Benchmark Management: Benchmark Management is a growing form of corporate governance as passive investment strategies become more popular. Governance policies for benchmark management monitor the changes in subscribed benchmarks, and helps build appropriate benchmarks according to investment guidelines. The benchmarks weights are managed within this group, decided upon by investment guidelines, and used throughout the firm to support the investment process.
Compliance: Governance policies for compliance are key to ensure managers adhere to regulatory, government, client, corporate, and portfolio guidelines. Compliance professionals not only monitor the firm's portfolio assets, but at times monitor broker and trading compliance as well.
These basic ABC’s of investment governance are a few of many that exist in investment management. While each firm has its own mix of governance policies, it is paramount that guidelines are well communicated and coordinated internally to ensure proper management of risk and execution. Many of Citisoft's client partners have created investment councils that maintain oversight in order to manage the governance decisions and communication throughout the firm.
Data governance should be part of any management strategy that is applied across the enterprise in order to operate successfully. However, investment managers shouldn’t lose sight of these ABC’s and the importance of a holistic and coordinated governance strategy.