Team leader

Two years ago, she took up a new post at Toronto-based Fidelity Investments Canada Ltd. (which she joined in 1996) that requires her to travel less — only 50% of her time. As one of four new regional vice presidents, she is responsible for a wholesale team that services Ontario and the Atlantic provinces. Five of her team members are based in Ontario, some working with brokers, the others with planners. The other two members of her team work in the Atlantic provinces.

Bennett has spent the past two years “getting the role up and running,” she says. “It’s a new role within Fidelity in Canada.”

Now, as the initial job-learning curve begins to flatten, Bennett is turning her mind to strategy. She has three main goals. The first is to meet the needs of financial advisors dealing with new products and new services by offering seminar programs designed to keep them up to date. The second is to stay in constant contact with advisors by working with the wholesalers. “A lot of the clients were mine at one time. Together, the wholesalers and I work with advisors to try to help them,” she says.

Finally, Bennett likes to keep in touch with regional managers at the brokerage and planning firms. “I have regular meetings, mainly with the advisors’ bosses.”

The benefit of this kind of regular contact, says Bennett, is that she develops a deeper and current knowledge of the advisory business. “I learn more and we can react more quickly. We’re more helpful to the advisors’ organizations. We can understand what directions the firms are taking and be responsive to it.”

As the mutual fund industry has grown, the competition among wholesalers has increased, says Bennett. The days are gone when a sale was a fait accompli and “value-added” meant taking the advisor to lunch at a nice restaurant or playing 18 holes at a swanky golf course. That doesn’t mean lunch or an occasional trip to the links doesn’t find it’s way on to the business agenda any more. But now advisors want value-added that has real value.

“You can’t just drop by for a visit,” she says. “Their time is important. Time is really of the essence. They’re more selective about who they’re going to see. Their firms want them to be building their own businesses.”

The industry definitely has to change, says Bennett. Once upon a time, she had 3,000 clients — “a huge territory. Today, mutual funds are a common, household term. And the public has access to mutual fund Web sites.”

As a result, value-added for wholesalers means making sure advisors are well-informed. Fidelity wholesalers engage in a lot of educational activities for advisors, says Bennett. “They’re giving seminars on how the market works, how Fidelity works and what Fidelity is all about.”

One of Canada’s largest fund companies, Fidelity has added another layer of challenge for wholesalers, says Bennett. “They constantly have to be getting to know our products and our competitors’ products.” Now that insurance is part of the advisors’ mix, wholesalers have had to bone up on that part of the business as well.

Fidelity wholesalers make frequent trips to head office in Boston as well — to learn about stock analysis, how to read a balance sheet and more. Boston is also where the portfolio managers for the company’s Canadian fund line-up hang their hats. Despite the amount of information faced by her wholesaling team, Bennett remains confident. She has a chartered financial analyst and an MBA grad on her seven-person team. “They love their work,” she says of her team members. “It’s not a job. It’s their passion.”

Bennett’s other passion is children’s charities. Born and raised in Cambridge, a southern Ontario farming community, Bennett was influenced by her father, who was active with the Big Brothers organization. As she was growing up she was constantly involved in athletics. Her father urged her to channel her athletic abilities into charity work, so she went to the local YMCA and taught basketball and volleyball to children.

After graduating from the University of Western of Ontario with a bachelor of arts in economics, she moved to Toronto and began her career as an often-on-the-road wholesaler. At first she did volunteer work with Covenant House, a home for troubled street kids in downtown Toronto. But she realized she couldn’t make the same level of commitment she had in the past. Not wanting to be the source of disappointment to already troubled kids, she hooked up with the Big Sisters organization and got involved in fundraising. For the past four years, her chief role has been to raise money via an annual remote-controlled Indy-car race held during the Indy race week in July in Toronto. “The first year, I called upon my colleagues in the other fund companies and they came through for me,” says Bennett.

The annual race is held in the Toronto-Dominion Court in downtown Toronto. Several fund companies, as well as some brokerage firms and other industry players, sponsor cars with teams of eight drivers. It’s fun to watch the guys turn into boys again, she says: “It’s definitely a guy thing. They are so competitive.”

This year the race raised almost $300,000 in donations.

Bennett began her wholesaling career in 1986 with what is now Spectrum Investments Inc. of Toronto. She moved to Halifax in 1991 to become the company’s East Coast rep. In 1993 she moved over to Dynamic Mutual Funds Ltd., and moved back to Toronto in 1995. A year later, she climbed on board the Fidelity ship.

“Wholesalers are the face for the organization,” she says. “For most advisors, the wholesaler is the company.”

It’s a responsibility that she enjoys: “This work is not for everybody. It’s not a nine-to-five job. I like talking to advisors. They’re entrepreneurs. I get a lot of energy out of what they’re doing.”

These days, when Bennett is not meeting with advisors or strategizing with her team, she is talking with her boyfriend about a possible new addition to the family — the four-legged kind. Hopefully, it’ll be a dog that can keep up with her. IE