Author Archives: momenta

Local learning marketplace Mavensdotlive and Young Entrepreneurs Association Brunei (YEAB) recently organised a sharing session dubbed “Make Leadership Training Truly Effective” with distinguished speaker Dr Carl Thong, the Group MD of momenta, one of the largest training companies in Asia. In her opening speech, Goh Chai Li, founder of Mavensdotlive and Managing Director of Momenta Brunei said that globally, companies have invested billions of dollars in employee training and development. “The latest data from Statista says that in the US alone it has passed the 100 billion dollar mark for the first time, the highest after the pandemic. Another research by the LinkedIn Workplace Report from this year, 49 per cent of L&D chose leadership and management as their focus area, leadership training is already a big trend globally,” she said. This was most needed during and post-pandemic, when organisations have had to build resilience, learn to adapt quickly and with agility, and use initiative to stay flexible with changing environmental needs. There were 40 people in attendance from various stakeholders or organisations such as Unified National Network, Rentokil Initial (B) Sdn Bhd, Baiduri Bank, KIMI Brunei, GoMamam, Makan Ceria, Aegis Secure Solutions, Jerudong Park Medical Centre, Comquest, Network Integrity Assurance Technologies and Progresif. As a strategy consultant to drive innovation and strategic leadership workshops, Dr Carl Thong mentioned that leadership is not a ‘training programme’ or ‘just simply attending a workshop or a Ted Talk’, but rather, a formation and development process. A comprehensive and holistic leadership development and formation framework would focus on three core parameters; competencies, capacity and character. It is not easy and requires much effort. Developing an individual to be a leader is a journey. But it begs the question for the person or organisation, is the journey an incidental one or an intentional one, said the speaker. During the closing remarks, Louis Loo, Vice President of YEAB said that leadership development is important because it is how organisations develop the talent they already have into the leaders they need for tomorrow. The transition from an individual contributor to a leader is a big one, he added. Momenta is the Global Partner for the Ken Blanchard Company in Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Hong Kong and Macau. For more than 40 years, Blanchard has been helping organizations develop inspired leaders at all levels and create cultures of connection that unleash talent and deliver extraordinary results. For further information, please visit www.momenta.biz Article by The Bruneian

Singapore, 5 May 2022 – Amundi, Europe’s leading asset manager and leader in responsible investment, announced today the launch of an IBF-certified ESG programme to enhance understanding on responsible investment approaches across the financial industry. Entitled “Rebalancing Your Client’s Portfolio to be ESG-Aligned,” the programme has been co- developed with momenta, a business transformation and people development firm, accredited by the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF) Singapore. Targeting private banking and retail relationship managers, investment consultants, and product specialists, it will provide participants with a better understanding of ESG principles, impart best practices, and strengthen ESG advisory capabilities to forge stronger and deeper client relationships. Albert Tse, Amundi’s CEO for South Asia, said: “An increasing focus and interest in responsible investing has driven demand for relationship managers to keep pace and meet the evolving needs of their clients. This training programme is a key to bridge the knowledge gap, while equipping participants with the skillsets and knowledge to enrich discussions and capture opportunities with their clients.” “As a pioneer in responsible investment, Amundi is delighted to be working with momenta to help finance professionals deepen their capabilities in ESG investment. Leveraging the strengths of both parties, we will deliver Amundi’s ESG proficiencies through momenta’s people development expertise. Similarly, the IBF accreditation is the hallmark of proficiency and further underscores the capabilities and value-add that Amundi is able to provide the industry as a leader in ESG” he added. Designed to take place in two parts, the programme will comprise a mobile self-learning segment and a full-day workshop conducted by an IBF accredited trainer. Lending its ESG expertise, Amundi will provide the material used in the self-learning modules. Presented alongside a variety of slides, videos and assessments, the mobile-learning segment will lay the groundwork to introduce the concepts and relevance of ESG in the investment space, preparing participants for the full-day workshop. Available in both in-person and virtual format to accommodate learning preferences, as social distancing measures ease in Singapore, the workshop will bring to life theories and concepts from the mobile-learning segment and provide application via scenarios and case studies. Led by an IBF-accredited trainer, the entire programme is accredited under the IBF’s Standards Training Scheme. Through this arrangement, participants will be able to fulfil their 12.5 hours CPD requirements as part of expanding the competencies needed for their jobs. Commenting on the partnership, momenta’s Group Managing Director, Carl Thong said, “ESG is an important topic and this workshop allows wealth managers to translate ESG knowledge into client conversations. We are excited to be in partnership with Amundi, one of the world’s leading asset managers with specialty in ESG.” More information about the workshop and programme brochure can be downloaded . To register for the workshop, email contact@momenta.biz .

Having decided which products & services will be offered and then done some high level marketing activities, private wealth firms deliver these services in a ‘high touch’ way – through very senior private bankers (PBs), wealth managers (WMs) and relationship managers (RMs). We now look at the ‘final mile’ – the sales, advice and relationship management processes of Indian private wealth firms. Relationship managers learn technical skills on the job Wealth management firms have been lamenting the lack of talent for many years. When asked about the talent pipeline, most firms confirmed that they prefer to hire people with private wealth experience. Banks groom talent by lateral hires from retail (affluent) and corporate banking, which in turn hire MBA graduates. Relationship managers are then trained on-the-job, with some external input such as CIEL’s wealth management program. Interestingly, banks or firms have not engaged with global specialist wealth management accreditation providers such as Chartered Wealth Manager (CWM), or even specialist investment accreditation providers such as the CFA Institute. The CFA Institute has been sharing that an increasing proportion of charter-holders of their flagship Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program work in wealth management. Even in India, the CFAI has been holding an annual wealth management conference for six years to engage with the wealth management community. Sales processes seem to be about the pitch… Indeed, most wealth firms seemed to focus on the softer skills of sales and relationship management when hiring RMs. We couldn’t find any client surveys of satisfaction levels in India, but there have been a few globally with mixed feedback. In her book ‘Wealth Management Unwrapped’, veteran Charlotte B Beyer asks her high net worth investor readers to pretend that they are CEOs of their new company My Wealth, Inc and recall the worst sales pitches they have heard from wealth management firms. The book lists some pet peeves listed by investors she has worked with over many years. …and advice processes often have communication gaps In the book, she also highlighted that relationships between investors and their relationship managers break down quite often. She mentioned some common communication gaps, summarised in the graphic. Firms now realising value of sales/advice process Some private wealth firms have engaged specialist training providers. Carl Thong, group managing director of the Singapore-based Momenta group is such a trainer. Trained as a pastor himself, Thong admits that there was a time that he thought like many in the industry – which is that hard work and attitude are enough. Eventually he realised that “mindset is part of being coached and trained.” He now evangelises the value of training promising visible hard results i.e. increased sales, rather than just good feedback on his sessions. Momenta’s sales training has a number of pillars – mindset, technical, habit-formation and instructional design. Thong believes it’s important to customise the training to the firm’s specific platform and that it is habit-forming. On customization, Thong said he would like to truly customise but ends up ‘copy-pasting’ or contextualizing to the private wealth firm’s platform. He also believed that most firms don’t allow enough time and cost for training to be habit-forming. So while his firm will take on 1-2 training workshops, he is honest enough to tell them it won’t work. He tries to tell them that habits take a bit of time to form – “Role-playing is not enough…it’s like swimming. You can’t read about swimming. You need to drink some pool water before you learn to swim. Even then, swimming in a pool is different from swimming in a river or in the sea.” Having worked with some private wealth firms, and also some end-investors, Thong believes Indian prospects tend to pose transactional questions such as ‘how much returns can you make’ and ‘will you offer a discount on the fees’ but it’s up to the RM to shift the conversation to a more strategic level. Written by Money Management India