Coho Partners

Coho Partners Transitions Operations to Ridgeline’s Front-to-Back Investment Management Platform

“We want to put Coho in the best possible position for success. Ridgeline puts us in a better position than we would other wise be six months, a year, five years from now.”- Brian Gibson, Partner

Pennsylvania-based asset management firm Coho Partners calls changing to Ridgeline's modern front-to-back cloud platform "an imperative" to stay competitive in an evolving industry.

January 30, 2024

INCLINE VILLAGE, NEV., January 16, 2024 - Ridgeline announced today that Berwyn, Pennsylvania-based Coho Partners Ltd., is the latest customer to go live on its investment management cloud platform.

Over twenty years after its founding, the team at Coho Partners recognized the investment industry was evolving at a rapid pace and dated systems were holding them back. “Clunky integrations, batch jobs — we knew there was better technology out there,” says Partner Brian Gibson.

They also suspected that the key to the industry’s future would be better access and control over data. Wayne LeSage, Partner, believes, “We’re in an age where data and analytics are governing progress in every industry; asset management should be no different.”

The team knew they needed to be proactive about modernizing to stay competitive. “The industry, our competitors, our clients are all changing. It’s an imperative that we, as a trusted advisor to our clients, also change,” says CFO Cindy Lewis.

Despite that awareness, there was some early reluctance to transition away from what they knew. “We’re an asset manager that’s been doing business a certain way for nearly 25 years; it’s easy to get skeptical about collaborating with a cool startup tech company,” quips LeSage.

Ultimately, the team determined transitioning to Ridgeline’s modern technology was worth it. As Gibson observes, “Not taking a risk can be a risk in and of itself.” Ridgeline is the first cloud-native, enterprise solution for the industry that was purpose-built with and for investment managers. Core functions like portfolio accounting, trade order management, reporting, and compliance are brought together with a single set of real-time data on an intuitive platform.

Initially hesitant, Coho President Glenn Dever “became the biggest cheerleader” through the process of engaging with the Ridgeline team, especially when he recognized the potential of a single platform with unified data. “Everything we want to know about our clients is now contained in a single, secure universe.”

“We can leverage the scale within Ridgeline to ultimately be better stewards for our clients. What we do today sets us up for success years down the road.”- Brian Gibson, Partner

Gibson thinks consolidation of systems and data presents opportunities for more effective collaboration, stating, “Everybody in the firm can now report on and analyze the same data.” Partnering with Ridgeline also allows them to embrace an unpredictable future and leverage new technologies. “When I started talking to Ridgeline, AI was not top of mind – but now we’re set up to use that too.”

The team is confident that they’ve made the right move to benefit their clients while achieving long-term goals. For Gibson, the motive is clear: "We want to put Coho in the best possible position for success. Ridgeline puts us in a better position than we would otherwise be six months, a year, five years from now.”

Ridgeline Co-CEO Dave Blair says, "We appreciate the collaboration – and even the skepticism – that Coho brought early on in the process. We are grateful for the opportunity to develop a trusted partnership and clearly convey how we will deliver value for years to come.”

About Ridgeline

Ridgeline is the industry cloud platform for investment management. It was founded in 2017 by visionary entrepreneur Dave Duffield (co-founder of both PeopleSoft and Workday) to address the unique technology challenges of an industry in need of new thinking. We are building a modern, AI-embedded platform in the public cloud, purpose-built for the investment management industry to empower business like never before. With a growing campus in Reno, and offices in New York, Lake Tahoe, and the Bay Area, Ridgeline is proud to have built a fast-growing, people-first company that has been recognized by Fast Company as a “Best Workplace for Innovators” and by Frost & Sullivan as a “Technology Innovation Leader.”