T. Rowe Price has reorganized its U.S. institutional business around consultant relationships, illustrating the growing influence consultants have on allocation decisions.
The firm has launched its first dedicated field consultant coverage team. The move reflects asset owners doing more with fewer managers, said Chris Tarui, who was made co-head of relationship management.
“The delineations of the industry used historically around sales versus service weren’t really fit for how institutional capital engages, and ultimately how they want to partner with us,” he said.
Tarui said that moving away from a traditional sales and service model will allow the “best institutional relationship managers to deliver the breadth of our global research platform unimpeded.”
The restructure means that field consultants are treated as clients and not just middlemen. Previously, relationship managers would be engaged on multiple fronts with consultants in an uncoordinated fashion, but this dedicated team will bring the entire firm to consultants through a single point of contact.
“They will still engage with multiple people here but have a real relationship person that owns them and thinks about their entire book, and whether it overlaps with us on existing mandates,” said Chris Newman, head of the Americas division at the firm.
The change will also give consultants better access to resources from research teams.
“We’ve long understood that field consultants and research played a very pivotal role in the ecosystem, but at the core we felt the industry treats them far to transactionally,” said Tarui.
Building longer term relationships with field consultants will allow the firm to compete for more allocations, he added.
The firm will deploy the dedicated field consultant relationship team to identify weaker relationships and strengthen them.
T. Rowe has introduced a regional model for strategic institutional relationships and created a U.S. institutional key accounts practice. Kyle Lagratta is now co-head of relationship management alongside Tarui. Angelique Richardson has joined the firm as field consultant relationship manager for the Northeast region.
