Sandra Brosch brings investment expertise closer to institutional investors
After many years in quantitative portfolio management, Sandra Brosch is now bringing her investment expertise directly into dialogue with institutional investors. In this interview, she discusses how in-depth portfolio knowledge enhances collaboration, why systematic processes provide guidance, particularly during challenging market phases, and what role data and AI will play in the future.
Key takeaways
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Investment expertise meets client focus: Portfolio management experience strengthens dialogue with institutional investors.
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Discipline rather than gut instinct: Systematic processes enable objective and transparent decisions.
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Data and AI are becoming the norm: Relevant signals and a coherent economic rationale are crucial.
After many years as a fund manager: Why did you decide to move to the Client Relations team?
For me, it is the next logical step in my professional development. After many years in quantitative portfolio management, I know the ‘engine room’ of systematic strategies down to the smallest detail. What fascinates me is the translation: Institutional investors today are no longer just looking for ready-made building blocks, but for genuine sparring partners who can help address their complex allocation requirements and regulatory obligations. In the Client Relations team, I can build precisely this bridge – combining in-depth expertise with clients’ needs on an equal footing.
Performance is the entry ticket, but the decisive difference lies in the quality of the collaboration.
Sandra Brosch
Client Relations D-A-CH
How does your own portfolio management experience shape the dialogue with institutional investors?
It adds greater technical depth to the exchange. Anyone who has managed portfolios themselves knows first-hand the day-to-day challenges, specific constraints and decision-making processes on the investor side. This noticeably changes the dialogue: technical details can be assessed more quickly, complex relationships can be articulated more directly, and both sides speak the same language right from the start.
What personally convinced you that systematic investing works?
It’s about removing emotions from the process. During periods of stress, markets are often shaped by cognitive biases and short-term hysteria. A disciplined, data-driven approach forces you to remain objective precisely when the market environment is at its most confusing. Systematic investors do not rely on ‘wishful thinking’, but on repeatable, scientifically sound sources of return.
Investors may forgive difficult market phases, but they will not forgive a lack of clarity about why a portfolio is performing as it is.
Sandra Brosch
Client Relations D-A-CH
Many people associate successful investing with experience and gut instinct. Why is a systematic approach often superior today?
Gut feeling is often nothing more than the sum of personal experience – but it is prone to error and difficult to scale. In an increasingly complex world of data, the human brain simply reaches its limits: Quantitative management allows a vastly greater volume of data to be analysed much more quickly and efficiently in order to generate relevant signals. A systematic approach does not exclude experience. It translates it into clear, verifiable and scientifically sound rules. Its superiority lies in its discipline: A model is not subject to mood swings and does not deviate from the strategy during volatile periods.
AI is a powerful tool, but the economic rationale of the model must always come first.
Sandra Brosch
Client Relations D-A-CH
Looking back on your time as a fund manager: Which three insights continue to shape your work to this day?
- Process discipline beats intuition: A robust investment process protects against poor decisions during times of crisis and delivers stable, transparent results over the long term.
- Transparency builds trust: Investors may forgive difficult market phases, but they will not forgive a lack of clarity about why a portfolio is performing as it is.
- Systematic diversification is a key return driver: Sustainable outperformance does not come from making concentrated individual bets, but from taking many small, broadly diversified positions and systematically harnessing sources of return.
What do institutional investors really expect from their asset manager today – beyond performance?
They are looking for reliability, a deep understanding of their regulatory frameworks and seamless operational integration. Performance is the entry ticket, but the decisive difference lies in the quality of the collaboration : It is about presenting complex quantitative relationships clearly and making them tangible through ongoing dialogue. How closely does the asset manager address specific allocation requirements? How transparent and easy to understand is the reporting? Investors want to reduce their workload and have confidence that their mandate is in the hands of experts who speak their language.
What role will data, AI and systematic processes play in the coming years?
They will evolve from a competitive advantage into the absolute standard. In future, the skill will no longer lie in collecting as much data as possible, but in filtering out the right, relevant signals from the noise – particularly when it comes to alternative data and advanced machine-learning models. For us at Quoniam, this means continuously refining our systematic approaches without losing sight of their underlying economic logic. AI is a powerful tool, but the economic rationale of the model must always come first.
If you could give institutional investors just one advice – what would it be?
Trust in the power of disciplined processes and do not allow short-term market noise to distract you during turbulent market phases. Long-term outperformance is rarely the result of spectacular individual decisions, but rather the outcome of consistent, systematic portfolio management.
