Meet the Meraki Team: Vice President of Business Development Mary McAvey
Welcome to this episode of “Meet the Meraki Team.”
Meraki Global Advisors LLC, a leading global multi-asset outsourced trading firm, was founded with a rebellious determination to deliver truly conflict-free services to portfolio and asset managers. At Meraki Global Advisors, our team is our greatest asset, and today, we have a special guest to share his wealth of experience and expertise. Joining us is Mary McAvey, Vice President of Business Development of Meraki Global Advisors.
Mary McAvey joined Meraki after spending three years at With Intelligence as a Commercial Sales Manager. At With Intelligence, Mary managed the flagship brand HFM and after the acquisition was also responsible for heading up commercial sales for HFA. Mary began her career in the financial services industry at Enfusion, where she was a Pre-Sales and Marketing Analyst. She earned her BA in Political Science and Government from University at Albany, SUNY.
In this episode, Mary will take us through her journey and how each experience shaped her approach to helping her clients solve for pain points.
Let’s dive right in!
“I want to understand why we’re having this conversation around outsourced trading. What
are your current pain points? What is a goal that you want to achieve? How can we help
you?”
Q1: Share with us about your background and how you found yourself in the outsourced trading world?
I started my career as a pre-sales and marketing analyst at Infusion, which is a well-known order and execution management firm within the industry. Within the first two months at Enfusion, I discovered that my skill set really transferred over to sales and relationship management role. Enfusion was having me attend conferences and help with client roundtables, which is where I really thrived.
While at Enfusion, I was also attending With Intelligence conferences, which is where I got connected with their sales leadership team and eventually was asked to join With Intelligence by helping expand the U.S. commercial sales team under their hedge fund brand HFM. At HFM I was really able to grow my industry knowledge and industry network on a global scale.
Working with funds and service providers all over the globe really helped me figure out what side of the industry I could really excel in. While working at HFM, I was introduced to Benjamin Arnold, the founder and managing partner of Meraki. We actually stayed in touch for a few years, and he eventually approached me to help start the Meraki sales team in New York City.
Ben is extremely smart and passionate about outsourced trading, and once I met the team throughout the interview process, I knew Meraki was a firm I wanted to back and help grow.
Q2: What excited you most about joining Meraki?
What excited me most about joining Meraki was not only the people at the firm but also the way that they valued their clients as partners because that’s something that I value, especially as someone in the financial services world and specifically on the sales side, relationships are a huge part of this industry.
When I was flown out to Park City during my interview process, I was able to meet the team and hear the traders’ experiences, like David coming from these larger corporations and larger firms to coming to joining a smaller firm and it being more like a family. I think that the Meraki outsourced trading model is extremely unique, and that was something that the industry is looking to get to.
When outsourced trading started, it was a lot of trading equities for emerging managers and launches. But over my two years at Meraki, we’ve seen across the board from large institutional asset managers approach us, family offices, as well as those launches come to us.
Q3: Describe Meraki’s unique outsourced trading model.
There are three different types of outsourced trading models. One being the traditional agency model, the other one being introducing broker-dealer model, and the third being a pure buy-side outsourced trading model.
Meraki Global Advisors will fall under the pure buy-side outsourced trading model. We are a registered broker-dealer, but we also have a specific license from FINRA that allows us to piggyback off of our client’s capabilities and allows us to trade every single asset class in every region of the world.
Meraki is the only outsourced trading firm in the space that has a 3:1 client-to-trader ratios. A lot of our peers in the space, you’ll be working with one trader covering anywhere from 20 to 30 clients. When you sign on to be a client of Meraki, you truly do receive a global seasoned multi-asset trading desk for the cost of one.
Q4: Why outsourcing from an operational perspective?
There’s no training gap, there’s no downtime, there’s continuity. You never have to worry about a trader being on vacation, and there’s transparency with our outsourced trading firm.
Q5: Why do Meraki’s clients decide to pursue outsourced trading?
There’s a few different reasons why firms turn to outsourced trading. One of them being maybe they’re an emerging manager or a launch, and they’re looking to save money. That’s one way for people to look into outsourced trading.
Another reason may be is they may have traders based in the U.S., but they want to start trading in other regions and other markets. Whereas Meraki is a 24/6 coverage outsourced trading firm. not only do we have traders based in the U.S., but we have traders based in Hong Kong, and they cover and split European hours.
When you join as a client for Meraki, you don’t only get access to one trader, you get access to a global trading desk. That’s another reason instead of a client hiring a trader or opening up a desk in these other regions, they’re able to outsource it and know that these people have the lay of the land of the markets that they’re trading in.
Another reason may be they’re looking for a multi-asset trader and they’re looking to cut costs, you can outsource it that way.
Q6: What pain points are Meraki’s clients trying to address?
A pain point that comes to mind specifically over the past year, especially if a firm is already using an outsourced trader, is scalability. I think a lot of our competitors are really good at executing on equities, and they may not be able to execute on other asset classes, whereas, within the Meraki model, we have the capabilities of trading every asset class.
For example, fixed income comes to mind. I think that’s a hot topic, especially where the industry is at right now. We’re definitely seeing a lot of firms looking towards opening up a fixed-income fund or adding fixed income to their current strategies and with Meraki, having that capability to piggyback off of for our clients. We’ve definitely seen people coming for our expertise in that space.
Q7: How has the outsourced landscape changed?
I joined the firm in May of 2022, and what I had known about outsourced trading was really that a lot of emerging managers and hedge fund launches were looking to outsourced trading to save money, but what has proven to me over the past two years that I’ve been at the firm, is that really anyone is looking to outsource trade.
I would say when the outsourced trading world first started, it was definitely for the smaller managers but as we have seen in the past five years, we’ve seen that there’s a need for firms opening up into new markets. We’ve seen people wanting to add on certain asset classes. People who trade high frequency and maybe low volume. They wanted to utilize outsourced trading because they don’t want to hire a trader to sit behind a desk and trade once a month.
What we’re looking to see in the next year is that not only these emerging managers but also larger institutional asset managers who have maybe a trading desk of 60 people, but they may struggle with a certain region, or a certain market, or certain strategy look to outsource to senior multi-asset traders who are flocking to these outsourced trading firms.
We’re having conversations with large institutional asset managers. Our medium client size at Meraki is about $1.5 billion, which is definitely, I believe, over a billion dollars larger than a lot of our competitors in this space.
Q8: What do you think makes Meraki stand out amongst the others in the space?
I would say it’s a different sale. If we’re not selling a product, but we’re selling a partnership and a service, we’re selective about our clients. We understand that we might not be for everyone, and we don’t want to be the largest outsourced trading business in the world. We want to be the best, and I think that there’s a big testament to the work that we’ve done over the past couple of years, especially Benjamin Arnold, the founder of the firm.
He’s very hands-on with the everyday functionality of the firm, and this past year, Global Custodians released their outsourced trading survey, and Meraki scored overall a 9.54 out of 10 across a few different categories, and that was Coverage, Execution, Business Model, Operations, Post-Trade, Client Services, and Onboarding.
Over the survey, there was an overwhelming amount of responses from our clients, which was amazing. They even made a note that we received one of the highest amounts of client responses across the board, across our peers, which was really exciting, and then a few months after the outsourced trading handbook was released, we actually received the Industry Leader award in Outsourced Trading for Coverage and Execution. I think that it is a big testament to Benjamin Arnold for sticking true with the pure buy-side outsourced trading model.
One thing that really excites me and excites our clients and prospects is that we have a 3:1 client-to-trader ratio, which allows our traders to only work with three funds where maybe some others in the space, you may have one trader covering any words of 20 to 30 clients, So when you work with Meraki, you really are getting a hands-on trader covering you at a global scale.
Q9: What has helped you succeed in your role as VP of Business Development at Meraki Global Advisors?
Listening is just as important as talking while speaking with a potential client. I want to understand why we’re having this conversation around outsourced trading. What are your current pain points? What is a goal that you want to achieve? How can we help you? I want to hear the start of your firm and what has gotten you to the point to reach out to an outsourced trading firm.
So listening, I would say is probably the best advice I can give to a salesperson and that’s kind of helped me succeed in the role because I want to understand why we’re having that conversation.
Sitting down with the traders any chance I get is definitely something that helps me succeed in this role. Even if it’s just analyzing a report that they’ve created for a client. That way, I can understand what the report is so when I’m speaking with a potential client, I can understand what they will need out of an outsourced trader.
About Meraki Global Advisors
Meraki Global Advisors was founded with a rebellious determination to deliver truly conflict-free services to asset managers. Headquartered in Park City, Utah with offices in New York and Hong Kong, Meraki provides outsourced global multi-asset trading, leverage management, and capital introduction services to the asset management industry. Meraki Global Advisors LLC is a FINRA member and SEC Registered. Meraki Global Advisors (HK) Ltd is licensed and regulated by the Securities & Futures Commission of Hong Kong.
For more information, visit the Meraki Global Advisors website and LinkedIn page
Contact:
Mary McAvey
VP of Business Development
(646) 666-7041
mm@mga-us.com
