Episode summary
Episode 378: Anwiti Bahuguna of Northern Trust: The Golden Era of Customisation
The Fiftyfaces Podcast
· · 26 min · Guests: Anwiti Bahuguna
Summary
Anwiti Bahuguna argues that multi-asset investing is fundamentally a risk-management discipline: the job is to grow client assets without taking excessive volatility, while still avoiding portfolios that are so defensive they fail to protect against inflation. She frames the attraction of multi-asset as a middle ground between pure growth assets like equities and capital-preservation assets like bonds.
She says Northern Trust is seeing demand across retail, wealth, family office, and institutional channels, but the client problem is the same: people want solutions, not products. On the wealth side, she highlights tax management, direct indexing, and muni bonds; on the institutional side, she points to custom indices, ESG mandates, and “index plus” solutions that aim to add value beyond plain index exposure. She also says customization has moved from a large-institution feature to a broader market theme, calling it the “golden era of customization.”
Bahuguna also describes her career path from economics and housing research into finance, including a pivotal move into strategy work at Fleet Boston Financial, the lessons of the 2008-9 crisis, and the importance of transparency in leadership. She closes with a simple motto: “feel the fear, but do it anyway.”
Key takeaways
- Bahuguna says multi-asset portfolios are primarily about managing downside risk without becoming so defensive that inflation erodes real wealth.
- She sees strong demand for tax-managed equities, direct indexing, and muni bonds from wealth clients focused on minimizing tax burdens.
- For institutions, Northern Trust is pushing custom indices, ESG constraints, and index-plus solutions rather than plain benchmark replication.
- She says 20-plus years of US equity dominance has made diversification harder to sell, but drawdown education still resonates with clients.
- Bahuguna calls customization the “golden era” and says it is being democratized beyond large institutions.
Notable quotes
“it is really an exercise in risk management. You are trying to make sure that you don't harm the client's assets”
“we are in the golden era of customization. We are seeing that very much so as I said in the institutional side”
“The other area institutions and even wealth clients are going into is to see can we now move from index”
“feel the fear, but do it anyway”
How the episode opens
If I had one strong belief about multi-asset portfolio is that it is really an exercise in risk management. You are trying to make sure that you don't harm the client's assets and that sort of is your key fiduciary duty to manage and grow your client's assets. You're not harming them by taking inordinate amount of volatility risk, equity risk, or commodities, or what have you.
Something which has very high standard deviation or volatility, but you're also then not just sitting in assets which have very low volatility, 3%, 4%, 5%, but they're also not protecting you from inflation fears, which are very much where we are right now.
I'm Eimear Mulhern and welcome to the 50 Faces podcast. A podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories. This podcast is kindly supported by Baillie Gifford and UCM Gooldner.
In a world that moves at an unrelenting pace, where the horizons of innovation stretch beyond what the eye can see, Baillie Gifford is driven by curiosity. As long-term growth investors, they are searching for hidden gems, the future winners yet to be realized, the winners in their fields. Those companies with foundations built to last.
Only the patient can see past the temporary and distracting. As an aligned partnership that resists the seduction of short-term gains, Baillie Gifford seeks out companies that will not only succeed, but do so by addressing the needs of society and driving change toward the next horizon. As active investors, Baillie Gifford are not just spectators, they are partners in the narrative of progress.
GCM Grosvenor is a global alternative asset management solutions provider with more than 90 billion dollars in assets under management across private equity, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and absolute return strategies.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- multi-asset strategies
- client solutions
- custom indices customization
- risk appetite
- career path labor economics
Companies and tickers mentioned
- NTR
- Northern Trust Asset Management
- Columbia Threadneedle Investments
Watch the episode
Watch “Episode 378: Anwiti Bahuguna of Northern Trust: The Golden Era of Customisation” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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