Following its August acquisition of retail financial services consultancy, Mercatus, AlixPartners continues to broaden its footprint in the financial services sector, this time by hiring William Callender as a Managing Director of the firm's Financial Services Practice. Callender joins AlixPartners from First Manhattan Consulting Group, where he headed its Risk Management practice. Callender says there will be challenges in the year ahead as the U.S. economy continues its slower-than-desired recovery, and that part of his role at AlixPartners will be to help clients recognize those challenges and turn them into opportunities. Callender sat down with Consulting One on One to discus his new role.
Consulting: Why did you decide to join AlixPartners?
Callender: I was familiar with the AlixPartners' name and their capabilities. In joining the firm, I was really impressed with a number of components. We have a model that is very focused on what clients are interested in these days: Solving important problems and developing solutions that are fact-based and targeted on the challenges facing clients as well as developing pragmatic solutions to go out and implement those ideas and recommendations to effect change. The capabilities of AlixPartners, both on a global and domestic basis and in terms of coverage and client relationships, were very compelling to me. My role will be to continue to develop and expand our capabilities around risk management—spanning anywhere from enterprise risk management to governance topics at the board and senior management levels to model development within clients for aspects related to credit risk and balance-sheet risk to help improve business decisions—whether in portfolio management, pricing and so forth.
Consulting: What do you see as some of the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the financial services sector?
Callender: We've obviously just come through a very difficult period with the credit and liquidity crisis that began in 2007 and continues on to some extent today. That has called to the forefront many of the business model components of traditional financial services companies that have been in place for some time. The importance of financial institutions not just solving the problems of the day but also looking at business models and how revenue can be generated is really something that needs to be on the table. We're faced with a number of challenges but also a lot of opportunity, whether that's developing new customer relationships, product expansion, efficiency initiatives, or in using information more tactically to make better decisions. All of those give our clients an ability to take advantage of new opportunities as we go forward.
Consulting: What is the state of financial institutions market headed into 2012?
Callender: We're definitely in recovery mode. There are a number of challenges facing not only the consumer component, but also the uncertainty of how new regulations are going to play out. There are new prophecies that need to be created and developed on the operational side, and then there are new financial regulatory requirements that affect the amount of leverage financial institutions can manage with, how that leverage gets allocated to different businesses and maintaining prudent levels of liquidity. All of these put pressure not only on the business model but also affects how one thinks about opportunities across your franchise, whether in markets or products or in the services they offer. I think all of those are factors to be dealt with, but as an industry we're moving toward getting a better understanding of how to deal with them.
Consulting: What can we expect to see from AlixPartners' financial services practice?
Callender: We will be focused on our understanding and commitment to what the most complex and important issues are for financial services companies in the U.S. and globally. In my space, that will include issues around capital management, balance sheet structure and using improved analytics for making both risk and business decisions. Everyone is very busy and running full-out so our efficiency in being able to understand, identify and report on the key risks and opportunities facing a specific franchise and organize that in an efficient way so good decisions can be made is a key objective. I think that's never been more important than it is today.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.