Mercatus is excited to welcome Ahmed Sarheed to our growing team. Ahmed is a London-based Director of Program Management and he comes to us from Blackrock and previously eFront, where he held a number of project management positions. We recently sat down with him to learn more about his new role and what brought him to Mercatus.
What is your role at Mercatus and what are you hoping to accomplish?
Within my role as a Director of Program Management, I hope to bring over 14 years of experience to ensure quality delivery, grow with my team and clients alike, as well as build invaluable lasting relationships. I hope to look back on this moment in the future with pride over all the accomplishments I helped on, started, or nurtured to put Mercatus on its rightful pedestal.
What is your career background / story?
I started my career in 2008 in an HR and Payroll software company. I have always been fascinated with software and the power it holds over our daily lives, but none more so than the alternative investment industry as it was not as established as others. I moved into the industry in 2011 and have never looked back since, enjoying multiple roles within the implementation and services departments across 4 different continents.
In your past role(s) what are some unmet needs from private market investors around data management technology?
Data management has always been a challenge for clients. For many years, even until now to a certain extent, the primary focus was how data could be better collected and stored across contrasting sources – multiple systems being fed from multiple sources across the front, middle and back office creates unscalable inefficiency to get a holistic overview of their portfolio investments.
What excites you about Mercatus?
The people behind Mercatus possess an ethos that I believe in. They people ARE the brand. From the first conversations I had with various members of the global team, I felt aligned in the vision of the platform and the company overall. More importantly, I was aligned in the ethics of the team to realize this vision.
How do you see private market technology evolving over the next decade?
The natural progression for the private market is to move from its current need of diversification and returns for investors, to a broader perspective that compares multiple private assets on the basis of cashflow characteristics and risk return. Marrying the progression of this Private Market to the use of AI, which has been slowly utilized in the last few years, will prove to be the main transformation on investment decisions using technology. Predictive insights that are powered by AI learning.
What is your favorite / go-to Karaoke song?
I have a few songs, usually following the same patterns (90s R&B) but I will go for “Backstreet Boys – Everybody” and reserve the Slow Jams for the shower.
