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By Chris Whitside

In June the FundSERV board approved the recruiting of a vice president of business development to increase demand for the Company's existing services and to provide new services to existing customers. The business purpose of this position is to provide effective analysis and communication of issues, initiatives, and service offerings — to know where FundSERV is, where it is going and why.

"I'm delighted to announce that Carol De Veau joined us on November 12 to fulfill this mandate," says Alan Hutton, president & CEO, FundSERV. "Her background includes a diversity of areas within the investment fund industry beginning in 1990 working for a financial services software and network provider. She held numerous operational, marketing and sales roles with Fidelity Investments and more recently with Franklin Templeton Investments. We're all very excited to have her join the FundSERV team."

FSQ spoke briefly to De Veau upon her arrival at FundSERV:

FSQ: What strengths are you bringing to this new position?

De Veau: First, I love the industry. It was my first choice when I graduated from college. Second, I have experience on the operations side as well as investment product marketing and distribution. For the past five years I have focused on developing alliance relationships with corporate customers based on partnership. I have found that thorough research and listening skills are most critical. I'm very enthusiastic about getting to know the common goals and perspectives of each party in the relationship and developing solutions that meet common objectives.

FSQ: What will your focus be initially?

De Veau: FundSERV has been built with and for its customers in the investment fund industry. There has never been a dedicated business analysis function and the way this function is defined is to understand how services should be positioned for higher levels of industry automation. Initially my focus will be on understanding the existing products and services as well as the customer base, and establishing ways to measure current automation levels. Our goal is to lower costs by increasing automation within the industry, so getting a handle on measurements is critical.

FSQ: Is this a good time for new business development?

De Veau: Yes. There are a couple of challenges in the industry right now for which FundSERV is a perfect solution. First is the high rate of corporate consolidation amongst our customer base. FundSERV's standards-based services ease the technical integration of transaction systems. Second and perhaps most important, investors are becoming increasingly concerned with reports of irregularities and questionable trading practices in the industry. FundSERV offers a well-managed and reliable solution. Understanding the additional services that customers need to fully automate transaction processing will be a big win for the industry.

Watch for more about FundSERV's business development activities in future issues of the FundSERV Quarterly.

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