$650 billion asset manager Franklin Templeton is embedding data scientists in a key investment team, and it's a sign of how the industry is changing

Joe Boerio Franklin Templeton

The boundaries between technology and business are already blurring. Soon, the two won't be separate, Joe Boerio, Franklin Templeton's chief technology officer, told Business Insider.
In addition to embedding data scientists in investment teams, Boerio is training finance professionals to have some technology skills.
It's easier to teach investing staff tech skills than vice versa, he said.

The boundaries between technology and business are blurring more than ever in finance, said the longtime chief technology officer for a $650 billion firm.

"Longer-term, you won’t have the separation of tech and business," Joe Boerio told Business Insider during a recent interview at Franklin Templeton's San Mateo headquarters.

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Boerio, who has worked on technology at Franklin for more than 30 years, said the firm has adopted a "hub-and-spoke" model for integrating technology into its investment teams, with a central tech team serving various departments, and data scientists working with particular groups. For example, Franklin bought Random Forest Capital, a data science-focused investment team last year, then embedded the team in its fixed income group.

That model helps with an asset management-wide issue: technologists' lack of investment-specific knowledge.

"Everyone across industries is facing the domain expertise problem, but it’s exacerbated in investments," Boerio said.

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Because "it’s easier to teach someone with investment skills the technology than vice versa," Franklin Templeton is working on enhancing its investors' expertise.

"We’ll see more formal programs over the next few years with ways to measure levels of data science adoption and maturity of practices within teams," Boerio said. "It could be a combination of things that gets you to a desired state maturity level. The ongoing challenge with maturity is that it is a moving target with the advancements of technology and business the definition of maturity is always in motion."

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