Late Fall 2019
December 09, 2019
Gus Magno is a Senior Investment Officer at Northern Trust. Gus works with high net worth families to develop comprehensive investment solutions to meet their unique goals and objectives in the areas of growth, preservation, and transfer of wealth. His role includes managing a group of investment professionals.
What is your current role?
Senior Investment Officer—I work with high net worth families to develop comprehensive investment solutions to meet their unique goals and objectives in the areas of growth, preservation, and transfer of wealth. In addition to my investment responsibilities, I also manage a group of investment professionals on our team.
What career experiences led you to your current role?
I have spent my entire professional career in Wealth Management. During that time, I had to develop a thorough understanding of investments and how to engage with individual clients. I was fortunate to have mentors who took the time to educate me about the capital markets and show me how to develop strong relationships with our clients. It is due to these experiences that I have always gravitated toward mentoring roles and eventually formalized it as Senior Investment Officer.
What do you do on a daily basis?
My primary responsibilities consist of constructing investment portfolios to meet the unique goals and objectives of my clients. This is accomplished by having comprehensive conversations with my clients to determine the appropriate asset allocation. Once we have established their investment objective, then I am responsible for selecting the strategies within the portfolio. Do we want to have exposure to equities and fixed income in the portfolio? Within equities, do we want domestic and international exposure? Should we use active or passive strategies? Do we want to tilt the portfolio to a value or growth bias? For our fixed income, should we use tax-exempt bonds, and/or high yield? Are alternative investments like hedge funds or private equity appropriate? In many ways, this process is very similar to what the students encounter during the Magnetar Team Challenge.
What do you like most about your job?
I love the fact that I am constantly learning. As a professional investor, I need to be current on market developments. On a daily basis, I am reading about economic reports, company-specific news, and/or new strategies being launched.
What advice would you give to a student considering a similar career?
My advice to individuals considering a career in investments is to make sure you are passionate about it. Because this industry is technical and evolving, you have to be engaged in order to stay current. There are many ways to accomplish this. The best way is to invest your own money. If you don’t have the resources right now to invest, then keep current by reading on a regular basis. Yes, even on weekends!