2012年12月20日星期四

Fidelity Investments' Abby Johnson

Those who know her describe Abigail Johnson as steely and extremely serious, qualities that come across in photographs: Whippet-thin, she’s almost always wearing glasses, her fine features and blue eyes rarely revealing more than a slight smile. An heiress to a Boston family fortune—with a personal net worth estimated by the Bloomberg Billionaires index at $10 billion—she’s one of the world’s richest women. She’s also one of the most driven and hardworking. In her 24 years at Fidelity Investments, the mutual fund company founded by her grandfather, Johnson worked through two pregnancies and, according to press reports, a serious illness in 2007 that she never discussed with her colleagues.

Through a spokesman, Johnson declined to comment for this piece. Silence has been her mode for years. She even said little when she was named president of Fidelity Investments Financial Services in August, making her second in command at the $3.8 trillion mutual fund company, the nation’s second largest. She reports to her father, Fidelity Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Edward “Ned” Johnson III, and her elevation to the No. 2 position arguably makes Abby—nobody calls her Abigail—the most powerful woman in finance.

With her ascension, Johnson, 51, has become the leading member of what today is still a very small club. In the financial world, only a handful of women have reached the top ranks. They include Sallie Krawchek, former president of Bank of America’s (BAC) investment management division, who has been discussed as a possible candidate for the chair of the SEC; Ina Drew,Interlocking security cable ties with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals. JPMorgan Chase’s (JPM) former chief investment officer, who resigned in May after the bank suffered a $6.2 billion trading loss; and Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments, the $3 billion Chicago-based money management firm.

Johnson joins this group as Fidelity faces some of the biggest threats in its 66-year history. Fidelity still churns out big profits; it racked up operating income of $3.3 billion in 2011 on revenue of $12.8 billion, primarily from brokerage commissions and fees in its asset management, investment advisory, and record-keeping businesses. But Fidelity is no longer the largest mutual fund company in the country based on assets under management. It lost that position to Vanguard in 2010. And its target customers are increasingly moving away from actively managed stock funds—long Fidelity’s signature product—and into passive stock funds and more conservative fixed-income funds.

To fix the family business, Johnson can rely on input and guidance from a large team of executives, including her formidable father, now 82, who took the small Boston investment firm founded in 1946 by his father, Edward Johnson II, and turned it into a colossus. On at least one issue, though, she’ll likely be operating alone. Financial firms, particularly in wealth management, often prosper with a personal touch. Think Charles Schwab or John Bogle at Vanguard. A woman atop the company—guiding strategy in the boardroom and delivering the message on TV—could attract a raft of new customers. The question is: Does Abby Johnson want to be that woman?

Born in 1961, Johnson is the eldest of Ned and Elizabeth “Lillie” Johnson’s three children. Raised on Boston’s North Shore, she had a classic Boston Brahmin upbringing, attending the tony Buckingham Browne & Nichols school in Cambridge, summering at the family estate in Maine, and majoring in art history at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Despite the family’s fortune, estimated at about $22 billion today, she grew up with a flinty distaste for public displays of wealth, working as a waitress one summer, answering customer service calls at Fidelity during another. The Johnsons were rarely in the newspapers; even today, Ned can walk down the street in Boston unrecognized, says John Bonnanzio, the editor of Fidelity Monitor & Insight, an investment newsletter.

After graduating from college in 1984, Johnson went to work not at Fidelity, but as an associate at the management consultant Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH). She went to Harvard to get her MBA, graduated in 1988, and was married that summer to Christopher McKown, a health-care entrepreneur she’d met when they both worked at Booz. They moved into the home they live in today with their two teenage daughters in the Boston suburb of Milton. The seven-bedroom house on a wooded 5.6-acre estate belonged to her grandfather.

The Malverne School District may have to cut programs and personnel in order to create a budget for 2013-2014 that pays for all mandated services and employee benefits while remaining under the tax cap.

At Wednesday's poorly attended budget development forum, school officials revealed preliminary numbers, shared the results of an online survey, and explained the challenges facing the district this year.We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory.

“The numbers are fairly heavy. They are devastating in terms of what we have to do to maintain our current academic programs and efforts for the children of this district,” Schools Superintendent James Hunderfund told the Board of Education and the few residents seated in the mostly empty Herber Middle School auditorium.Find detailed product information for startup stone mosaic and other products.

As a starting point, Malverne Business Administrator Thomas McDaid calculated the roll-over budget for 2013-2014 by taking the cost of all existing programs, personnel, and other fixed expenses, rolling them over and accounting for projected increases in 2013-2014. That figure came to $52,220,638, more than $3.6 million (7.45 percent) higher than the current school budget, with about 80 percent allocated to instruction and benefits.

About half of the $3.6 million increase stems from dramatic spikes in pension contributions, health insurance costs and tax certiorari, three areas the district has no control over.

A nearly 40 percent increase in the amount New York State requires the district to contribute to its Teachers Retirement System is largely responsible for the $1.6 million increase in employee benefits. For 2013-2014, the district has to pay about $800,000 to TRS and $180,000 the state’s Employee Retirement System.

Health insurance is also to blame. The district is expected to pay 14 percent more for health insurance for its employees, an additional $1,000 for every staff member with an individual plan and an extra $2,000 for those with family plans.

Costs related to “Instruction,” everything from teachers’ salaries to supplies, are going up by just over $1 million, and “General Support” by around $200,000.

On a positive note, the district saw a $7,000 reduction, mainly due to modifying its lunch program, and transportation costs continue to go down, this year by roughly $28,000, as a result of the district’s purchase of a small fleet of buses a few years ago.

The Malverne School District may have to cut programs and personnel in order to create a budget for 2013-2014 that pays for all mandated services and employee benefits while remaining under the tax cap.

At Wednesday's poorly attended budget development forum, school officials revealed preliminary numbers, shared the results of an online survey, and explained the challenges facing the district this year.

“The numbers are fairly heavy. They are devastating in terms of what we have to do to maintain our current academic programs and efforts for the children of this district,” Schools Superintendent James Hunderfund told the Board of Education and the few residents seated in the mostly empty Herber Middle School auditorium.

As a starting point, Malverne Business Administrator Thomas McDaid calculated the roll-over budget for 2013-2014 by taking the cost of all existing programs, personnel, and other fixed expenses, rolling them over and accounting for projected increases in 2013-2014. That figure came to $52,220,638, more than $3.6 million (7.45 percent) higher than the current school budget, with about 80 percent allocated to instruction and benefits.

About half of the $3.6 million increase stems from dramatic spikes in pension contributions, health insurance costs and tax certiorari, three areas the district has no control over.

A nearly 40 percent increase in the amount New York State requires the district to contribute to its Teachers Retirement System is largely responsible for the $1.6 million increase in employee benefits. For 2013-2014,High quality stone mosaic tiles. the district has to pay about $800,000 to TRS and $180,The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry,000 the state’s Employee Retirement System.

Health insurance is also to blame. The district is expected to pay 14 percent more for health insurance for its employees, an additional $1,000 for every staff member with an individual plan and an extra $2,000 for those with family plans.

Costs related to “Instruction,” everything from teachers’ salaries to supplies, are going up by just over $1 million, and “General Support” by around $200,000.

On a positive note, the district saw a $7,000 reduction, mainly due to modifying its lunch program, and transportation costs continue to go down, this year by roughly $28,000, as a result of the district’s purchase of a small fleet of buses a few years ago.

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