Suggestions
Brian Fullerton, CFA
Chief Investment Officer (CIO)
Professional Background
Brian Fullerton, CFA, stands as a highly respected figure in the realms of investment management and risk analysis. Currently serving as the Chief Investment Officer at Avestar Capital, Brian is an integral part of the senior management team that delivers exceptional wealth management services to entrepreneurs and their families. His extensive experience spans over three decades, during which he has demonstrated an unparalleled mastery of various investment strategies and risk management practices.
Brian began his illustrious career at JP Morgan, spending 11 years honing his expertise as a Swaps Structurer and Trader, Risk Manager, and Researcher. This foundational role allowed him to delve into the intricacies of research, derivative structuring, and risk management, positioning him for future opportunities in the investment management sector. His solid grounding in quantitative analysis and complex financial instruments provided him with the skills necessary for significant contributions to upcoming companies.
In 1995, Brian transitioned to the buy-side of the investment landscape, marking a pivotal moment in his career as he joined Putnam Investments as Chief Risk Officer. In this role, he was not just responsible for identifying and managing risks but also played a crucial part in establishing one of the first firm-wide, buy-side risk management functions. His efforts in enhancing risk management protocols earned Putnam the prestigious title of Risk Magazine’s 1999 Asset Management Risk Manager of the Year, a testament to his capabilities and foresight.
After his pioneering work at Putnam, Brian joined Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) as Global Chief Risk Officer. His ascent within the organization was rapid, and by 2001, he had been promoted to Chief Investment Officer of the Americas and secured his place on the Executive Committee. Tasked with overseeing the performance of an impressive $408 billion in client assets managed by over 300 investors, Brian spearheaded initiatives related to alternative strategies, structured products, and quantitative investments. His leadership played a pivotal role in transforming MLIM’s mutual fund family from the bottom tier of Barron’s Annual investment performance ranking to a top performer by 2006, highlighting his ability to drive positive change and enhance investment strategies.
Shaping his career further, Brian accumulated valuable experience as a Managing Director with Gottex Fund Management, an international hedge funds manager. He subsequently co-founded the Unique Property Fund, where he utilized his proprietary quantitative investment approach focusing on distressed residential real estate. This venture allowed Brian to blend his deep understanding of quantitative analysis with innovative approaches to real estate investment, emphasizing his versatile financial acumen.
In 2012, Brian became the Chief Investment Officer at PGA, where he directed asset allocation, manager due diligence, and portfolio management. Following the acquisition of PGA by Goldman Sachs in 2015, he continued to excel within the firm, leading as a Managing Director in the External Investing Group (XIG). His responsibilities included designing portfolio solutions, curating premier investment offerings, overseeing portfolio construction, and managing client mandates. The XIG sought to invest in leading private equity, hedge funds, real estate, ESG, credit, and public market managers, further cementing Brian’s reputation as a thought leader in investment management.
Globally recognized for his strategic insights and decision-making abilities, Brian has played a formative role in various aspects of investment management, reinforcing the importance of rigorous analysis and innovative investment strategies.
Education and Achievements
Brian Fullerton possesses an impressive educational background that underlines his professional achievements in finance and investment management. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Commerce from the University of Virginia, a prestigious institution known for its finance and business programs. His undergraduate education laid the groundwork for his later success in the investment arena.
To elevate his expertise further, Brian pursued an MBA at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Wharton is recognized globally for its leadership in business education, and this advanced degree has helped to refine Brian’s analytical skills and broaden his perspectives on investment strategies and market trends.
Additionally, Brian expanded his knowledge through a specialized program at the Investment Management Workshop (IMW) run by the CFA Institute and Harvard Business School in the summer of 2015. This intensive workshop reflected his commitment to continuous learning and mastery of investment management practices, equipping him with contemporary tools and insights relevant to today’s financial landscape.
Throughout his career, Brian has earned various accolades and served in key positions that validate his expertise and contributions to the field of investment management.
Achievements
Brian Fullerton’s career is marked by numerous notable achievements that strongly reflect his capabilities and influence in investment management. His early recognition as the Chief Risk Officer at Putnam Investments helped establish essential risk management functions that were ahead of their time, leading to Putnam being honored by Risk Magazine in 1999.
As Chief Investment Officer of the Americas at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, Brian not only managed an impressive $408 billion in client assets but also significantly improved the performance of MLIM’s mutual fund family, transforming it into a top performer recognized by Barron’s in 2006. This remarkable turnaround is a prime example of his strategic vision and leadership skills.
At Goldman Sachs, Brian continued to excel as a Managing Director, where he was instrumental in curating world-class investment offerings and optimizing portfolio construction for a diverse range of clients. His ability to embrace innovative investment strategies while maintaining a keen focus on risk management has cemented his reputation as a thought-leader and essential figure within the financial community. His strategic contributions have left a lasting impact on the organizations he has served, showcasing his dedication to excellence in investment practice.
Location
People also viewed
Related People
Clay is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Clay centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Clay's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.