. A taste follows. I hope you’ll read it and the entire magazine.
In the financial services industry, there is precious little that ought to remain secret. Instead of trying to maintain the self-serving secrecy that has dominated our industry for so long, especially because such secrets will keep getting exposed sooner and sooner, the key to our longer-term survival will be to remake who we are and what we do to serve clients in a transparent future. That will mean true transparency—not the faux-transparency (think “disclosure”) our industry uses to protect its own interests. It will mean clearly and fully articulating what we do and why there are (data-based) reasons to think we can accomplish what ought to be accomplished. It will mean an honest appraisal of our fees and their justification. It will mean serving our clients’ interests instead of our own. It will mean more truth-telling and less sales pitch.
Above the Market 