President of the New York City communications and sales marketing consulting firm Frumerman & Nemeth Inc., Bruce Frumerman specializes in working with financial services firms. His company enables clients to best leverage their marketing resources --people, time and budget -- to develop and implement more effective sales marketing and media relations marketing branding programs. Frumerman & Nemeth's efforts have helped money managers attract over $7 billion in new assets.
Bruce has over twenty years of experience in corporate branding, product positioning, public relations, sales marketing, and investor relations. Clients turn to his firm for help to develop buyer-focused positioning strategies to differentiate them from their competitors; to create more cogent and compelling sales presentations and marketing materials for their salespeople; and to use media relations marketing (public relations) to generate third-party endorsement for the expertise of their people and the quality of their products, and to help establish a branded identity for their organization.
Bruce has helped clients market a wide range of investment types and strategies: from equity to fixed income and derivatives, domestic to foreign-based, growth to value, momentum to buy-and-hold, fundamental to quant-based analysis, small cap to multi-cap, no-load to load. As a result of working directly with so many money managers over the years, he and his firm are known for having an in-depth understanding of how portfolios are managed and insight into how to effectively communicate this to both sophisticated and novice investors, and to the media. So much so, in fact, that mutual fund, hedge fund and financial planning firm clients also frequently call on Bruce and his firm to write their quarterly letters to investors.
Tom Gariepy is Vice President and Director of Corporate Communications and Public Relations for Delaware Investments in Philadelphia, PA. In this role, he handles the firm's public relations efforts and oversees its internal communications and the development of its advertising messages. A seasoned communicator with more than twenty-five years of experience in the field, Tom began his career with eleven years in a variety of reporting and editing positions at The Providence Journal-Bulletin and at WFSB-TV, the CBS affiliate in Hartford, CT. His editorials and other video productions won a number of statewide and national awards and were nominated for several regional Emmy awards.
For five years, Tom taught a broadcast writing class in the Journalism Department at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. During his years in television, he was honored for his work by the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information. In 1989, he moved into public relations as Executive Assistant of Communications for Connecticut's Attorney General, with responsibility for speechwriting, media relations, and media training. His work in financial services began two years later when he was appointed communications manager at Phoenix Home Life Mutual Insurance Company. He moved to Boston, MA, in 1994 to work in shareholder communications for Eaton Vance Management. In 1996, he accepted a position in the Marketing Department at Liberty Funds, and was named the company's Director of Public Relations three months later. He moved to his current position at Delaware Investments in 1999. In this position, he has rebuilt the firm's public relations effort and has developed a full Corporate Communication Department.
He is a member of the Public Relations Committee of the Investment Company Institute and is active in the Forum for Investor Advice.
Steven is co-founder of kasina ®, LLC, a strategic consulting firm that concentrates solely on providing products and services to the financial services industry. The company officially commenced operations in 1999, and publishes mutual fund industry research reports, including the annual industry best practices studies "Top 20 Web Sites-Mutual Funds" and "Top 20 Web Sites-Insurance". Steven's company explores ways in which financial services firms can effectively sell services to consumers and institutions over the Internet. An expert on financial services and e-business topics, he works on numerous strategic consulting engagements. He is also an active participant in a number of industry groups, including NICSA's Technology Committee (as a Co-Chair), the MIT Enterprise Forum, and the New York Media Association. In addition, Steven serves on the Board of Advisors for AdvisorFN.
Steven advises and consults with the world's leading financial services firms. Through his work Steven has developed a methodology for evaluating Web sites and developing strategic solutions that is uniquely suited to the financial services industry. In addition, he continues to identify numerous industry best practices and trends that are instrumental to the formulation of an e-business strategy. These practices include the recognition and application of key success factors and attributes that are common among successful e-business initiatives, as well as important considerations relative to business processes and organizational structure.
Prior to co-founding kasina ®, Steven ran the financial services e-business consulting practice at McGladrey & Pullen, LLP, the nation's seventh largest accounting and consulting firm (now named RSM McGladrey, Inc. and PriceWaterhouseCoopers)
Eductation Steven is a graduate of New York University's Stern School of Business.
Speaking & Press Steven combines practical experience in implementing technology platforms with strong business analysis skill. Steven has been recognized as an authority on financial services e-business and appears frequently in the business and trade media, including (partial listing): The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Business Week and numerous trade publications.
Lori Pizzani is a New York-based freelance journalist specializing in mutual funds, financial services companies, and personal finance. In addition to serving as the content editor and columnist for www.mutualfundcareers.com, she is the editor-at-large and writer for a weekly investment management news trade publication, and occasionally writes articles for its sister publication targeting the banking industry. She is a regular contributor to two publications published by the CFA Institute including CFA Magazine, the bi-monthly magazine to institute members, and periodically contributes sales and marketing-related articles to www.ifinancialmarketing.com.
Lori also ghostwrites for several highly respected financial services firms, who welcome her writing expertise, but prefer to maintain the appearance that their writing is proprietary.
Lori has written for online news and information outlets cnbc.com, worldlyinvestor.com, and fundemail.com, as well as several highly regarded financial services magazines, including Registered Representative, Bank Technology News, Registered Investment Advisor, and Investment News. She previously served as the on-staff managing editor of Fund Directions, a monthly mutual fund trade publication, and was a contributing reporter to its weekly sibling publication Fund Action. She founded her freelance writing firm in April of 1996.
Before beginning her writing career, she worked for seven years within the mutual fund industry. She began her career as a customer service department manager for a large New York City-based money market fund adviser. She then managed an internal shareholder and broker/dealer service department and a staff of 10 for a small intermediary-sold fund complex in New York City, and advanced to the assistant to the vice president of marketing at the firm.
