FinServ Consulting was founded on the belief that alternative asset management leaders need a robust operational infrastructure in order to govern current assets and continue to create innovative products across diverse strategies and markets.
The technical needs of financial services companies grow more complex each year. In such a highly scrutinized industry, managers cannot afford to operate with rudimentary technologies to handle compliance, risk, trade order management, portfolio management, asset flows, fund accounting, reporting, and other crucial business processes across the front, middle, and back office.
Over the past two decades, our team members have gained deep expertise in complex alternative strategies and instruments, and the systems and processes required to manage them. Our approach goes beyond trading and settlement: We believe that firms need to focus as much on the middle and back office as they do on their front office infrastructures.
FinServ offers a clear vision of where funds are today, and where they need to be going in the future. Our mission is to help investment managers build the first-class operating platforms necessary to support AUM growth, new investment strategies, as well as increasing demands for investor transparency, regulation, and compliance.
FinServ was founded in 2005 while helping one of the largest and most complex asset managers in the world as they grew from $9 billion in AUM to over $40 billion in AUM in just three years. In developing over 15 bespoke systems and integrating over 20 vendor systems for that client, our team acquired the experience and skills to become a thought leader in the industry. Over the past decade our team has helped over 40 of the top 100 hedge and private equity funds solve their most challenging business issues.
The FinServ team combines business consulting, project management, and technology integration experience developed across the world’s top consulting and financial services firms. Our team has experienced the alternative asset industry from the inside, through our onsite work with hedge and private equity funds, prime brokers, global custodians, and fund administrators.
We share our extensive knowledge on operational best-practices in alternative asset management with our clients and have the hands-on know-how to get the most out of software products and technology solutions. We are passionate about our business and are committed to helping our clients succeed.
When you hire FinServ to perform a project, you are getting a team with on time and on budget delivery as our main focus. In each engagement, we work closely with our clients to assess their goals and identify the appropriate technologies for their needs.
We practice disciplined project management and use standardized tools to support each implementation, providing executive communication, status reporting, issue tracking, risk management, and milestone management to ensure projects are completed on time and on budget. We value transparency, exceeding client expectations with every project.
We believe that our ability to deliver client projects within the agreed upon scope and budget builds a foundation of trust that has established our leading position in the industry.
Howard Weinstein is the founder of FinServ Consulting. He established FinServ with the mission to provide alternative asset management firms with the most advanced systems, best practices insight and a structured, methodological approach to systems integrations and development projects.
Throughout his career, Mr. Weinstein has provided consulting on systems, business processes and technical architectures to some of the world’s top alternative asset managers. He has over two decades of experience providing consulting services to the financial services industry, with a focus on building scalable, first-class operating environments.
Howard is an avid inline skater and loves to push himself to his limits. Howard completed the Athens to Atlanta 86 mile skate marathon 10 times, most recently in 2011 because he wanted to share this passion with his children. One of the things he loves about speed skating is the adrenaline rush of speeding down a hill, he says he often “feels the need for speed!”
Prior to establishing FinServ, Mr. Weinstein served as a Senior Manager at BearingPoint (formerly KPMG Consulting), where he provided business and systems consulting to major investment banks and alternative asset management businesses. Earlier in his career, Mr. Weinstein was a consultant in the Performance Improvement Practice of Ernst & Young Consulting. Mr. Weinstein is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and an active participant on financial services technology steering committees. Mr. Weinstein sits on the Dean’s Advisory Board of the University of Albany’s School of Business.
Mr. Weinstein has a B.S. in Business Administration with a Concentration in Management Information Systems and an English minor from the University at Albany.
Lee Schare, a founding partner of FinServ Consulting, is a thought leader and expert on systems and processes at investment firms. He has spent his career providing guidance and hands-on expertise to hedge funds, private equity firms, investment banks, and asset management firms.
Mr. Schare has a strong combination of accounting, business and technical knowledge, as well as broad exposure to most vendors that interact within the alternative and traditional asset management community. With over 20 years of experience as a Controller, he possesses deep knowledge of fund and management company accounting. In addition, Mr. Schare has led many projects across the front and back office, and can therefore offer clients guidance on improving efficiencies.
Mr. Schare is an avid sports fan and loves attending events with his son, who has followed his passion for the Mets, Knicks, and Steelers. He has a goal of visiting a different stadium every year. His wife and daughter are fully supportive of this objective.
Prior to establishing FinServ, Mr. Schare was a Director of Consulting Services for CGI-AMS, and a Vice President in Deutsche Bank’s CFO organization, where he led a global general ledger project. Earlier in his career, Mr. Schare worked as a Manager for Ernst & Young, where he led large teams within their SAP practice.
Mr. Schare earned his MBA from NYU Stern School of Business majoring in Finance and Economics and earned a B.S. in Business Administration with a Concentration in Management Information Systems from the University at Albany.
Shaurin Jobalia is the Head of FinServ’s India office. He has more than a decade of experience serving clients in the asset management industry and has leveraged an analytical approach and thoughtful execution to help clients achieve desired results.
Mr. Jobalia possesses a deep understanding of the alternate asset management and the hedge fund industry and can provide best-in-class advisory services to clients related to operational, technological, and accounting related issues.
Prior to FinServ Consulting, Mr. Jobalia worked as a Senior Vice President at Enfusion, where he was responsible for oversight of client implementations. In this role, he led data migration and fund services teams. He relocated from Chicago to set up Enfusion’s Mumbai office where he hired roughly 120 employees in less than two years and launched new services to support hedge fund clients globally.
Mr. Jobalia earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Mumbai and a Master’s in Finance with a concentration in Financial Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. His ability to understand client issues from a functional and technical perspectives helps him provide outstanding consulting solutions.