The Money Management Institute (MMI) announced the 2024 finalists and winners of the organization’s Executive IQ Capstone Innovation Project. The final project of the one-year executive-level professional accelerator and certification program puts lessons taught throughout the program about technology, digital disruption, leadership and embracing a growth mindset into practice. Teams must identify a problem and develop a solution using the PwC innovation prototype model.
MMI runs this three-month project in collaboration with PwC and the University of Virginia’s Darden Executive Education & Livelong Learning program.
“The Capstone Innovation Project process challenges participants to embrace change, foster creativity, and think big while starting small,” said MMI President and CEO Craig Pfeiffer. “The participants of this year’s cohort are poised to shape our industry for years to come, and their achievements are a testament to the power of the Executive IQ program.”
Team SCALE earned top honors this year with its tool that provides leaders with data-based insights regarding the utilization of SaaS products to eliminate redundancy, cut costs and increase efficiency. The tool provides deep visibility into usage trends of various SaaS solutions to allow informed decision-making and strategic application of resources across an enterprise. Team SCALE included Gui Costin of Dakota, Michael Dunphy of Vestmark, Raquel Galan of LSEG, Clay King of Invesco and Marco Vala of iCapital.
Other Finalists
Three finalists were selected from a field of thirteen Capstone Innovation Project teams. The other two finalists were Team Client Connection Creator and Team SUCCEED.
Team Client Connection Creator (CCC), which included Dale Korman of Harbor Capital, Purvi Rana of iCapital, Michael Scholten of Principal, Matt Witkus of BlackRock and Jane Yue of Invesco, developed a program to enhance an asset manager’s effectiveness and efficiency while increasing client engagement and loyalty. The solution allows teams to focus on soft skills versus data aggregation and insight scraping, according to the press release. The platform was developed leveraging structured data and cognitive AI-enabled models to free the asset managers to focus on the client experience and sales.
Team SUCCEED created a human solution to navigate the complexities of estate transfers. The project provides a centralized, cloud-based platform for individuals to access all resources necessary to plan and prepare for a wealth transfer. Team SUCCEED included Armand Amritt of AllianceBernstein, Leia Goodgold of InvestCloud, Brendan McDonough of iCapital, Courtney Morgan of iCapital, and Claire Nolan of BNYMellon.
Richard Evans, Professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, and faculty advisor to the Executive IQ program. “Each team, not just the finalists and winner, presented fantastic solutions to real industry problems, and I fully expect to see these concepts put into practice across the industry.”
