Putnam Names Head of Investment Product Management

In her new role, Marshall will be responsible for all aspects of product management and development across Putnam’s business lines – retail, institutional, and retirement. She will report directly to Jeffrey R. Carney, Putnam Investments Head of Global Marketing, Products and Retirement.  

Marshall, who joined Putnam in 2009 as Director of Market Planning and Analytics, will lead a team of subject matter experts that introduced 14 new products last year, according to a Putnam news release.  

Marshall has spent nearly 20 years in senior roles at Wells Fargo Nikko Investment Advisors, Accenture, and Fidelity Investments. She holds an MBA degree from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Miami University of Ohio.  

According to the announcement, since July 2008 Putnam has: 

• Introduced sweeping changes to the management fees on Putnam’s retail mutual funds, designed to provide investors with a host of immediate and long-term pricing benefits, and to make Putnam’s product line-up more competitive in the marketplace (see Putnam Announces Sweeping Changes to Fees on Retail Funds). Changes included lower management fees, use of performance fees and fund family-wide breakpoints;  
• Launched a tsuite of target absolute return funds, which responded to a strong appetite in the markets for products that invest dynamically in pursuit of positive real returns over time, with less volatility than more traditional mutual funds, whether markets are rising or falling (see Putnam Releases Absolute Return Suite). The absolute return funds passed $1 billion in assets in December 2009, less than a year after they were launched, making them among the best-selling products in their category;
• Introduced the Putnam Global Sector Funds, the first suite of actively managed mutual funds to target stocks in sectors across the entire MSCI World Index (see Putnam Introduces New Global Sector Fund). The individual sector funds are complemented by the new Putnam Global Sector Fund, the first fund-of-funds that provides exposure to all sectors contained in the MSCI World Index;  
• Developed and launched the Putnam Spectrum Funds, which invest in the securities of leveraged companies, looking to generate returns through investments across their entire capital structure (see New Putnam Funds Access Full ‘Spectrum’ of Company Securities)Revamped the Putnam RetirementReady Funds, Putnam’s own suite of 10 target-date/lifecycle retirement funds, to add the absolute return funds as underlying investments (see Putnam Integrates Absolute Return Strategies with Lifecycle Suite).