Russell Investments

Private equity firm TA Associates acquired Russell Investments in 2016, with minority stakes held by Reverence Capital Partners, Hamilton Lane, and staff. Russell has reshuffled its organisational structure, with changes affecting marketing, sales, and HR teams with an eye on costs. Beyond that, CEO Michelle Seitz (an external hire) left at the end of 2022 after a five-year stint, with Zach Buchwald arriving to replace her in May 2023. Kate El-Hillow was appointed global CIO in May 2021 as Pete Gunning transferred to a client-facing role. Changes across the investment group included 12 redundancies in March 2019 and additional moves under El-Hillow—several long-tenured staff members have left in aggregate. This departs from the history of promoting from within—there’s a need to safeguard against the loss of institutional knowledge, though it’s important to acknowledge that these staff changes are largely at the firm’s behest. TA Associates is still expected to divest its stake over the medium term. This isn't conducive to fostering a durable, longer-term business strategy, but its outcomes-oriented multi-asset strategies and outsourced CIO services remain priorities. Russell's approach to selecting subadvisors is a solid foundation of its portfolios. That said, it has been increasingly managing money in-house, and a competitive edge here hasn't always been evident.