Smead Capital Management is Latest Firm to Go Live on Ridgeline’s Front-to-Back Platform

INCLINE VILLAGE, NEV., April 4, 2024 - Ridgeline announced today that Phoenix, Arizona-based Smead Capital Management has made the transition to its front-to-back investment management cloud platform.

Smead is the eponymous asset management firm founded in 2007 by Chief Investment Officer Bill Smead and led by his son Cole Smead, CFA, who serves as Chief Executive Officer and Portfolio Manager. After witnessing decades of financial technology offerings come and go, they were confident that Ridgeline was different. 

“Our industry tends to be 25 years behind by nature,” says Cole. “People are supposed to take risks for their customers, but in many respects they still hate taking risk. We want to be forward. That's why we want to make these changes and adapt quicker.”

Bill agrees, saying, “We want to be on the front edge of the best practices in the industry. Hiring Ridgeline is a lot like hiring a talented person to fill a role at the company.”

“You need to do well picking investments for people and managing their money but you also need to run your business well. That’s where Ridgeline comes in.” - Bill Smead, Chief Investment Officer

With over $6B AUM and less than 20 employees, Cole is proud that Smead operates a lean and nimble operation with a global footprint. As the group evaluated Ridgeline, they calculated the risk of switching from many disparate systems to a new, single platform. “Our dialog as we looked at Ridgeline was, ‘Can we get to a state of lesser risk than we have with incumbent software?’” 

Ridgeline is the first cloud-native, enterprise solution for investment management, built with best-in-class security and high-availability from the start. Core functions like portfolio accounting, trade order management, reporting, and compliance are brought together with a single set of real-time data on an intuitive platform. Many Ridgeline customers are replacing up to 9 systems and 20 integrations by transitioning from previous disparate solutions.

The prospect of system consolidation, security, and unified data appealed to both the younger and elder Smead. Cole explains, “What we love is that it's the same data. We're not dealing with separate systems that have been put together in different ways.” 

Not only does Ridgeline help achieve their goal of reduced risk, it unlocks talent at the firm to focus on higher-value work. “Ridgeline allows us to make more decisions at a faster pace. The speed is just miraculous,” raves Cole.

Ridgeline Co-CEO Dave Blair says, "Ridgeline is thrilled to have such a strong partnership with Smead. Cole and his team have been outstanding collaborators and ardent champions for Ridgeline. We look forward to what we’ll accomplish together.”

The Smead team feels better prepared to take on inevitable market volatility since moving to Ridgeline. According to Cole, “We think a lot about tough circumstances, unenjoyable markets — you're going to go through those. And ultimately, if you have to sit in a foxhole for a few years, who do you want to be next to? That's what we found in Ridgeline.”

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About Ridgeline

Ridgeline is the industry cloud platform for investment management. It was founded in 2017 by visionary entrepreneur Dave Duffield (co-founder of both PeopleSoft and Workday) to address the unique technology challenges of an industry in need of new thinking. We are building a modern, AI-embedded platform in the public cloud, purpose-built for the investment management industry to empower business like never before. With a growing campus in Reno, and offices in New York, Lake Tahoe, and the Bay Area, Ridgeline is proud to have built a fast-growing, people-first company that has been recognized by Fast Company as a “Best Workplace for Innovators” and by Frost & Sullivan as a “Technology Innovation Leader.”  

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