ETFs
ETF Excellence: Keri Neo, Tradeweb
Markets Media spoke to Keri Neo, Head of Asia Pacific Equities at Tradeweb, who won the Excellence in ETF award Women in Finance Asia Awards 2024.
What were the main drivers of your success?
I would attribute much of my success to the relationships and trust I have built with my colleagues, industry partners and clients throughout my career. While trust is sometimes difficult to measure, at Tradeweb we have a proven track record of working closely with institutional investors and ETF market makers to improve access to ETF liquidity through electronic trading of Requests for Quotes (RFQs).
Since launching our ETF platform in Asia in 2017, our team has played a crucial role in the growth of electronic trading in the region, and this would not be possible without the trust of our clients and industry partners to create innovative products and platform features that meet their needs.
Success is often not a one-person effort, but a collective industry effort, and I am grateful to work with a team of smart, dedicated, and forward-thinking people at Tradeweb. Our goal has always been to anticipate our clients’ needs and create solutions that address any challenges they may face not only today, but in the future. By prioritizing long-term goals over short-term goals, we have been able to drive real change that has advanced ETF trading in Asia.
What are the top ETF trends for 2024?
Institutional investor appetite for ETFs has grown in recent years. There are now approximately 10,000 ETFs available globally, and we expect the use of equity ETFs to continue to proliferate as investors increasingly recognize their cost-effectiveness in an era of increasing focus on trading costs. Other growth drivers include the rise of multi-asset trading and demand for more efficient and flexible ways to access ETF liquidity.
Fixed income ETFs have continued to prove their value as an extremely versatile product for investors, and we expect to see clients increasingly adopt them this year. One of their main advantages is that they allow market participants to transfer risk quickly, even when the underlying bond market is tight. We have seen the proportion of these assets traded on Tradeweb globally increase from 34% in 2021 to 41% in 2023.
Additionally, actively managed ETFs continue to grow as a percentage of new ETF assets. The percentage of actively managed notes on our platform globally increased from 5% in Q1 2023 to 8% in Q1 2024, and we expect this number to continue to grow throughout this year.
Even though the industry is expected to change and evolve in 2024, one thing will remain constant. Tradeweb will continue to listen to our customers and work closely with them to create services that improve their trading flows and add new levels of efficiency to trading desk operations.
What is your favorite part of working at Tradeweb?
Although we are a publicly traded company with over 1,100 people worldwide, one of my favorite aspects about Tradeweb is that we have always maintained an entrepreneurial spirit where new, innovative and creative ideas are at the forefront. center of everything we do. What Tradeweb does in the world of e-commerce is to streamline trading processes and improve access to liquidity pools. One of our key values is “to act first, never to stop”, which sums up the energy we bring to the market by continually offering new products, features and tools that make traders’ lives easier. .
As someone whose role is to build close relationships with all stakeholders in the ETF industry – from issuers and market markers to institutional and retail clients – Tradeweb is the right place for me. In the electronic trading industry, change is ultimately about the partnerships and relationships you have built over time, and Tradeweb is a company that allows me to do just that.
What are your future goals?
When I was a young adult and starting college, my initial plan was to get a degree in marketing and work in that field. But I ended up doing something completely different, getting a degree in finance and accounting, and then a master’s degree in financial engineering.
Early in my professional career, I joined the Singapore Exchange’s Graduate Masters Programme, which gave me exposure to all sorts of functions and roles within the organisation. I quickly realised that developing products and business operations was my true passion, and spent the next 15 years at the Singapore Exchange working on listed securities and derivatives. Then, in 2021, I landed my current role at Tradeweb and the rest is history.
The lesson from this story is that it is difficult to predict what awaits us in life. But as long as we make the most of every situation we find ourselves in, learning and growing professionally and personally, there will be no shortage of opportunities in our future.
What advice would you give to the next generation of women in finance?
It is very important to maintain a curious nature in this sector. Being curious about how things are done, asking questions, challenging the status quo and always wanting to learn are some of the things we should all do, especially when you are starting your career.
Innovation only happens when we continually push the boundaries and find new ways of doing things. Just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done, and e-commerce is a perfect example of this. A business is nothing without the people behind it, so my advice to the next generation of women is to always strive to bring value to your organization and your team.
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