OREANDA-NEWS. Albridge, an affiliate of Pershing LLC, a BNY Mellon company, today announced the winners of the 2016 Albridge Data Excellence Awards. The inaugural Data Excellence Awards recognize the Albridge clients who are at the forefront of driving meaningful data quality improvements in the broker-dealer industry, and who have made outstanding contributions to the Albridge Data Quality Forum community. The Albridge Data Quality Forum is comprised of operations and technology professionals from broker-dealers, custodians and product companies. The Forum participants meet regularly with the goal of advancing industry data quality practices through discussion of key issues and by sharing best practices.

Albridge recognized 23 financial institutions as recipients of the 2016 Albridge Data Excellence Award. Special recognition was given to financial services firm Baird, who was honored with the 2016 Data Excellence Champion Award, for the firm's dedication and commitment to Data Excellence in support of the best advisor and investor experience. In addition, individual recognition was given to Heather Barnett of Cambridge Investment Research and Doree Sargent of Lincoln Financial Group for their individual efforts in driving meaningful change across the industry – specifically collaborating with product companies to improve the client experience.

"The key to the advisor-investor relationship is trust. To build this trust, advisors and investors must be confident in the data they use to make investment decisions. The award recipients have been relentless in their effort to provide advisors and investors with data integrity and data of the highest quality," said Greg Borgman, director of data management at Albridge. "The award also recognizes the significant contributions they made to the Albridge Data Quality Forum, helping to drive industry-wide improvements for the benefit of all investors. We thank and congratulate the recipients, and look forward to helping them continue their pursuit of data excellence." 

"We are honored to receive this distinguished award from Albridge," said Ryan Burwell, director of private wealth management technology strategy at Baird, "Providing our advisors with data of the highest-quality is just as important as ensuring that they are well-equipped to serve as strong, reliable financial partners to those who entrust their capital to us."

The awards were presented this week at the 2016 Albridge Forum in Chicago.

Albridge aggregates data for over 48 million accounts at over 180 financial institutions for over 60,000 advisors. The Albridge Financial Data Network processes over 10 billion financial data records per month from more than 90 data sources and 650 product companies —offering a breadth of coverage unmatched in the industry.