(pictured: Fiona-Trafford-Walker)
Frontier Advisors has picked up an international innovation award for its ‘Partners Platform’ technology and is also picking up some new standalone business both in Australia and overseas.
The award, from Asset International’s CIO magazine, was in the ‘consultants’ section of the sixth annual CIO Industry Innovation Award, held in New York. There is also a funds manager and other service provider section across several categories but most of the awards are for pension funds and other fiduciaries.
Fiona Trafford-Walker, Frontier’s director of consulting, who is rated by Asset International as one of the world’s “top five consultants”, said in New York last week that the role of consultant needed to evolve with the market and the Partners Platform was now a leading example of how investors want to work with consultants.
The platform is an information hub for the thought leadership and more technical work from Frontier, which also has an information exchange with other firms globally, known as Global Investment Research Alliance.
The Partners Platform has also started to introduce new, non-consulting, clients to the firm. Frontier has signed up one Australian client which is not already a retainer-based client, and has several Australian and international funds trialling the system.
Trafford-Walker said: “In the last five years people have forecast the demise of asset consultants, but talking to other consultants and investors from around the world the need for, and role of, consultants is as strong as ever. That role just needs to evolve with the market…
“ Consulting has always been about the caliber of people and the integrity and rigour of your process. But now it’s also about providing access to your thinking, collaborating on ideas with your clients and providing sophisticated but simple-to-use technology.”