Barlow Group

Venkataraman Balasubramanian to Head Professional Services Organization

San Francisco - NorthStar, a leading provider of enterprise-class wealth management software solutions to the financial services industry, today announced that it has hired Venkataraman Balasubramanian, also known as Bala, as Vice President of Professional Services. Bala is a seasoned senior executive with extensive experience in servicing the needs of financial institutions globally. His general management experience includes 3 years at Reuters, 9 years at IBM and almost 10 years at Citigroup. He has held P&L and global leadership responsibility for professional service businesses, and in consulting and services roles, has worked with a number of financial institutions in the US and across Asia Pacific and Northern Europe.

Bala's years at IBM included serving as Managing Partner in IBM Global Services, building and managing the IBM Greater China Services business with profit and loss responsibility for clients in Financial Services. He was also a Principal in the Financial Markets unit responsible for building and running across Asia-Pacific the services competencies for Financial Markets customers.

Subsequent to IBM and most recently, Bala was the Senior Vice President, Partners and Global Alliances, at Reuters Americas, LLC. In this role, Bala was responsible for defining and implementing the process, programs and expertise to drive partnering and strategic alliances into a core competence within Reuters globally. His team was responsible for enabling access to new markets and new revenue opportunities through over 450 partners globally.

“NorthStar has truly differentiated itself as a vendor of wealth management technology solutions,” said Bala, NorthStar Vice President of Professional Services. “I have been familiar with NorthStar’s progress over the last couple of years and the combination of its advanced Services Oriented Architecture, broad ecosystem, and best practices functionality is very impressive. I am very excited to be joining the company at this stage, and look forward to being actively involved with projects and to helping clients realize a significant return on their investment in NorthStar.”

“NorthStar is committed to client success and our professional services capability is a vital part of meeting that objective,” said Collin Cohen, NorthStar President. “Adding Bala’s leadership and extensive experience in managing professional services organizations serving financial services firms across the globe reflects our intent to build a truly world-class professional services team and robust partner ecosystem focused on delivering value to our clients.”

NorthStar also announced expansion and relocation of its New York Office. The new office is located at 14 Wall Street.

About NorthStar Systems International, Inc.
NorthStar is a leading provider of enterprise wealth management software solutions to financial services institutions, including broker dealers, banks and trusts, asset managers, and service providers to Registered Investment Advisors. NorthStar’s suite of software is comprised of five solutions that empower financial advisors and their teams with full lifecycle advisory capabilities to acquire, implement and manage client assets in a holistic and compliant manner. The solutions, and modules within them, can be seamlessly integrated with each other to support the functionality and phasing which meet the specific challenges of the firm.

Sales & Proposals – Capture investor profile information, quickly analyze current investments (including external assets), run hypotheticals, and easily produce professional, compliant proposals.

Planning – Analyze an investor’s portfolio, their financial situation and prospective wealth scenarios to quickly design a tailored investment plan and comprehensive Investment Policy Statement.

Product Catalog & Research – Access a comprehensive, open-architecture product catalog to easily find, compare and analyze investment, banking and insurance products.

Portfolio Construction – Construct and implement highly customized portfolios using eligibility and suitability rules, sophisticated analytics and expanded screening and filtering capabilities.

Client Wealth Management – Manage an entire wealth management practice with 360-degree client views and portfolio reporting tools that facilitate browsing, analysis, monitoring and reporting on and across client relationships.

NorthStar is backed by venture capital firms Benchmark Capital, H.I.G. Capital, and Chess Ventures, as well as Silicon Valley Bank, and leading financial services institutions including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch. For additional information, visit http://www.northstar.com.