Among the key new clients was the London Wealth Management Unit of one of the world’s largest global investment banks. The bank implemented Advent Office™ for Portfolio Modelling, Pre-trade Compliance, Order Management and Client & MIS Reporting to support their wealth management business of high-networth individuals. In quarter four, the bank also expanded its use of the Advent solution after a successful initial implementation in the third quarter of 2003.
2003 was also the year when Advent’s real-time portfolio & fund accounting system Geneva®, had its definitive breakthrough in the UK. One of the world’s leading prime brokers signed a significant contract to implement Geneva in London, and will soon join the exclusive list of Geneva-users among firms such as Goldman Sachs, Salomon Smith Barney, Fortis Fund Services, Bank of Bermuda and GlobeOp.
"We are very pleased with last year’s results", says Alf Bringaker, Advent UK’s regional director in 2003. "Investment management firms are investing in our solutions to position themselves for future growth, to meet increasing demands from their clients and to keep costs and operational risks under control."£
Lord Calum Graham, who was heading up UK sales and clearly outperformed his 2003 budget, puts it this way, “Our 2003 achievements are a result of hard work by a committed UK sales and implementation team. What's more, four years of adapting Advent's world-renowned systems to the UK market is now paying dividends.†Graham also recently took over as Advent UK's regional director as Bringaker assumed the role as the European Director of Marketing.
"It’s been a very busy year", admits project manager Jeff Sedgwick, who was responsible for the UK installations in 2003. "However, it’s also been very satisfying to experience so many firms going live on our solutions and to see the positive effects on their businesses."
As a result of the growth, Advent Europe also increased its London team in 2003. Tom Hind was hired as sales manager to further grow Geneva® sales in the UK & Ireland. Hind has a total of eleven years of software sales experience - most recently from Sungard and Computacenter. Philip Ritchie assumed the role as pre-sales manager for the UK & Ireland. Ritchie brings many years of valuable experience within pre-sales and professional services from SimCorp. Mark Standish joined Advent Europe to become the European implementation manager for Geneva®. Standish has worked a number of years within consulting and project management - most recently with City Practitioners. Finally, Martin Kristensen was transferred from Advent Denmark to strengthen the UK implementation team. Kristensen has a broad experience from implementing Advent Office.
