Mercatus is excited to welcome George Merritt to its growing team. George comes to Mercatus from FIS, bringing over his years of experience in private markets and technology solutions. Ali Mamujee, VP of Product Marketing, recently sat with George to learn more about his new role, what brought him to Mercatus, and his thoughts on the future of the private market technology.
What is your role at Mercatus?
I am a Program Manager based in Miami, FL. My goal as part of the Mercatus story is to become a trusted advisor to our clients in turning their data into actionable investment insights leveraging the Mercatus platform.
What is your background / story?
After graduating from the University of Florida, I joined the Investran & Data Exchange business at SunGard, then ultimately FIS. Over the last 6.5 years, I was focused on building the Private Equity services around Investran and Data Exchange in a variety of different roles. I’ve also tried to formalize my education in the space by becoming a CAIA charter holder and am currently a CFA candidate.
In your past role(s) what are some unmet needs from private market investors around data management technology?
The main unmet need that comes to mind was around the lack of integrations in a space that the majority of solutions are ‘one size fits all’ point-solutions with a very specific focus. This left firms with the complexity of architecting an ecosystem of complex data aggregation, solutions, processes, and workflows to achieve firm objectives and larger scale efficiency.
How do you see private market technology evolving over the next decade?
I honestly think private market technology is an incredibly exciting space to be. As more investors allocate more capital to the private markets, firm competition will further increase, and these firms will look to technology as a means to maintain and even sharpen their competitive edge. I believe a couple of trends around private market technology will be around close to real-time investment performance data reporting, robust integrations across client’s technology ecosystems, and powerful investment forecasting capabilities. We’ve barely scratched the surface of the industry in my opinion.
What excites you about Mercatus?
The product initially drew my attention as an incredibly powerful and modern platform, but being a part of this team is what really excites me. Everyone is incredibly sharp, passionate, and energetic with an incredible work ethic to back it up. I’m excited to join in and contribute to the team’s vision and goals.
What is your go-to karaoke song?
It’s impossible to pick just a single favorite here. Ideally, I’d just attach a whole playlist but if I have to pick, I’m going to go with two that you may catch me singing when driving alone:
- Tiny Dancer – Elton John
- Ho Hey – The Lumineers
Give us a fun fact about yourself.
I was actually born in London and was raised there for 9 years. I changed my accent when trying to fit in and make new middle school friends in Miami. It occasionally makes an appearance in presentations or when speaking with my fellow countrymen and women though.
