First, the big news:
We’re happy to announce that our new and improved Investor Portal is now live, if you’re a current investor and did not receive your invite code via email, please click here to login and create your account.
By way of explaining the benefits of the new portal, and to share the story of how this upgraded platform came to be, I sat down with Stuart Hausman, who was the behind-the-scenes leader of the project.
Stuart Hausman has been with PPR since 2019 and serves as the Director of Information Technology where he develops and evaluates IT projects in line with company objectives.
As this has been in the works for over a year, touching a variety of teams (including myself and our Investor Relations team especially), I wanted to ask him what went into such a project and what will make this a world class experience for investors’ portfolios behind the scenes. The following is an abridged version of our conversation.
Before we start, can you give us a little bit of your background?
Sure. For over thirty years before joining PPR, I was a self-employed Computer Consultant and Trainer working for companies, large and small. In addition to financial services, these were in a variety of sectors including legal, insurance, and manufacturing. I’ve also worked as a teacher, teaching things like VBA and SQL.
Great. What was the impetus to PPR starting this investor portal project?
When I joined PPR, it was clear that our then-current software system was adequate for who we were, but not who we envisioned becoming. Much of the issues affected us internally and made our operations inefficient and suboptimal. For example, it wasn’t conducive to track information internally, so we’ve had to use supplementary databases and create processes that should really be automated. Things like transfers and rolls of capital would be unnecessarily complicated and I learned rather quickly this was not the system for a billion-dollar company.
Simultaneously, we were looking to elevate our client experience, and enable our investors to have a more seamless and frictionless way of working with PPR. So we looked to upgrade everywhere, helping our operations and Investor Relations teams internally, while also providing a higher level service and quality experience to our investors.
When did we start this project?
Really it was about 2 years ago when we started the research phase for a replacement system. This was after trying to see if we could improve our current system – which, while we did make improvements, it became clear that was not the best path forward and wouldn’t get us to the desired outcome. We started a committee involving Investor Relations, our COO Chelsea Deluca, as well as an experienced business analyst consultant we hired to vet and analyze prospective platforms with whom we could collaborate.
That was a fun process, but what did we learn?
While it was illuminating, it was and also a bit discouraging to learn that after meeting with these companies, pretty much none of them could fully meet our current and future needs with an out-of-the-box solution. We researched about a dozen companies, getting demos from all of them and then having initial meetings with at least a half of those companies before selecting on Agora.
What made Agora the clear choice?
Initially, their software didn’t meet our needs out of the box. However, unlike a lot of the other firms we talked to, they weren’t just looking to sell us a product, they listened and took back what we were looking for. That’s what I liked about them. And after some productive conversations, it was clear they could accommodate our ambitious objectives and they agreed to customizing their standard package to our specific requirements.
Right from the start, we had direct access to their Chief Product Officer who wasn’t just a transactional vendor but a dedicated and considerate collaborator. Features we didn’t even ask for have been added on his recommendation based on our goals, and we expect even more to come after this initial launch.
What are the top 3 benefits to investors?
I’d say number one is the ability to self-invest. We want to make it as easy as possible for an investor to get started. And especially as we attract more of the next generation of investors, they are used to handling their business themselves, and like doing things without being forced to talk to someone over the phone. That option still exists, of course, but we’re giving investors a few options so they can choose what is their preference.
So now just about everything can be done online, directly through a secure portal. Even the accreditation process can now verify an investor’s status within 24 hours.
Number two would have to be investment tracking. Investors will now be able to see how many months remain until investment maturity, their investment redemption date, and their earnings since the start of the investment. All within the portal and no need to call the IR team.
Lastly, an overall streamlining of the re-investment process. Meaning, as an investor, you’ll be able to make additional investments directly through the portal without needing to schedule an appointment with the Investor Relations team. They can, of course, but this gives them another option.
That’s one of my favorite benefits too since it creates an ease of communication.
That’s right and with regards to communication, investors are also now able to message the Investor Relations team (and attach documents) from within the portal. So those are just some of the benefits that will be available when we launch. Improved communication, document management, and a smoother investment (or re-investment) process were all top of mind when we undertook this project.
Thank you, Stuart. Happy to have worked together on it and I encourage investors to keep an eye out for an invite to the new portal, and if they have any questions, suggestions, or need anything at all to please feel free to reach out to me and our Investor Relations team.
