Change in action: SEI and Benchmark Capital

Anita Juneja (00:07):
I'm Anita Juneja, and I head up the relationship and client service at SEI in the UK.

Jo French (00:12):
Hi. I'm Jo French. I work for Benchmark Capital Limited. I'm the Chief Operating Officer, and I'm here today with Anita to talk about our relationship with SEI.

Anita Juneja (00:21):
SEI is an outsourced provider of infrastructure, technology, people, and process. We've acted as an enabler to Benchmark Capital, to provide solutions for Benchmark to deliver to their financial advisors, both in the wealth management and the financial planning space.

Jo French (00:43):
I would describe the partnership that we have with SEI as strong, enduring, fun, and challenging.

Anita Juneja (00:55):
Not only that, but it's commercial, it's personal, it's professional, with a true drive for success and delivery.

Jo French (01:03):
Partnership means to me, the good, the bad and the ugly. Partnership means celebrating successes. Partnership means understanding when things go wrong. Partnership means sticking around to fix it, whatever it is, when it goes wrong. Partnership means being able to ask for help. Partnership means being able to say, I'm sorry. But I think it's really important with our teams, that they know that Anita and I work together to solve problems or to celebrate good things or to make time or to find a budget. And that means that when our teams do the same, they get glowing endorsements and thanks from both Anita and I. We have the same expectation and the same appreciation to be able to work with someone who brings that can do attitude to what you want to do as much as what they want to do.

Anita Juneja (02:10):
I don't think either of us feel as though it's either down to SEI or it's down to Benchmark. It truly is down to our partnership and our relationship. You know, we are an extended team. Our success or Benchmark's success is theirs and vice versa. And I think despite the pandemic, despite the restrictions and the challenges that we all face, be that with technology, be that with people, in fact, we were able to still migrate over, between us, nine billion pounds (£9 billion) of assets across to the platform. And I think that is a huge and significant achievement for both organisations. Project teams working remotely, communicating remotely, it just showed the determination and the commitment of both teams to work together to actually get to an end goal. And that's exactly what we did.

Jo French (03:04):
I think one of our measures now that we've been working in partnership with SEI for over a decade is the fact that we started with no money on the platform. And we now have 16 and a half billion (£16.5 billion) on Fusion Platform as at the end of 2020. So we would consider that pretty successful, I think, and a testament to our partnership together. One of the things that really resonates with success of a change program, besides good project management and technical experts, and subject matter experts, and enough resources and planning, is really how well your partner knows you. And the type of questions that they ask. A good partner always asks the hardest questions, but they're always the ones that you need them to ask you. And that's what I would say is the biggest measure of our success with SEI.