The role of content editors at financial institutions

Content editors at banks and financial institutions play a critical role in the management of the content produced by analysts and writers. At investment banks, brokers or financial service firms, the content editor performs two significant roles: 1) making sure the content is aligned with regulation and policy, and 2) ensuring the content maximizes the business interest of their institution. Let's explore the these two roles in more depth:

Regulation Alignment

Investment banks typically help private companies with initial public offering (IPO) deals to get them listed in the public markets. One important part of the entire IPO process requires the bank's research department or division to also draft a pre-deal report prior to the debut listing for institutional investors to access during roadshows organized by the equity capital market (ECM)(ECM) team. An editor or content reviewer comes in to help after a research analyst has concluded a wall-crossing procedure following their pre-deal report. In short, the role of the editor at this juncture is to ensure the content is written in an error-free manner, and most importantly, adheres to all standards of compliance. In reality, an editor usually reads through hundreds of pages of a prospectus several times to better understand which part of the content should or should not be included in the report. For this task, an editor is required to financial and accounting know-how and skills, as well as previous experience in the compliance regulations.

Business Interests

At financial institutions, marketing departments and front office divisions also utilize expertise from experienced editors to create eye-catching and intriguing research report titles, copies and/or multimedia content like podcasts and videos. Just like any business this content is important for social media platforms and aggregators to assist in raising brand awareness. In this case, the skills required by the editor are more common than other similar any jobs but experience at popular or financial news agency is always preferred. For example, if you are familiar with the principle inverted pyramid journalism, it'll help make the reports produced by junior analysts much more clear and rational. Another part of the job is to help create fancy report title. Statistics show that a typical Wall Street portfolio manager receives 2000+ emails every day so it's important to grab the client's attention by editing titles to make them standout. Reports titled as Car Czar, Room Boom or Lord of the Rig are much better than dull-business sounding ones like New automobile regulator takes office, The rise of hospitality industry or An emerging offshore oil company.

Unfortunately, this form of training is infrequent unless employees are lucky enough to join an induction program at some of these banks and financial institutions. I know Morgan Stanley runs one of these programs every few years.

A Final Word

If you are hiring from an investment bank or financial institution, consider selecting applicants with experience at news organizations such as Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg, Financial Times etc... They can be your keep assets.