‘Stay Endlessly Curious’

Lorraine Tutovic at Cohen & Steers has agreed to take part in two PMCR 2026 sessions and to answer a few questions about her profession and the industry.

(FTF’s PMCR 2026 will feature a variety of industry participants who will take on major performance measurement and client reporting subjects via the conference sessions. Lorraine Tutovic, CIPM, senior vice president, performance analytics at Cohen & Steers, has agreed to take part in two sessions and to answer a few questions about her profession and the industry. Tutovic says she lives by the best career advice she ever got, which is “to stay endlessly curious.” When people stop learning, their growth stalls, she says. “The people who thrive long term are the ones who treat every role, every challenge, and every change as a chance to build new skills.” An investment management firm, Cohen & Steers specializes in real estate securities via real estate investment trusts (REIT) and alternative income via preferred securities.) 

Professional Background & Expertise

Q: Can you tell us a bit about your role and what your day-to-day looks like at Cohen & Steers?

A: At Cohen & Steers, I support our performance functions by ensuring the team operates efficiently — monitoring key metrics, resolving issues, and coordinating with cross-functional partners. I lead process improvement initiatives that streamline workflows, remove bottlenecks, and introduce tools that help the team work smarter.

I guide stakeholders in interpreting performance data to support informed decisions and partner with the investment team to enhance monitoring and decision evaluation practices. I also mentor team members and drive initiatives that strengthen operational effectiveness and long term capability.

Q: What’s a recent project or initiative your team has worked on that has made the biggest impact for your organization?

A: My team has focused on automating and streamlining the consultant database data collection process, while also strengthening quality controls for performance and analytical uploads into OMNIBUS (consultant data aggregator).

Through this work, we gained access to new data sources that allowed us to build firmwide reporting, ultimately improving visibility and supporting users across the organization. We also have centralized our data and were able to improve our reporting processes and gained efficiencies across the firm.

Q: What is your dream project?

A: My dream project would be to build an end to end quality control system for performance data—one that continuously monitors data integrity, automatically flags and alerts us to any failures, and provides a seamless, low effort way to reload corrected data for reprocessing. The goal is a reliable, transparent workflow that minimizes manual intervention and keeps our performance reporting consistently accurate.

Session Insights

Q: What inspired you to participate in PMCR 2026 and speak on “Leveraging Real-Time Performance Monitoring & Quality Control,” and “When Performance Breaks: Mastering Complex Scenarios and Calculation Challenges?”

A: I was inspired to participate in PMCR 2026 because these topics sit at the heart of the work I do every day. Real time performance monitoring and strong quality control practices are no longer ‘nice to have’—they’re essential for maintaining accuracy, building trust in our data, and enabling teams to make faster, smarter decisions. Over the past few years, I’ve seen firsthand how much value organizations unlock when they modernize their performance workflows, automate checks, and create systems that surface issues before they become problems.

At the same time, I’ve also lived through the other side of the equation—when performance breaks. Complex scenarios, edge cases, and calculation challenges are inevitable, and I’ve learned a lot from navigating those situations. Speaking on this topic gives me the chance to share practical lessons, highlight common pitfalls, and help others feel more confident tackling the messy, real world issues that don’t always fit neatly into a standard process.

Q: What do you think makes “Leveraging Real-Time Performance Monitoring & Quality Control,” and “When Performance Breaks: Mastering Complex Scenarios and Calculation Challenges” especially relevant for today’s investment operations landscape?

A: I believe our industry benefits when we openly share what works and what doesn’t.  Sharing these insights gives us all a better way to learn, improve process, expand services and solution for industry challenges.

Industry Challenges & Trends

Q: What’s one of the biggest challenges your team or clients are facing right now? Can you fill us in on how you are approaching it?

A: Our biggest challenge is to accelerate how quickly we can deliver data while strengthening the comprehensiveness of our quality checks to ensure accuracy.

The best approach is to build a more automated, end to end validation framework — one that catches issues earlier, reduces manual intervention, and gives us clearer visibility into data health throughout the process.

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: We’re looking to leverage A.I. and other emerging technologies to automatically identify anomalies, break them down into clear root cause categories, and streamline the process of resolving and clearing them.

The PMCR Experience

Q: What are you most excited about learning at PMCR?

A: I am looking forward to the A.I. implementation session. I’m eager to understand how other firms are applying A.I. in practical, high impact ways so we can identify opportunities to strengthen our own approach.

Q: What do you hope attendees will walk away with after hearing your session?

A: I hope the key takeaway is that attendees leave with a clearer understanding of how to shape their performance processes to be proactive rather than reactive.

Getting to Know You

Q: What’s one thing people might be surprised to learn about you?

A: At Cohen & Steers, I lead a team focused on strengthening our department’s culture. We design and host initiatives that encourage colleagues to share their stories, learn from one another, build connections, and enjoy time together.

Q: What’s the best piece of career advice you’ve ever received (or would share)?

A: The best career advice I’ve ever received is to stay endlessly curious. The moment you stop learning, your growth stalls. The people who thrive long term are the ones who treat every role, every challenge, and every change as a chance to build new skills. Continuous learning isn’t just about courses or classes—it’s about asking better questions, seeking feedback, and staying open to new ideas.