People: Clare Marshall, former treasurer, Export Development Corporation
People: Tiina Lee, Head of EMTNs, Deutsche Bank
In October 1998, Mark Collier left his job, rented a basement in the City of London with former colleague Ron Lay, and stepped aboard the e-business bandwagon by founding Investia. "Why," he says, posing himself the question, "at the age of 44 did I give up my job as president of Charles Schwab Europe? Because in two years we'll be Britain's largest software company in terms of turnover and the largest provider of web-enabled technology for the financial services industry in Europe."
Such brazen statements may be the norm for internet entrepreneurs but they do not appear to come naturally to Collier, who seems a little uneasy talking about himself. I hazard that if his prophecy comes true, his name will become as familiar as that of his former boss. He looks horrified.
He is, though, enthusiastic when he talks about his "team", and exhibits touching wonderment at the skills and lifestyles of his software designers in California. Mostly they were selected by Collier's partner, Ron Lay, a 15-year veteran of Silicon Valley. They include several former Schwab employees and a brace of rocket scientists from Rockwell. All have equity in Investia.
"They're certainly not morning people, and they barely know how to tie ties," says Collier. "But they're incredibly creative, and they work until the job's done." He continues: "Nobody, not even Microsoft, has a technology advantage in the long term. But right now we do."
Collier's contention is that Investia's software designers have developed the "killer app" for analyzing and selecting European mutual funds. Known as Javelin, the system provides continuous information on funds as well as real-time trading, clearing and settling via the internet.
"What we're about is demystifying," he says. "In European mutual funds there is the beginning of a revolution stoked by the information age. Consumers are realizing that information and comparative shopping are available to them. The US has led this revolution but consumers are the same all over the place. They want clarity and they want to take control of their decisions."
Collier's bet is that as investors in Europe look for higher-yielding investments, and search out the best investment talent to manage their money, they will "look to distributors to provide them with the tools to analyze their needs and select high-performance funds". He contends that Investia's technology "combines the best of American know-how in e-business with a profound understanding of the European investment market in a way that will empower fund managers and distributors to expand their distribution through the internet". His goal is for Investia to become "the global leader in internet-enabled financial services technology".
Mark Collier was born in 1954, the son of a journalist who became sports editor of the Sunday Times. He had "a very ordinary life" growing up in London, going to Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire and then London's South Bank Polytechnic where he graduated in business studies. He rowed a bit and played tennis. He reckons he wasn't particularly gifted at either sport or academia.
Collier joined American Express as a management trainee, but "having to conform to a hugely efficient business machine" wasn't to his taste. "I couldn't see what I was contributing." After switching to marketing at pharmaceuticals company Smith & Nephew, he spent a few years in the Middle East promoting brands - "everything from military battle dressings to Nivea". Returning to the UK he worked for the marketing department of Reckitt & Colman, and in 1980 joined Citibank.
Collier's first experience of financial services involved developing technology and charge card solutions for retailers such as Marks & Spencer and United Drapery Stores (the owners of once ubiquitous UK high street stores such as John Collier). After four years he left to go to Fidelity Investments, to help develop their unit trusts. He was a founder and managing director of Fidelity's international retail and institutional brokerage company and later became president of Fidelity Investment Advisor Group, a division of Fidelity Investments based in Boston. There Collier was responsible for the company's US intermediary and financial distribution company, bringing it from nowhere to be the US's second-biggest provider - behind Charles Schwab - of technology and fund supermarkets to financial intermediaries.
Collier moved from the world's largest manufacturer of funds to their largest distributor, becoming co-chief executive of Schwab International, and thus "the only person in Europe who has worked at both Fidelity and Schwab in senior management positions". At Fidelity, Collier was the youngest president in the US, and the only non-American president.
At Charles Schwab, Collier was responsible for Schwab in Europe and for the development of non-US subsidiaries in Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands. "When I came back I realized I'd taken what I'd learnt in the US for granted. I saw how technology was an empowerer of customer choice and of tomorrow's winners in the financial services industry."
Collier is himself technologically savvy. "I do fundamentally believe that chief executives have to understand the application of technology." He commutes each day to London from a small farm in Sussex, which he is converting to organic agriculture. "I'm hugely into woodland conservation, organic food and all that," he says. "It's about intuitively knowing that certain systems are unsustainable."
So will Investia be a success? According to a former colleague of Collier's at Fidelity, it stands a very good chance. "Both Collier and Lay have successful track records. Collier is an excellent marketing guy who has always been extremely focused on his customers and very intense around the work front. He approaches projects with a lot of enthusiasm."
