Russell premieres Ascent 2011: Helping advisors focus on future
Event steers advisors toward new thinking, new actions and new conversations
Seattle, WA — September 27, 2011 — Russell Investments launched a new conference for financial professionals in Palm Beach, Florida today. Ascent 2011 gathers more than 120 financial advisors from the United States and Canada along with Russell's investment strategists and industry experts in an effort to focus on what makes an influential, successful advisory practice and pinpoint practical ways advisors can reach their full potential.
"Russell is committed to helping advisors, whether with the management and growth of their businesses or with the design and implementation of investment solutions on behalf of their clients," said Sandy Cavanaugh, CEO for Russell's Americas advisor-sold business, who formally opened the conference. "This event, which brings together a formidable array of expertise and experience in one place, reflects the core of the value we seek to deliver to advisors and their clients. We expect that the attendees will leave here with a renewed sense of their own potential to succeed in this highly competitive industry."
The event agenda is comprised of both presentations and interactive networking opportunities, and covers the gamut from investing insights, including a focus on investment capabilities of the future, to practice management topics such as the changing service capabilities required of advisors.
Among the speakers is Michael Maslansky, CEO of Maslansky Luntz & Partners, who will address the group and outline findings from a recent research effort around the language of trust and selling in a post-trust world, including key benchmarks for communication between advisors and clients and how to effectively meet and exceed them.
"Traditional notions of what makes a successful or 'elite' advisor have been turned on their head. For example, being an elite advisor today means addressing both accumulation and also retirement income challenges; it is about understanding not just what is happening here at home but also knowing how global investment opportunities can potentially help clients meet their goals," said Cavanaugh. "We are hosting this forum because amidst ongoing market volatility there is a need for advisors to sharpen their strengths and identify and address weak spots. We are doing this with conversations and with practical tools like our Advisor Health Index and Client Engagement Roadmap, which help advisors to immediately begin executing best practices."
About Russell Investments
Russell Investments is an independent, global financial services firm that provides strategic advice, investment solutions, implementation services and global performance benchmarks that are customized to meet the unique needs of institutional investors, financial advisors and individuals.
Celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2011, 25 years in Sydney and Tokyo and 15 years in the Netherlands, Russell has pioneered innovations that have come to define many of the practices that are standard in the investment world today, and has four decades of experience researching and selecting money managers globally.
Russell has about $163 billion in assets under management (as of 6/30/11) and works with 2,300 institutional clients, 530 independent distribution partners and millions of individual investors globally. As a consultant to some of the largest pools of capital in the world, Russell has $2 trillion in assets under advisement (as of 12/31/2010) and traded $1.4 trillion last year through its implementation services business. The Russell Global Indexes calculate over 50,000 benchmarks daily covering 85 countries and more than 10,000 securities.
Founded in 1936, Russell is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA and has offices in Amsterdam, Auckland, Chicago, London, Melbourne, Milan, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto. For more information about how Russell helps to improve financial security for people, visit www.russell.com.
Contacts:
Jordan McKerney, 206-505-1858
Elizabeth Shapiro, 718-875-7606
Russell Financial Services, Inc., member FINRA, part of Russell Investments.
Russell Investment Group, a Washington, USA corporation, operates through subsidiaries worldwide including Russell Investments. Russell Investment Group is a subsidiary of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company.
Russell Investments is the owner of the trademarks, service marks and copyrights related to its indexes.
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