Sr. Consultant - Investment Attribution

Senior Consultant, Investment Performance Analytics

Northern Trust Asset Management is a trillion-dollar investment management firm entrusted by investors around the globe to help them navigate changing market environments so they can confidently realize their long-term objectives.

The Senior Consultant will be responsible for attribution analysis across a range of mandates spanning all asset classes and investment styles. This role will analyze attribution results and articulate the sources of alpha and beta through written commentaries that integrate quantitative analysis with market and economic dynamics. The individual will understand various attribution and risk models, calculation methodologies, index constructions, and attribution use cases, with the ability to work independently to research sources of P&L and tracking error.

The candidate must demonstrate strong mathematical and analytical proficiency based on prior experience and interactions with investment teams.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

• Using attribution and risk models on platforms such as Aladdin, Fact Set, Perform or Bloomberg to create attribution analysis that can be used by the PMs as feedback loops to validate the results of their investment strategies or exposure management, on a daily and monthly basis.
• Incorporate quality and fit-for-purpose attribution analysis into various management reports as the objective data that illustrates the drivers of over and under performance on the portfolio level. Design and refine quality control mechanisms that are meaningful and impactful to improve accuracy of attribution analysis.
• Timely and effectively response to inquiries related to the methodology, data issues and accuracy of attribution analysis; appreciating the sources of inquiries maybe an attribution super-user or a novice with simple questions and treat all inquiries with respect and patience.
• Monitoring ex-ante data set and use them as a reference point to validate the ex-post attribution results to understand the end-to-end view of the overall P&L creation and validation process.
• Coordinate with core-competency teams upstream to solve for data issues that cause attribution to be less effective such as Corporate Actions, indices/benchmarks, pricing, schedules for options, and accounting effects that are outside of PMs' control. Aiming to implement strategic solutions to reduce the data issues upstream.
• Provide timely response to address any attribution analysis needs by our client facing teams/functions for client reporting, pitch-book, RFP/DDQs and other by-demand analysis that showcase our investment capabilities.
• Engaging in productive dialogues with portfolio managers/client portfolio managers to understand the questions and concerns related to the explanation of investment performance outcomes, show ability to lead and drive standardized solutions.
• Collaborate with risk management and governance function to utilize attribution consistently to illustrate the source of tracking errors and exposure to various strategies and sectors, provide efficient explanations on the cause of tracking errors using attribution.
• Accountable for timeliness and quality of attribution analysis deliverables, engaging portfolios managers on a regular and consistent basis to stay current with their investment styles and expected outcomes, then use attribution objectives to provide the data to support the narrative of investment outcomes.
• Stay informed of our new product line-ups, be prepared to support the attribution analysis for the new products or fund structures.
• Understands the optimization processes utilized to support passive and active strategies so to align and independently verify the effect of optimization in attribution analysis.
• Proactively identify and implement improvements to existing processes to further gain operational efficiency and productivity.

Necessary Knowledge and

Skills:

• In-depth understanding of the investment management business, with particular expertise in fixed income fundamental strategies and optionality of tax-exempted securities. Familiarity of Alternative investment process, performance and attribution analysis is a plus.
• Specific prior knowledge of and experience with factor based attribution, ability to differentiate different risk or asset allocation profiles may impact the output of an attribution analysis, knowledge of Black Rock's Aladdin analytics is highly preferred.
• Adopting and utilizing AI Agent/Co-Pilot to aid the day-to-day review of attribution analysis, monitoring of market moves and finetune commentaries contents.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to work independently and relentlessly to pursue facts and reach conclusions on cause/effect of investment outcomes.
• Strong consultative skills ranging from gathering market and competitor insights, strategy development, influencing, facilitation and consensus building.
• Prior experience working with and influencing others to…