AFTAs 2015: Best Technology Executive, Buy Side—John Marcante, Vanguard

The man responsible for the technology underpinning Vanguard is CIO John Marcante, winner of the best buy-side executive category in this year’s AFTAs. It’s fitting that Marcante takes home this year’s award, given that he has spent more than two decades at the buy-side behemoth, climbing the ranks in various departments. During that time, the firm went from having a mere $127 billion under management in 1993 to over $3 trillion now.

Marcante, who was named the firm’s CIO in 2012, took an interesting, somewhat meandering, career path to get to where he is today. He joined Vanguard after a seven-year stint at General Electric. However, despite having a background in technology, Marcante spent plenty of time on the business side at Vanguard. In fact, in the eight years prior to taking on the CIO role, Marcante was not involved with IT at Vanguard at all, leaving the technology side of the business in 2004 and eventually leading the firm’s asset management services from 2006 up until when he accepted the CIO position in 2012.

Sitting on both sides of the fence has given Marcante a unique perspective with respect to his job. Building product roadmaps or timelines for technology projects is a lot easier when you’ve spent time working with the people who made the request.

Marcante has used the experience gained on the business side to implement what he describes as a “flywheel” model when it comes to implementing new technologies, specifically solutions that are designed to work globally. The wheel is broken down into five spokes, all of which represent the core values and objectives of the firm. At the center of the wheel is a group of employees who are both engaged and diverse. The flywheel’s goal was to eschew long, expensive IT projects, and embrace more agile, global solutions, which tend to be quicker to deliver, less complex and significantly more cost-effective, allowing the firm the nimbleness to grow faster than it ordinarily would have. The flywheel initiative has clearly worked, as Vanguard continues to grow and expand, all while under the watchful eye of Marcante.

Sitting on both sides of the fence has given Marcante a unique perspective with respect to his job. Building product roadmaps or timelines for technology projects is a lot easier when you’ve spent time working with the people who made the request.