John McCareins’ travels around the world have helped prepare him for his latest role as head of international, leading Northern Trust Asset Management’s business in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and across Asia Pacific (APAC). 

Previously, McCareins had been based in Hong Kong for seven years as head of asset management for APAC  before moving to London to take on his newly created role in July 2023. Prior to Hong Kong, he was in the US as practice lead of the outsourced CIO group, heading a team that oversaw programs with more than $60bn in assets.

McCareins told Markets Media that his new role was part of a broader strategy shift after Daniel Gamba joined Northern Trust from BlackRock and became the president of asset management in April 2023. 

“This lends itself to a fresh look at structure and strategic priorities against the backdrop of challenging economic times and operating in a hyper-competitive industry,” added McCareins. 

Northern Trust Asset Management decided to break down silos and encourage cross-regional communications more effectively. McCareins said this would deliver the unique and bespoke investment solutions that clients are demanding, harness best practices and deliver scalable growth.

 “We have benefited from organic growth over time, which leads to a consistent culture and an investment process that delivers results,” he added. “Sticking with our knitting seems to pay off for us  and it’s why clients have ultimately appointed us.”

Best practices, deployment of technology and project management expertise now travel around the globe according to McCareins  He gave the example of the distribution and operations team moving from a regional to a global structure. In addition, ESG and sustainability innovation that happens in EMEA can travel more easily to APAC and vice versa.

Growth strategy 

“The growth strategy has increased commonality across APAC and EMEA,” said McCareins. “We spent a fair amount of time thinking through the optimal intersection of country, channel, and capability in order to grow at scale.”

Northern Trust Asset Management is aiming to double international revenues over the next five years 

McCareins added: “Northern Trust Asset Management is among the top 10 global asset managers in many areas with a great institutional heritage and brand connectivity with asset owners and family offices. A big part of our strategy is how we focus and deploy our resources outside the US in a disciplined manner.”

The fund manager is investing in active quantitative capabilities and hired Guido Baltussen in a newly created role of head of quantitative strategies, international in November last year. Based in Amsterdam, Baltussen was previously head of equity factor investing and co-head of quantitative fixed income at Robeco. McCareins said the Robeco team brings intellectual, research, market insights, and client insights that complement the asset manager’s existing platform and accelerates growth. In January this year Northern Trust Asset Management said that Milan Vidojevic joined NTAM as director, quantitative solutions, international.

The firm is also in the process of building its fixed income platform outside the US as the asset class is experiencing increasing demand. “Bringing manufacturing closer to clients allows us to listen, adapt, and build to best suit their needs,” added McCareins.

Another growth driver is sustainability, which represents almost 80% of business in EMEA and over 50% in APAC according to McCareins. He described sustainability as core to Northern Trust Asset Management’s investment thesis as it integrated across equity and fixed income platforms, and the firm is investing in its stewardship team, technology and R&D.

“We are also planting seeds that we may harvest over the next couple of years,” said McCareins. “One seed is expanding our global family office practice internationally, which is a leading franchise in the US, and we are looking to hire an international head of the GFO asset management business based in London.”

Northern Trust Asset Management is not a retail player in most markets around the world but McCareins highlighted this is a growing segment, especially in the UK with asset aggregators, investment platforms, and digital advice models.

“Our capabilities and product set line up quite nicely with that segment,” he added. “It is early days, but over the past couple of years that business has doubled assets across a variety of platforms.”

McCareins highlighted scale and technological innovation as other big trends. The use of artificial intelligence comes up on a regular basis and Northern Trust  has a dedicated team roadmapping and testing AI, identifying where and how to deploy in a thoughtful way that is consistent with business demands and regulatory regimes.”

“We continue to think about where and how to invest in technological change, how we go to market, the power of democratising investment solutions and mass customization, which are disruptive changes where we want to be at the forefront,” he said. 

Cultural nuance 

McCareins continued that although Northern Trust Asset Management has thought about its global strategy and bringing teams together, it is also important not to lose sight of local nuances. For example, the definition of sustainability may differ due to regulation, investor preferences or local culture.

Since moving from Hong Kong to London, he noticed that a big difference is investor preferences and where they are on their investment journey. For instance, investors in Asia tend to be earlier in their allocation to sustainability and also tend to be more thematic.

Spending time in Asia allowed McCareins to develop an element of dexterity from a leadership perspective. English is a second language in many cultures in APAC and leading a business in Japan is very different than in Australia. As a result, he was forced to think differently about cross-cultural communication, variants on motivation and aligning teams around a common mission.

“This involved a lot more listening, a lot more leading by influence as opposed to driving a particular agenda,” he added. “You need to have more voices at the table as the next great innovation could be sourced from anywhere in the organisation, at any level and in any cultural context.”

He believes culture ultimately drives success and there needs to be a common vision that the success of the organisation supersedes regional or individual goals or preferences. For example, McCareins recently hosted an onboarding session for new joiners in the non-US business which included staff from Australia, the Netherlands and the UK from across functions and he said they have already built connective tissue between their teams in different locations.

Career 

McCareins has an MBA from Dartmouth College and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Northwestern University. He describes psychology as the study of human behaviour and interpersonal communications. One of his counsellors said it would be a great area to ground his academic studies as it marries the human element with statistics to develop and test a hypothesis as part of a research process.

“It is an unconventional approach to asset management but there are elements that are beneficial today and served me well throughout my career,” added McCareins. 

McCareins has spent nearly his entire career at Northern Trust, apart from a three-year interlude at T Rowe Price and said the culture of the firm is important in balancing the needs of clients, shareholders, the communities where it operates and employees.

“My interest has always been providing entrepreneurship and financial literacy experiences to youth from lower income communities and we have sponsored a number of organisations committed to this mission at Northern Trust,” he said. 

In addition, there is also a commitment to diversity and inclusion.

“There are not many people in the industry who look like me, so from that lens, knowing that I had coaches, champions, ambassadors and opportunity has been important,” said McCareins.

He also wanted to work for an organisation where career mobility and optionality is encouraged and he said that is exactly how things have panned out as he has been able to travel around the world. At Northern Trust he started inquiring about an overseas assignment to London in 2010 and ended up in the UK nearly 13 years later after seven years in Hong Kong. 

“Careers don’t necessarily move in a linear path but are formed by a series of unique experiences,” he added, 

His career path began to change around 25 years ago when the head of sales came to speak to McCareins’ graduate class and talked about doing business in London and Hong Kong. McCareins remembers asking him after the session what he was reading and he shared ideas and thoughts on conducting business in a global context.

In the early 2000s, McCareins went to business school and the diverse mix of international students planted the seed that leadership in a global organisation requires spending time in, or at least appreciating, different cultures, countries and ways of life.

For the first three or four years in Hong Kong McCareins had friends and family from the US visiting every other month, which he described as a blessing as they had not travelled internationally before.

“It literally opened up hearts and minds to new experiences, particularly for some of my younger relatives,” said McCareins  “My two girls see themselves as global citizens which is important to my wife and me.”