The 5 Circles of Hell for Institutional Investment Professionals

“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.”

― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

If an institutional investment professional were to be guided through Hell (a la Dante’s Inferno), he would pass by five circles of torment … all of which would contain colleagues frantically checking calendars and clocks, desperate to get through to-do lists that grow faster than items can be checked off. Time is indeed a valuable commodity, and the lack of it can be hell on earth.

While the only way out of the Inferno was through the center of earth, the way out for investment professionals is much easier, thankfully. While it is impossible to add hours to the day, it is possible to reclaim some of those hours and put them to better use. Let’s follow our guide — not Dante’s Virgil, but our own modern-day Technos — through the five circles of hell for institutional investment professionals.

The Fifth Circle: Reporting Woes

We start at the outermost circle — Reporting Woes. The demand for transparency is increasing from all quarters, with the result that generating reports and responding to requests for…