Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary - 52

Reprinting of From Opportunity to
Legacy: Celebrating the First Fifty Years

<< UP CLOSE

A Principled Sales Philosophy
innovator in the industry. Jim Ruff,
former president of OppenheimerFunds
Distributor, is credited with creating the
position of internal sales representative
when he was national sales manager.
The move greatly increased the reach
of the OppenheinmerFunds sales
force and boosted the level of service
and support external representatives
were able to provide to their advisor
clients. "We were what I called dirtyhands managers," said Ruff. "It didn't
matter if it was the president of the
Company walking around. If the phone
was ringing on somebody's desk, they
picked it up. That was the attitude."
When the Company began moving
into additional channels of distribution

"We were what I called
dirty-hands managers. If
the phone was ringing
on somebody's desk,
[we] picked it up." JIM RUFF
in the mid-1990s, it substantially expanded the diversity of its product mix
in order to better meet the needs of
an increasingly diverse customer base.
That combination of service excellence
and product diversity continues to be
the hallmark of OppenheimerFunds'
sales philosophy. n

at the time, Macaskill noted that while none was very
large in terms of asset size, they brought more to the
table than just assets, especially in the cases of Quest
for Value and Rochester. "They brought products
that we could sell through our distribution system,
where we could leverage the funds' performance
and the investment styles," she said. With OppenheimerFunds' market share on the rise at that point,
Macaskill also credited better-than-expected growth
in the Company's small-plan 401(k) program, a new
big-ticket proposal system, and strong investment
performance across a broad range of the Company's
retail mutual funds.
OppenheimerFunds continued to seek out
promising opportunities for growth in both its
existing business and new sectors as the 1990s drew
to a close. Toward that end, it made significant
progress in expanding its business as a sub-advisor
to nonaffiliated fund groups during 1998 and 1999.
With an eye toward the growth of its institutional

1999
The Dow climbs above 10,000 for the first time. Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan did not have immediate concerns about inflation. Image replaced

52 * OppenheimerFunds: The First Fifty Years

GETTY IMAGES

Wholesaling and distribution have
always been part of the Company's
story, and they've long been recognized
as a core competency within the organization. In the early years, Don Spiro's
leadership set the tone (see page 19).
When he first started, using a windowsill
for a desk was fine with Spiro because his
time was spent out talking to customers.
Under Spiro, the Company focused sales
efforts on the financial advisor community, establishing an enduring bond with
that constituency.
Since then, sales outreach has expanded into more channels, including
wirehouse firms and bank-affiliated
brokerages, but the philosophy underpinning those efforts has stayed true to
the principles the Firm has held from
the start. The focus continues to be
the professional investment advisor,
and the Company has won numerous
awards recognizing the caliber of its
service and support. "You do what's
right for the client," said Jay Fortuna,
VP/senior relationship manager. "And
everything else falls into place."
Mark Ferro, who supervises wholesalers, sees firsthand the effectiveness of
staying true to the principle of putting
the client first. "What the representatives are buying is us," he said. "There's a
real trust factor that our people will do
the right thing - and they do."
With its proactive sales philosophy,
OppenheimerFunds has been a leading

Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary