STEPHANIE HAGGLUND
ENVESTNET
INVESTMENT ANALYST
What’s top of your to do list right now?
With the Envestnet Advisor Summit taking place this week, I’m preparing to moderate a panel discussion on market inefficiencies and how managers can use their edge to help exploit these.
What is keeping you awake at night (work wise)?
As investment analysts, we evaluate portfolios over a full market cycle. The current cycle has lasted for more than seven years, with the bull rally representing most of it. So it raises a few questions: is this affecting our ability to evaluate managers? Is the bull rally sustainable? And is the recent ‘Trump bump’ fundamentally or politically driven? If it’s the latter, what are the implications?
Best meeting you’ve ever had?
It was with a research analyst at a boutique firm. Although we had met with the strategy’s portfolio manager multiple times, this particular meeting with the research analyst breathed life into the investment process, giving us confidence that it wasn’t just a slide on a marketing deck.
Worst meeting you’ve ever had?
This is a tough one to answer! Most meetings with asset managers are positive, but one that occurred a few years ago made me feel as though I was being held hostage. The two-hour meeting was turning into a three-hour meeting, and as my colleagues and I tried to wrap it up, the asset manager surprised us with lunch and another one-hour conversation, during which the firm pushed additional products.
If you weren’t doing this job, what would you be doing?
I would like to do something philanthropic, such as owning and operating a dog shelter.
What are your interests / hobbies outside of work?
Living in Denver, and being a very active person, I’m typically hiking, swimming, running, participating in triathlons or marathons, and of course snowboarding in the winter.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?
I would love to go to New Zealand or Australia at a time when I could snowboard in the mountains one day and then Scuba dive in the ocean the next.
Do you have any hidden talents?
I’m a skilled martial artist and most people don’t know that I obtained my black belt in Tae Kwon Do when I was 17 years old.
What was your most interesting investment opportunity last year?
In 2016, the Envestnet research team developed a robust list of impact managers. I found the thematic investments in this space particularly compelling, especially strategies that focus on social objectives through investments in companies whose businesses are related to economic empowerment, environmental concerns or healthy living.
