Morningstar Magazine - June/July 2017 - 8

Dispatches

Celebrating 10 Years
And staying true to
our mission of putting
investors first.

Phillips Curve
10

What a Tangled Web We Weave

12

How to Win at Active Management

LETTER FROM THE BOARD

Kunal Kapoor

Ivory Towers

The Old Squirrel
16

The World's Greatest Investors

17

Key Policy Issues to Watch

Policy

HelloWallet
20

How Do People Receive Advice?

22

Song Remains the Same

Behavior Gap

Global Briefs
24
27

Americas
Greater Europe

I was thrilled when editor-in-chief Jerry Kerns
asked me to pen this column for the 10th
anniversary issue of Morningstar magazine. Every
now and then, it's valuable to pause and
look back over the path you've taken and what
you've achieved, and think about where
you're headed.
We've accomplished a lot over the past decade
and, indeed, since we got our start 33 years
ago. I've spent my entire career at Morningstar,
starting as a data analyst in 1997. At every
step along the way, I've been proud to work
alongside my colleagues to help investors achieve
better outcomes.
Investors First

Our commitment to investors is part of our DNA
and has been since our founding by Joe Mansueto
in 1984. Morningstar's mission from Day
One has been to create great products that help
investors reach their financial goals.
We also have a set of six core values that lie
at the heart of everything we do. We use these
core values to formulate our strategies and
guide our business decisions, and we expect every
employee to embrace and embody these
values throughout the course of business each
and every day.
The first of the six is Investors First. Here's what
that means to us:
"Putting investors' interests above all else
is the foundation of our company. We believe that

8

Morningstar June/July 2017

our strength comes largely from the faith
that investors have in us. Whether we're reaching
investors directly or through advisors
and institutions, our ultimate goal is to help
the individual investor."
In 1984, employers in the United States were
beginning to introduce 401(k) plans instead
of company pensions, making employees
responsible for their own saving and investment
decisions. Mutual funds were capturing
individual investors' attention, and star fund
managers were becoming household names.
Back then, we were mostly known as the
"mutual fund rating firm," and we primarily focused
on serving individual investors directly.
It was clear to us early on that serving investors
requires a lot more than ratings. Believing
that sunlight is the best disinfectant, we provided
individuals with information that had previously only been available to investment
professionals and advocated for transparency
in everything from fees to portfolio holdings
to investment performance.
We tried to bring simplicity to complexity,
realizing that people don't just need information-
they need it in a format that is easy for
them to understand and act on. Although we
started out in the mutual fund space, we realized
that we needed to be able to evaluate
equities and fixed-income securities in order
to provide insights on portfolios.
Today, we continue to keep our prose uncluttered,
expand our research into areas such as
behavioral finance to help investors make better
decisions, and use thoughtful, precise,
and logical information design. We also focus
on the user experience when we build
our products.
As we continued to serve individuals, financial
advisors realized how our data and research
could help them better serve their clients
and explain complex ideas in a way everyone could
understand. Financial institutions and institutional
investors recognized how we could help
them build more meaningful connections with
advisors and investors.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Morningstar Magazine - June/July 2017
