(FTF is shining the light on the speakers taking part in the PMCR 2026 event. For this Q&A, we spoke to Dan Whitley, CIPM, head of product data and information at Lord, Abbett & Co. Whitley is a key panelist for the session, “Breaking Down Silos: Building the Client-Centric Organization,” and wants to share how his firm has successfully realigned several teams and functions. The panel will delve into how firms are restructuring operations to create more seamless client experiences by eliminating traditional departmental barriers. The session will help participants consider testing the walls that separate performance measurement, client reporting, and business development teams. At Lord Abbett & Co., Whitley runs the strategy and execution behind the firm’s client and product data ecosystem.)
Getting to Know You
Q: What’s one thing people might be surprised to learn about you?
A: I can do a headstand yoga pose.
Q: What’s the best piece of career advice you’ve ever received (or would share)?
A: On my last day of my first internship, the CEO’s advice to me was to become an expert in something firms needed and build from there; that is how I got involved with learning about the GIPS Standards and built my career from there.
More recently, what I tell my teams is to ask a lot of questions and suggest solutions or ways to improve our processes — no ideas are bad ideas.
I tell people not to be afraid of automating yourself out of a job because in my experience the people who solve those problems are the people who then get more opportunities to continue solving larger (and often times more interesting) problems. You want people like that in your organization.
Professional Background & Expertise
Q: Can you tell us a bit about your role and what your day-to-day looks like at Lord, Abbett & Co.?
A: I oversee a diverse set of teams within client services, including the firm’s performance, product data analytics, client reporting, due diligence questionnaire (DDQ) and request for proposal (RFP), and marketing content solutions teams — all focused on delivering timely and accurate data, and scalable client solutions.
Day to day, I lead the validation, distribution, and governance of all quantitative and qualitative product data, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and impact across client and marketing touchpoints, and I drive the strategy and execution behind the firm’s client and product data ecosystem.
Q: What’s a recent project or initiative your team has worked on that has made the biggest impact for your organization?
A: Historically, our investments and client services teams sourced and calculated fund-level characteristics and breakdowns separately and siloed. Recently we completed a project to source security-level analytics from one golden source and ensure fund-level characteristics and breakdowns align across the firm, ensuring everyone around the firm is looking at the same data and reducing technical debt.
Q: What is your dream project?
A: I would love to build a flexible performance calculator in-house to enable people across the firm to self-service running performance for custom time periods, and a more flexible user interface that allows people to personalize their homepage with groupings of accounts, periods, performance/risk stats/analytics, etc.
Session Insights
Q: What inspired you to participate in PMCR 2026 and join the “Breaking Down Silos: Building the Client-Centric Organization” panel?
A: Over the past few years we have successfully realigned several teams and functions at Lord Abbett so I thought this would be a great opportunity to share some of the things we learned, what worked, and what didn’t work.
Q: What do you think makes “Breaking Down Silos: Building the Client-Centric Organization” especially relevant for today’s investment operations landscape?
A: I think transparency of goals and consistency of data across firms is extremely important, and breaking down these silos across teams can lead to more operational efficiencies, as well as a better client experience.
Industry Challenges & Trends
Q: How do you foresee technology (A.I., blockchains, digital assets, automation, data analytics, etc.) reshaping your area of expertise over the next year or two? Any major shifts you are preparing for?
A: I expect applications using LLM’s to become part of everyone’s daily routine, answering questions and helping with small things. On a large scale I expect workflows to use A.I. to cut down the first steps in dispersion/outlier/anomaly analysis for my teams, allowing analysts to do more insightful analysis rather than having to spend time getting to that point where they can.
I expect A.I. to help our RFP/DDQ team save time with “first-pass” filling out of RFP/DDQ’s and customizing standard language into language for custom opportunities.
The PMCR Experience
Q: What are you most excited about learning at PMCR?
A: I’m excited to see how my peers are starting to use A.I. within their workflows in concrete, tangible ways versus theoretical ways.
Q: What do you hope attendees will walk away with after hearing your session?
A: I hope they look at their departments/organizations to think outside the box on how groups can work together more efficiently.