Kate El-Hillow made a strategic move in 2025 at Russell Investments that might cause some people to scratch their heads.
El-Hillow, president and chief investment officer at the asset manager, brought technology under her leadership and merged the tech team with the investment team. Why?
"Technology is no longer supporting the investment process. It is part of the investment process," she said.
By bringing those capabilities under one umbrella, portfolio managers, researchers, data scientists and engineers now work side-by-side, enabling the firm to create, test and launch innovations more quickly. Today, the investment-tech team is collaborating on how the firm is using AI.
"Rather than treating AI as a standalone technology initiative," she explained, "we built cross-functional teams that combined investment researchers with engineers to develop tools that automate routine research tasks, surface insights across decades of manager data and allow our analysts to spend more time evaluating investment ideas instead of gathering information."
Additionally, Russell has teamed up with Microsoft to host AI hackathons, incorporated AI into asset allocation decisions and sped up several private market initiatives with the aid of AI.
"We think the competitive advantage won't come from having access to AI. Everyone will have AI," El-Hillow said. "The advantage comes from combining AI with 40 years of proprietary manager research, investment outcomes and institutional expertise."
Alongside powering tech advancements, El-Hillow and her colleagues managed to boost client retention from 88% in 2021 to 97% at the end of 2025.
"Ultimately," El-Hillow said, "stronger retention reflects trust."
Zach Buchwald, chairman and CEO, said El-Hillow benefits from a wide range of experience during her more than 25 years in the investment industry.
"Kate has spent her career in multi-manager, multi-asset investing, so she sees the full picture," Buchwald said. "She sees the investment issue, the client issue and the implementation issue at the same time."
One way Russell has embraced the client side is through the rollout of seven ETFs. El-Hillow described the introduction of ETFs as "a pivotal moment" for the firm.
"We never viewed ETFs as replacing our existing business," she said. "We viewed them as another way clients increasingly want to access our investment capabilities."
Greater access to investment capabilities comes at a time when Russell Investments' financials are healthy. In 2025, the firm generated $14 billion in net inflows, drove 20% year-over-year growth in assets under management to $377 billion and grew net revenue by 9%. AUM stood at $416 billion as of June 2026.
"Clients today are dealing with more structural uncertainty than at any point in the last decade," El-Hillow said. "Instead of leading with individual strategies, we've focused on helping clients rethink portfolio construction, governance and implementation."
