Management consulting firm Doran Jones recently hired Lou Lebedin, Duncan Rawls and Jerry Muldoon to its executive management team. CEO and founder Matt Doran says the hires represent the next phase of growth in the company, which will focus on providing a bespoke business, operational and technology solutions for buy side and sell side firms. Global Custodian spoke to Doran, Lebedin and Rawls about the gap in the market that the company is planning to fill.
Where did it all begin?
MD: The company started in June 2010. I had previously been running sales teams in the US for Capco and Rule Financial, which wanted to set up a US office. June 2010 came along and I wanted to do my own thing. I saw a gap for providing experienced practitioners at a competitive price point at the project execution level. This approach has been well received by the marketplace and has enabled Doran Jones to secure relationships with many of the large global financial institutions and has resulted in attracting a new round of high-quality technicians who are joining the firm. The next step was to get the practitioners and to expand the client base. I was lucky enough to get into discussions with Lou and Duncan about building out next phase from a business/strategic consulting viewpoint. Gerry Muldoon was also brought on as a true expert in the operations and back office technology field. I knew where we wanted to exist in terms of a quality product. Our clients were facing increasingly complex challenges and with our capabilities at the execution level the logical progression was to start winning a different type of mandate to further assist them.
LL: I believe my experience managing the Bear Stearns and J.P. Morgan Prime Brokerage businesses lends itself well to enhancing the offering at Doran Jones. Additionally, many of the hedge funds I know and have relationships with, are suffering from the demands of meeting the regulatory changes including FATCA and increased funding costs from the implementation of the Basel rules. Doran Jones, combined with my skillset, positions us well to assist the funds in dealing with the fluid changes. In fact, we are already extremely active in helping major organizations with Basel III, treasury and collateral optimization programs as well as helping prime brokerage organizations enhance their product offering.
DR: With the addition of Lou, Jerry and I, Doran Jones has added three strategic practitioners. Each of us has transformed major organizations into industry leaders. As a result, we are rooted in pragmatism with an execution focus by helping our clients deliver the day-to-day while simultaneously trying to achieve their strategic goals. The issues facing the major firms on the street are the impacts the regulatory environment will have on ROE vs. their cost of capital. Every financial institution will need to begin to examine ways both tactically and systemically to reduce costs if they are to remain competitive. Doran Jones is now positioned to help both the buy side and sell side’s firms through the strategic, tactical and execution phases of this drive to transform organizations into industry leaders within their space.
MD: One of the attractions is the change from a business, operations and technology perspective. Some firms do not get this with a large-scale provider. This is where Lou comes in – he has been with firms that have the benefit of huge exposure and can thus focus on providing a solution that also integrates business operations and technology.
What is at the core of your offering?
MD: We offer the full service, strategic business consulting and business process change. On the technology side we have created an improved PMO function to augment the existing offering. We bring in specialist market practitioners who have sat on the other side of the table and can pass on the benefit of their experience.
DR: To add-on to Matt’s comments, we are initially positioning ourselves as a full end-to-end boutique consulting firm that has incredible talent around the Prime, Alternate Investment and Operations spaces. We are also in discussions with some additional senior and execution based resources in the industry to start an Enterprise Data Management and Cloud practice at Doran Jones, both of which are essential to driving efficiency within the financial services industry.
LL: We are seeing large sell side firms reducing their technology and support teams to improve their margins. Our solution allows firms to continue to meet their business needs while converting fixed costs into variable costs.
What are your plans for growth?
MD: We offer a consulting solution from our New York office comprising 40 people, which is likely to at least double by the end of 2013, given the demand from our clients. We also have offices in Charlotte.
DR: We have grown rather dramatically in the past four weeks alone. We are in discussions with almost every major bank and a wide host of hedge funds and expect the momentum to continue. There is also a high potential we will start up something within the U.K. during the late summer timeframe to start to gain traction in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
What is the firm’s key differentiator?
MD: In terms of the marketing there are a number of firms that offer a solution from PMO to execution. The quality of our people is where we will differentiate. We have built a group of strong practitioners who understand the business and who can offer a pragmatic solution.
LL: The Doran Jones platform minimizes overhead and is more targeted on meeting the needs of the client. Large consulting firms typically do not have the ability to be as targeted and flexible as Doran Jones.
DR: It’s an old cliché but it is the people. Matt has already established himself within the execution space by providing developers, business analysts and PMO’s to many large and small financial institutions. In addition, Lou and I with our 40+ years of combined experience, integrated and helped transform the Bear Stearns Prime Brokerage platform into a global leader at J.P. Morgan. With Jerry, you have an industry leading operations expert given he was global head of Salomon Brothers, Credit Suisse and then Citi Operations technology. Jerry has already been approached by numerous participants within the hedge fund community to help them with their operational efficiency issues as well as helping set their operational strategy for the future. Finally, before we send a developer to a client, we put them through a battery of technical tests to ensure we meet the stringent requirements of our clients. Again, it’s the people that differentiate us.