Lombard Odier
It is rare that financial services firms invest in a side business that has little obvious revenue benefit, and rarer still that such a side business is a tech venture. Lombard Odier – more usually associated with the values of traditional Swiss private banking than Silicon Valley – took on the task of creating a social network for the independent asset management industry back in 2009.
“The logical stage after the generalized social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn is a specialized social network,” says Olivier Collombin, head of Lombard Odier’s asset management business.
The platform, E-merging, provides a business-to-business network for independent portfolio managers and family offices and those that serve them such as HR professionals, IT consultants and lawyers. It has some 15,300 members from 56 countries.
 |
“We thought it could be useful to independent wealth management professionals who are challenged by their small size to have a network available to them of verified professionals in their field that they could speak with,” says Collombin.