Meet Jenny McElvaney

I'm Jenny McElvaney. I'm the current CEO of SEI investments Global Fund Services Limited, the administrator in Dublin. I've been with SEI coming up on 24 years. I have a number of responsibilities. They're very wide reaching and a large number of teams report into me, such as transfer agency, financial reporting, fund accounting, AML. So it's, it's a very wide ranging role, but I enjoy every minute of it.

How has your career evolved during your time at SEI?

I joined as a junior fund accounting analyst in October 1999. And my career has been very much focused in fund accounting. It has been a linear kind of movement through the ranks. I've worked hard, but I think SEI has definitely rewarded me for that work. So I gradually, you know, increased my knowledge and then got rewarded, moved to the next stage. So junior analyst to senior analyst supervisor, AM manager. I sat at senior fund accounting manager for five years, and then the opportunity came up two years ago to move into the CEO role. So that, that's really how my career has evolved through over the last 24 years.

Have any life experience impacted the way you view work and career?

Definitely, and I suppose from a personal perspective a couple of things have happened that have really made me put perspective on my role and my work. Some time ago in 2012, my brother had an accident in agriculture and had an acquired brain injury, and he subsequently passed away from that. But it really put my life in perspective. For me at work, it's very important. We have to do our best, but at the end of the day, you can be replaced. In personal life, you can’t be replaced. And, and that really made me rethink, you know, my life, the way my career and how I do my job, but also how I integrate that into my personal life.

What advice would you give someone just starting out in their career?

I think it's important for someone starting out to take time, to get to know the job, take advice from the people that are there, to train them in and help them understand what they're there to do. But after a while, to take a step back and think, is this the right role for me? Is it ticking the box for me? Uh, am I really getting as much as I can out of my talent side of the, the different, um, skillset that I have? So I think, you know, yes, give a job a chance, learn what you can about it, and then think, is this for me? Is it not for me? What's for you won't pass you. So it, it's really important just to make sure you're in the right role.