Markets Media spoke with Keri Neo, Head of Equities, APAC, Tradeweb, who won Excellence in ETFs at the 2024 Women in Finance Asia Awards.

What have been the main drivers of your success?

I would attribute much of my success to the relationships and trust I have built with my colleagues, industry partners and clients throughout my career. While trust is sometimes hard to measure, at Tradeweb, we have a proven track record of working in close collaboration with both institutional investors and ETF market makers to enhance access to ETF liquidity through electronic request-for-quote (RFQ) trading.

Since launching our ETF platform in Asia in 2017, our team has played a crucial role in the growth of electronic trading in the region, and this would not be possible without the trust of our clients and industry partners to build innovative products and platform functionalities that meet their needs.

Success is often not just one person’s endeavours, but a collective industry effort, and I am grateful to work with a team of smart, dedicated and forward-thinking people at Tradeweb. Our focus has always been to anticipate our customers’ needs and build solutions that address any challenges that they may face not only now, but also in the future. By prioritising long-term objectives rather than just short-term goals, we have been successful in bringing about real change that has moved ETF trading in Asia forward.

What are the top ETF trends for 2024?

Institutional investors’ appetite for ETFs has surged in recent years. There are now around 10,000 ETFs available globally, and we expect the use of equity ETFs to continue to proliferate as investors increasingly recognise their cost-effectiveness during a time of heightened focus on trading costs. Other growth drivers include the rise of multi-asset trading and demand for more efficient and flexible ways to access ETF liquidity.

Fixed income ETFs have continued to prove their worth as an extremely versatile product for investors, and we expect to see clients adopting them more and more this year. One of their biggest advantages is that they enable market participants to transfer risk quickly, even when the underlying bond market is restrained. We have seen the proportion of these assets traded on Tradeweb globally rise from 34% in 2021 to 41% in 2023.

Furthermore, actively-managed ETFs keep growing as a percentage of new assets in ETFs. The percentage of actively-managed tickets on our platform globally grew from 5% in Q1 2023 to 8% in Q1 2024, and we expect this number to trend upward throughout this year.

While the industry is expected to change and evolve in 2024, one thing will remain constant. Tradeweb will continue to listen to our clients and work closely with them to build services that enhance their trading workflows and add new layers of efficiency to trading desk operations.

What’s your favourite aspect of working at Tradeweb?

Despite being a publicly-listed company with more than 1,100 people globally, one of my favourite aspects about Tradeweb is that we have always maintained an entrepreneurial spirit where new, innovative and creative ideas are at the centre of all that we do. What Tradeweb does in the electronic trading world is to streamline trading processes and enhance access to liquidity pools. One of our key values is to ‘move first, never stop’, which well encapsulates the energy we bring to the market in continually delivering new products, functionalities and tools that make the lives of traders easier.

As someone whose role centres around building close relationships with all stakeholders within the ETF industry – from issuers and market markers to institutional and retail clients – Tradeweb is the perfect place to be. In the electronic trading business, change ultimately comes down to the partnerships and relationships you have built over time, and Tradeweb is a company that allows me to do just that.

What are your future goals?

When I was a young adult beginning my university journey, my initial plan was to graduate with a marketing degree and work in this field. But I ended up doing something completely different, graduating with a degree in finance and accounting, and eventually a master’s in financial engineering.

At the start of my professional career, I joined the Singapore Exchange’s MA Program for graduates, which gave me exposure to all different kinds of functions and roles within the organisation. I soon realised that product and business development was my real passion, and I spent the next 15 years at the Singapore Exchange working in listed securities and derivatives. Then in 2021, I secured my current role at Tradeweb and the rest is history.

The lesson here is that it is hard to predict what comes next in life. But, as long as we are making the most of every situation we are in, learning and growing both professionally and personally, there will be no lack of opportunities in our futures.

What’s your advice to the next generation of women in finance?

Maintaining an inquisitive nature is so important in this industry. Being curious about how things are done, asking questions, challenging the status quo and always being keen to learn are a few things we should all be doing, but especially when you begin your career.

Innovation does not happen unless we continuously push boundaries and find new ways to do things. Just because it is not been done before, does not mean it should not, and electronic trading is the perfect example of that. A company is nothing without the people behind it, so my advice to the next generation of women is to always strive to bring value to your organisation and team.