From the Editor...

Amy Lancellotta has seen a lot in the decades she's spent in the mutual fund business—from asset growth to product innovation to regulatory developments to the transformation of the boards overseeing funds. The managing director of Independent Directors Council spoke exclusively with Fund Board Views as she prepares to retire from her current role, sharing her observations and some predictions of what might be on the horizon in the fund governance space. Lancellotta will leave IDC at the end of this year; she also shared a little bit about what she hopes to do next. 

The New Year also will bring change to the boardroom of Goldman Sachs Asset Management's open-end funds, with the addition of two new independent directors. Once the two join, provided they are approved by shareholders, the board will be among the most diverse in the business with a higher-than-average number of female directors—including Chair Jessica Palmer—and an age range of 59 to 70. The board is one of five that oversee various GSAM products. 

At BNY Mellon (formerly Dreyfus, until a June rebrand), preparations are taking place to launch a family of exchange-traded funds, and it's unclear if a new board will be formed to oversee the ETFs when they're launched in 2020 or if the funds will fall under the oversight of one of the fund complexes six existing boards. Watch this space.

Finally, if you haven't had a chance yet to read our latest Viewpoints, Board oversight of non-fully transparent active ETFs, please do. It's a great read, as are all our contributed pieces. If you've got something about which you'd like to write, get in touch; we're always looking for folks to author our monthly Viewpoints articles, and we're always looking for new voices. Email me at hillary.jackson@fundboardviews.com. 

For now,

Hillary Jackson, founding editor