From the Editor...

Good morning from Palm Desert! We're out at the ICI's 2023 Investment Management Conference waiting for William Birdthistle, director of the SEC's IM Division, to take the stage (after we first hear from Terry Nilsen, president and COO of Hennessy Advisors, and ICI President and CEO Eric Pan). We'll update readers later today on what Birdthistle has to say.

In the meantime, we've taken a look inside the boardrooms of iMPG Funds and SSGA Funds recently by speaking at length with independent Chairs Julie Allecta and Patrick Riley, respectively. Allecta is the first-ever independent chair of iMPG Funds (formerly Litman Gregory Asset Management's PartnerSelect Funds), and that board is going through some governance improvements and changes; it's an interesting read. Riley spoke to us about some of the new members on his board, which is going through a generational shift, and how to maintain the board's culture as the faces around the table change. Again, a good read. 

In other news, Morningstar Funds has welcomed a new independent director to its boardroom—and she's an industry veteran familiar to many. Finally, we've published a couple of 10 Things lists in recent weeks, one, in honor of International Women's Day earlier this month, on boards that have hired new female directors in the past year, and another on the some of the spiciest comments submitted by mutual fund boards to the SEC on its (very unpopular) proposed rule on hard close, mandatory swing pricing, and liquidity. 

Time to pay attention now. If you're here at the ICI conference, keep an eye out for our publisher Dan and me. We'd love to say hello. 

Happy Spring, and Happy March Madness (go UConn!).

For now,

Hillary Jackson, founding editor