Jonny Dittmer
General Manager, Clearwater for Stable Value
Jonny leads a cross-functional team dedicated to developing impactful solutions for Clearwater’s stable value clients. He works closely with current and prospective clients to understand their technology needs and shape Clearwater’s solutions to meet those needs.
Jonny joined Clearwater in 2010 as an account manager. Throughout his career, he’s led and contributed to major initiatives in areas including client services, data, implementation, pricing, product, and knowledge management.
Jonny earned a bachelor’s degree in finance and marketing from Gonzaga University.
Stable value assets total over $860B, with 78% of retirement plans including stable value funds. While often treated as a standalone business, stable value is deeply connected to broader liquidity and investment mandates across retirement and insurance portfolios, accounting for nearly 10% of all defined contribution assets in the US.
The mission of stable value is consistent returns—but the operational reality is anything but simple. Fund managers aim to deliver strong, reliable returns to investors while keeping the cost of insurance sustainable. Wrap issuers, in turn, are incentivized to help managers grow AUM, but must carefully manage risk exposure across the market. This creates a dynamic where managers and issuers are both competitors and partners, working together to sustain a healthy, scalable stable value ecosystem.
To manage that complexity, many managers are turning to technology that allows them to retire manual processes and legacy systems, modernize workflows, and better support clients—all with a system that is tailored specifically for stable value.
3 reasons stable value requires a tailored approach
The stable value market needs to innovate to reaccelerate growth, but the technology supporting it is too rigid and fragile to evolve. Today’s operations need a solution that can manage complexity, enable pioneering products at scale, and reflect the way stable value actually works.
1. Legacy systems weren’t built for stable value
Most teams still rely on stitched-together solutions: spreadsheets, Access databases, or installed software that isn’t built to support stable value. These tools may handle the accounting process, but they’re incredibly inflexible when it comes to supporting business growth. Even routine tasks, such as adjusting a crediting rate, become slow and labor-intensive, requiring confirmation and re-confirmation across parties. Managing large flows in and out of funds is equally cumbersome, introducing unnecessary risk to a complicated process. As operations grow, these inefficiencies compound and ultimately impact satisfaction for internal stakeholders, and worse, potentially even the client.
Stable value teams need technology built for their complexity, not adapted from systems built for something else.
2. Accuracy is a nonnegotiable in stable value
Stable value managers need visibility into holdings, crediting rates, MV/CV ratios, and reconciliations, none of which can be left to manual checks or end-of-month batch processes. But with manual workarounds and disconnected systems, accuracy becomes a burden instead of a baseline. Delays, misstatements, or inconsistencies not only introduce risk, they erode trust with investors and market participants alike.
For a product like stable value that is built on reliability, precision isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s essential.
3. Stable value depends on seamless coordination
Issuer coordination, wrap approvals, and trade tickets are often shared via email, and then pulled into ad hoc databases that require IT resources to staff, code, and query. Even when this process works, it depends on distribution lists and manual oversight. Multiple points of contact and complicated approval workflows create fragmentation, and a single missed update can lead to delays or risk complete inaction or lost data. Without built-in controls or system-wide audit trails, these methods run counter to firms’ goals for modernization and stronger governance.
When coordination relies on inefficient handoffs and patchworked processes, risk isn’t incidental—it’s built in. Clarity, speed, and credibility start with integrated workflows.
Why leaders are making the switch
Stable value requires more than workarounds. It demands a tailored approach—because it’s the only way to manage stable value effectively, at scale, and with confidence. Clearwater has built the only solution specifically designed to handle the operational and reporting demands of stable value, in addition to supporting broader business lines, such as third-party insurance, multi-asset strategies, and corporate balance sheets.
After years of retrofitting tools, industry leaders are moving on. They’re choosing a platform that simplifies oversight, reduces errors, and frees teams to focus on what matters most. Leading investment managers have modernized their stable value operations with Clearwater, recognizing that purpose-built technology isn’t just a better fit; it’s a better future.
Why wait? The solution is already here. Now’s the time to assess how you support stable value, and how Clearwater can partner with you. Let’s move forward together and set a new standard for stable value.