How Asset Managers Handled a Changing Landscape and What We Can Learn for the Future

Alex Strekel joined Clearwater in 2015 and leads a team of business development professionals who specialize in solving operational, accounting, and reporting challenges for asset managers. Alex and his team focus on the key trends impacting the markets and help managers find custom solutions that address both market- and firm-specific needs to provide scale, accelerated growth, and improved margins.

Alex has more than 15 years of experience in financial services, allowing him to consult with all aspects of asset management operations. His career began in market data with Thomson Financial, transitioning to operations and trading with Fidelity; prior to Clearwater, he managed fixed-income portfolios at a Connecticut-based asset manager.

Alex is a graduate of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and lifelong Connecticut resident. He currently resides in Old Lyme, Connecticut with his wife, son, and daughter, along with their two cats. When not working, you can find him spending time with his young family, keeping active, or attempting his latest “home improvement” project.

Rob joined Clearwater as Head of Product and oversees the firm’s product strategy and execution for the Investment Management industry.

Before joining Clearwater, Rob spent 19 years at Eze Software Group, a company that specializes in front to back technology for the Investment Management market. While there, he held numerous leadership positions including head of R&D, overseeing product management and development, and was responsible for strategic planning and execution for all of Eze Software’s products and services. He also served as head of Strategy where he headed up the firm’s corporate development efforts which culminated in the sale to SS&C in 2018 for $1.45 billion.

During his tenure at Eze, Rob executed a number of strategic initiatives including opening and running the London office, expansion into APAC and Latin America, overseeing the strategy execution of cloud-native Eclipse (digital native front to back investment management solution) and opening a development center in Hyderabad, India.

Before joining Eze, Rob was a vice president at Fleet Securities. He is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire and received his MBA from the Boston University School of Management. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

As Clearwater’s Asset Management Principal, Len is a leader of the asset management product and client strategies. As a staunch champion and thought leader of optimized technical architectures, best in class reporting and next generation analytics, Len works to position Clearwater’s asset management offering as vital for a seamless reporting foundation across physical and digital channels.

With over 18 years of financial services experience and a deep asset management pedigree, Len has a deep understanding of the alpha management struggles rooted in complex regulatory, operational and technical structures. Most notable, Len was a Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer with J.P. Morgan’s, Bear Stearns’ and BNY’s Investment Management businesses.

Len earned his B.A. in Economics from Montclair State University and his M.A. in Information Management from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Drew provides a crucial perspective and knowledge set to Clearwater as the firm continues to build out its technology and services offering for its investment manager partners.

Drew’s expertise, developed over more than 37 years at top-tier global institutions, has focused on the intersection of business operations and technology. In executive leadership roles at PIMCO, Nomura, and Morgan Stanley, Drew helped set the vision for the role of innovative technology in daily operations to support trading, client servicing, and reporting.

Drew retired from PIMCO in 2017, where he was a Managing Director and CTO for five years. Prior to that he was CIO for the Americas at Nomura America Holdings, and CIO for Institutional Securities at Morgan Stanley, where he spent 29 years as a technologist, trader, and manager in both business and technology roles.