Insight Exchange
Ola Abdul
Interviewee:
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Ola Abdul |
LAPF Investments speaks with Ola Abdul to discuss some of the issues shaping the sector
Ola is Founder and CEO of Fundment, the infrastructure powering custom indexing, which replaces pooled‑fund constraints with direct, security‑level control and a cleaner, more transparent operating model.
Where do you see the biggest common ground between LGPS governance and other highly regulated financial services operating models (intermediary platforms and asset managers) and what can LGPS borrow to improve decision quality and pace?
The strongest common ground is fiduciary accountability – decisions must stand up to scrutiny after the event. The key difference is how uncertainty is resolved.
In most regulated environments, committees approve decisions with implementation consequences already visible – costs, exposures, and risk alignment are known in advance. In LGPS, governance often approves intent first and understands the outcome later. But it’s not weaker governance that LGPS needs to move faster; it’s more operational certainty.
If resulting portfolios can be modelled before approval – particularly for index allocations – then committees can approve a known outcome rather than a mandate description. That improves decision confidence and increases pace.
With tighter reporting rules being introduced for pools, particularly around performance and costs, pools are likely to become more time poor than ever. What needs to be implemented to help support and accelerate their reporting processes?
New reporting requirements shift focus from assessing managers to evidencing decisions, costs and outcomes. Retrospective reporting struggles because it reconstructs events months later.
Reporting should instead be generated as a by-product of implementation, not as an after-the-fact exercise.
Three capabilities unlock speed and accuracy: automatic capture when portfolios change; continuous attribution separating market movement from decision and execution; and committee-ready outputs showing what changed, why, at what cost, and whether expectations were met.
LGPS governance is moving from monitoring managers to monitoring decisions. When decision, implementation and reporting sit in the same environment, reporting becomes evidence rather than narrative, improving both confidence and pace.
From 1 April 2026, administering authorities are expected to take principal investment advice from their pool. What does a ‘minimum viable’ advice operating model look like in practice, people, process, data, and accountability?
A “minimum viable” advice model is less about adding headcount and more about closing the decision loop end-to-end. Advice should describe the resulting portfolio, not just the target allocation.
A workable model separates responsibilities: the pool proposes and evidences the outcome, the authority challenges and approves, and an implementation function confirms delivery and ongoing alignment.
Make the process repeatable: recommendation, then pre-approval portfolio modelling, then decision, then controlled implementation, then monitoring.
This means authorities approve a probable destination rather than a direction of travel. Minimum data requirements are straightforward: expected allocation, transition cost and timing, funding sensitivity and private market interaction.
Fiduciary responsibility stays with the authority, but uncertainty and friction are materially reduced.
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