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David Laird

Managing Director
London, UK

David Laird is a managing director in Milliman’s Business Advisory Practice. He has over 25 years’ experience driving strategic change across the asset management industry in both consulting and industry leadership roles.

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Experience

David's extensive experience includes:

  • Advising on and delivering operating model change across the asset owner, manager, servicer value chain.
  • Demonstrating deep expertise on technology, data, and operations-driven change in the industry, including implementing front, middle, and back office systems, along with strategic outsourcing and cost reduction programmes.
  • Creating an investment management division of a large UK insurance firm from scratch. Built the business case, defined the organisation structure, helped recruit the team, defined the technology and operations models, selected and implemented the technology platform, and helped outsource the middle and back office activities.
  • Leading an engagement to consolidate the administration functions of the asset manager from four separate service providers onto one (BNY).
  • Helping to deliver the Heads of Terms, the Global Outsource Agreement, and the migration of staff to the new service provider (TUPE), and the migration onto the consolidated platform.
  • Leading an engagement to strip £100m of cost out of the asset servicing division of a global bank.
  • Conducting global lean-driven workshops to identify cost reduction opportunities and track them through to delivery. The focus was on reducing headcount in the Fund Accounting, Settlements, Corporate Actions, and Cash Management functions.
  • Working as Head of Change for a UK-based asset management organisation, David defined the organisation structure (including project managers, business analysts, and testers), defined the internal vs. external resource mix, and hired and led a team of up to 25 people.
  • Defining and implementing a portfolio prioritisation and reporting process. Delivered multiple projects, including a Charles River Implementation, a ThinkFolio implementation, and two post-merger integrations following the acquisitions of other asset management firms.