The Sub-Advisory Institute is recognizing four Industry Visionary Award Winners of the sub-advisory and manager research space this year for their leadership, innovation, and active participation in the investment industry. David Braham, Executive Director, Head of Asset Management Relations, NA Institutional, Institutional Investor, sat down with Industry Visionary Award Winner Anna Snider, Head of Investment Selection, Chief Investment Office, Bank of America.
Anna’s decades-long career has spanned from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to the private sector, after graduating from Connecticut College with a BA in International Relations, Economics, and Japanese. She’s also held positions at JP Morgan and UBS International, before arriving at U.S. Trust in 2003, which merged with Bank of America in July 2007. Since December of 2003, she has held several positions (Vice President, Alternative Assets at U.S. Trust; Director, Senior Research Analyst, Alternative Investments at Bank of America; and Senior Vice President, Third Party Private Equity and Real Asset Fund of Funds), before advancing to Managing Director, Head of Global Equity Due Diligence at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and her current role at Bank of America based in New York City.
In addition, she volunteered for nine years as Chairperson of the Board at the High Water Women Foundation.
During the course of the interview, Anna shared her outlook on tokenization, holistic view of work and life, and great expectations for ETFs.
The following is edited for length and clarity.
Looking back at 2025, what was your highlight and your surprise of the year?
On my personal level, my highlight was I got married and turned 50 all on the same day. I’d been with my partner for 18 and a half years, but we decided to up the ante and get married.
On a professional level, Liberation Day was my biggest surprise: Despite the significant changes that was thought to bring, the market’s keeping on at an amazing trajectory.
What key innovations are you most excited about?
I have been excited for a while about the active ETF structure taking over the mutual fund: It’s time to have a new structure for these funds, and I think what I’m interested to see is, “What is the range that are going to be available in ETFs going forward?”
I think that what hasn’t hit mainstream on a financial product side is tokenization, and that is what I’m excited to see: how that evolves and how quickly that evolves.
I think right now, in terms of digitization, everyone’s focused on crypto, but the blockchain and tokenization are going to change things in my opinion much more than crypto in itself – reduce costs to the end investor, which I think is super important.
What’s your leadership philosophy and what makes your team so amazing?
My leadership philosophy is that work is part of life, not separate from it. I’m fortunate to lead a team of deeply experienced investors who are not only technically strong, but intellectually curious and genuinely accountable to our clients and the outcomes we deliver: That accountability shapes my role. I see myself as a thought partner – someone who helps elevate issues, challenge assumptions, and provide a sounding board as ideas and risks are worked through.
A core part of my responsibility is protecting the integrity of the investment and research process, so we continue to make disciplined, high quality decisions. At the same time, I’m very intentional about trust. I believe that when people take ownership of their work, they should also have the freedom to live full lives outside of it. When the work is done well, I want people pursuing what matters to them. In my experience, that balance ultimately strengthens performance rather than detracts from it.”
If you weren’t in the invstment sector, what would you be doing?
If I had known how the field was going to advance, I would have become a geneticist:
I would be in biotech, genetics research, et cetera, if I could go back and do it all again – but that ship has sailed.
Who were your mentors?
I’ve been lucky to have had a lot of mentors along the way. I have a senior executive who pushed me to start leading and managing teams and also allowed me to pursue research in sustainability. I don’t want to use her name as she’s still in the industry, but she really believed in me and let me shape my career.
I have two other mentors with whom I’m regularly in touch who have given me amazing advice, to navigate the corporate world and how to get the most out of this career, and to think about the kind of impact that I want to make in financial services.
What would you like to achieve in 2026, personally or professionally?
Personally, I want to get a lot better at tennis. I’ve been sort of middling for a while, and I would like to up that.
Professionally, I’m interested in continuing to innovate the alternatives investments that we have on the platform. I’ve been in alternative investment research since 2006, and I think this is amazing to think about the transformation of that industry, and so, I want to be front and center on that.
Who would you like to have lunch with this year?
I’m not sure she lunches, but I’d like to have a glass of wine with Stevie Nicks, whom I’ve long respected as a musician and a strong woman.
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