Putting right leadership ingredients together

For Oscarlyn Elder, co- chief investment officer at Truist Wealth and investment advisor representative with Truist Advisory Services, Inc., her leadership style is like a recipe. It's about measuring, mixing, and adjusting ingredients to create something successful and authentic.  

“As a leader, creating an inclusive and high-performing team environment means being grounded and all-in,” she explains. “I think of excellence as a recipe. I carefully consider my duty to clients, my employer, our shared communities, and our teammates- which are all critical ingredients within the recipe of how I tackle my role.”

By viewing community engagement as an essential ingredient in her professional recipe, Elder integrates her community involvement into her role, enriching her perspective and ultimately benefiting clients.

“To make the biggest impact, it’s important to be flexible,” adds Elder. “There might be times where my stewpot says I need more community engagement, then there may be other times where I have to shift my focus differently. When doing this, it can look like you are not making progress in one area of your life. However, the reality is by effectively allocating your time and talents, you are able to better drive meaningful change and serve the different aspects of your life with integrity.”

One example of this is Elder’s fervor for increasing representation throughout the investment industry. While diversity in the sector continues to make slow progress, it could be argued that it’s simply not enough. According to a recent Knight Diversity of Asset Managers (KDAM) study, minorities and women account for 70% of the working-age population in the US and 68% of college graduates. Despite this, diverse-owned firms manage just 1.4% of assets under AUM.

“We've got a lot of work to do for women generally and also for women of color,” adds Elder. “And so, when we think about how to move the needle on that, we need, I think, to dedicate more of our time to establishing a deeper sense of urgency within the industry and coming together to provide more opportunities for growth.”

To achieve more diversity in the sector, Elder believes education needs to be brought to the forefront.

“We have an awareness issue that we need to tackle starting in elementary and middle school,” she tells IN. “We should be starting early, hopefully helping girls to know this is a great world to be in. We've done a better job recently emphasizing STEAM and STEM in schools, but our industry needs to be in there educating girls about just how incredible a career in investments can be. Because there's so many different flavors - you don't have to take a singular path. There's the ability to move around within our world, to take on different challenges to serve people, impact lives, and to be rewarded financially for the risk that you're taking.”

Another one of the Elder’s passions, aside from championing fellow women in wealth, lies in the emerging alternative investment space. Alternative investments are growing in popularity of late, with product availability in the accredited investor space recently expanding. Elder says that the continued democratization in the sector means more opportunities continue to open themselves up.

“When I think about the alternative space, one of the gating elements from an experience perspective has been the subscription process,” she tells IN. “In the past it was a manually oriented process - somewhat cumbersome. What we've seen is a development through technology. [That’s helped] improve the experience to subscribing to alternative investments for both the advisor and the client.”

Additionally, Elder points to the proliferation of Evergreen structures in alternative investments, a trend that has gained substantial traction in recent years.

“We have seen assets in Evergreen structures increased by at least six times,” she explains. “The ability of clients to access managers with generally better liquidity terms through interval funds and perpetual offerings has really expanded.”

Furthermore, Elder highlights the rise of separately managed accounts (SMAs) and the operational improvements accompanying them.

“The ability... for separately managed account funds... and some of the operational improvements that have come with them have enabled skilled managers to create single strategy carve outs.”