Emily Portney has a full plate as the global head of asset servicing at BNY.
BNY's largest business unit provides custody; accounting, reporting and other fund services; along with data and platform solutions to asset owners, traditional and alternative investment managers, insurance companies, banks, and broker-dealers. The group's assets under custody and administration neared $50 trillion in the second quarter, setting a record for BNY and the financial industry.
Before leading asset servicing, Portney was BNY's chief financial officer, overseeing controllers and CFO teams, treasury, capital management, tax issues and investor relationships. She supervised the execution of the company's global financial strategy and helped articulate its value proposition to analysts and investors.
"I've always loved the underpinnings of how the financial system works, and I've been in and around these kinds of businesses forever, including derivatives clearing and collateral management," Portney said, adding that her current job is a natural progression of that interest.
Unlike many professionals who have spent their lives in the financial services industry, Portney didn't study finance as a college undergraduate. "I have a degree in sociology from Duke University," she said. "They didn't have a business major. Sociology, marketing and management were all in the sociology major."
Her first post-graduation job was in a JPMorgan Chase training program; she stayed at the bank for more than 22 years.
Portney learned the industry through multiple roles as her career progressed. She had the good fortune to be present at various times, such as the 2008 subprime debt crisis, when the financial system was grappling with complex and challenging issues.
"A background in understanding operations and technology and how things work became a commercial asset," she said. "That's when I moved more into running businesses and thinking about strategic development."
"BNY has a fabulous culture and is a place where you can have multiple careers at one organization," she said.
At BNY, Portney is proud of the team she's built — she has increased her group's size by 65% — and how it has changed in the six years since she began her current role.
"Clients tell me that we are much nimbler and more execution-oriented," she said. "We're very focused on the biggest opportunities."
The group's sales and revenue growth have exceeded targets. In 2023, Portney cut the group's year-over-year expense growth rate by half, from 7% to 3.5%. BNY expects that higher revenues and slower expense growth will repeat in 2024.
Portney is also proud of what her group has done around exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. Under her leadership, BNY has grown its ETF business to about $2 trillion in assets under custody and administration.
"We truly are best in class in terms of how we service ETFs of all kinds, whether they're passive or active, fully public or alternative ETFs," she said.
BNY's overall capacity around digital assets is another point of pride. In the past year, Portney has partnered with BNY's head of digital assets on projects to tokenize money market funds and private assets.
"Our digital assets group is leading the charge around how to think of servicing digital assets," Portney said. As they consider how to handle any asset in a tokenized form, the group is working with regulators to avoid inadvertently introducing a new risk to the financial system.
Though she finds the financial industry's complexity and pace of change "challenging for everyone involved," Portney said she's happy with how her group within BNY is handling it.
"The industry moves fast and then you throw in political turmoil, market disruptions for whatever reason, and you still have to be able to fire on all cylinders," she said. "The business is more and more about size, scale and expertise. We're fortunate that we have all three."
