Episode 12: Jennica Ross, the Head of US ETF Sales and Portfolio Trading at Susquehanna International Group

TRANSCRIPT:

Douglas Yones:

Hello and welcome to ETF Central, The Podcast where we bring the latest and greatest ETF industry perspectives directly to you through in-depth conversations with key thought leaders from across the ETF ecosystem. I'm your host, Douglas Yones, the Head of Exchange Traded Products at the New York Stock Exchange, the Home of ETFs.

Now today I'm joined by my friend Jennica Ross. She is the Head of US ETF Sales and Portfolio Trading at Susquehanna International Group. By the way, we will probably refer to Susquehanna International Group as SIG, my apologies, but we all get used to the pronoun. SIG, if you don't know, is one of the largest proprietary trading firms in the world. It's also one of the world's most active ETF market makers. Jennica herself, she oversees a team focused on providing a wide range of clients, everything including platforms, asset managers, wealth managers, institutions. They provide expert ETF and portfolio trading execution, consulting, education. Jennica, you and your team engage with the issuer capital markets community. You help people with product launches, lead market making, seed capital, the list goes on and on.

If you are not familiar with Jennica, she joined SIG in 2022, very recently, but she had been serving as the Head of Strategic Relationships at WallachBeth Capital for the last 10 years. By the way, WallachBeth, some of the nicest and most genuine and most intelligent people you'll ever meet in your entire life. At WallachBeth, she oversaw the firm's key strategic partnerships and business development initiatives. Prior to that, you've held senior roles at Guggenheim and UBS Wealth Management. We could keep going and going and going, the whole podcast, on your background. Jennica, thank you so much for spending time and being here today.

Jennica Ross:

Thank you so much for having me on, Doug.

Douglas Yones:

Okay. So let's start with Susquehanna itself. Could you share a little bit about SIG? Tell us a little bit about your team. What it is you're kind of supporting? What is it you're doing for the ETF industry each and every day?

Jennica Ross:

Absolutely, and I think you hit on a lot of the stats, so thank you. I think I should put you as our Susquehanna salesperson there because you positioned our firm quite accurately and really reflect who we are as a business. So thank you for that, Doug. I think we're exactly that. We're one of the largest privately held financial institutions in the world and we're experts in trading. So that's what we're doing all day, every day in pretty much every listed financial product and asset class that's trading here in the United States, as well as around the world. We've got particular expertise, and why we're having this conversation, in two areas and that would be derivatives as well as ETFs. So we're handling millions of transactions on exchanges and direct with clients around the world every day.

Within the ETF space specifically, we are providing liquidity to investors both on exchange like we do through the NYSE, as well as off exchange direct to our clients. So we're quoting and trading nearly all 3,000-plus US-listed ETFs. We're lead market maker now in north of 400 products here in the United States. We're trading every day over 170, 180 million shares of ETFs here in the US and we're active both in those secondary trading as well as the primary market activity, those creation redemption facilities that we often hear people talking about when they talk about ETFs.

But I think what makes Susquehanna a little differentiated than some of our peers, and I think why we are one of the go-to spots when people are talking about ETF execution and trading, is that we really are excellent at offering liquidity and mitigating the impact that larger size trades have on the markets when investors are looking to get in and out of ETFs. So we are very good at dealing with risk. We've got a significant amount of capital that we can deploy and put to work on behalf of investors. So that really is one of the reasons that we engage with folks.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, I mean, I feel like in the ETF industry, we spend a lot of time on investment strategies. We talk a lot about our growth, growth rates, how do people sell, distribute. But one of, if not, the most important piece is really the work you and your teams are doing. Because if you do your job perfectly right, it means investors, all of us, individuals, institutions, they're getting to be able to trade ETFs at fair value, at their actual value at the moment they're trading. And if you do it really, really well, no one ever thinks about it. You're kind of like the glue that keeps it together, but it's the things you don't think about because it's done the right way.

Jennica Ross:

I mean, you articulated that perfectly. And I think if you look within my team, we've got three core functions that sit directly within my team, and I really do believe they all go hand in hand and they really do make that experience the best possible. And that is to the point you referenced earlier, the introduction. We do issuer engagement. So we're working with issuers on product development nuances, making sure that the product is structured optimally from a market maker perspective, which ultimately will keep spreads tight on the product and allow investors to get in and out of the ETF as efficiently as possible. So we work a lot with issuers, bringing intelligent products to market that are structured in the correct way.

We're also supporting those in the secondary, monitoring spreads, making sure that we're getting the correct data files, the nitty-gritty, that stuff that happens behind the scenes that most people that are listening, and most people even within our broader industry have no interest in, but it is the grease that makes the wheels work and it's really important. And we spend a lot of time, technology, resources making sure that we're making sure those things are working correctly.

The second core function that sit within our team is the client execution business. It is my team that engages with all clients that are trading with Susquehanna, and that's the platforms that you mentioned, insurance companies, institutions, RIAs, strategists, wealth managers, and we are facilitating the ETF trades that they're doing. So we can do them either on an agency basis, working on the client's behalf or leverage Susquehanna's capital commitment and balance sheet to help them, specifically in outsized type trades.

And then the third piece that sits within our group is the portfolio trading, which is the rebalance of these ETFs, particularly in the ETF space as well as in the fixed income.That's another function that happens behind the scenes, but Susquehanna is one of the partners that an ETF issuer would work with to facilitate the rebalance of their ETFs, either on a set schedule or an actively managed fund whenever is necessary. So it really is making sure from bringing a product market, to once the product's in the market, making sure that people can trade it efficiently and the ETF continues to function through its rebalance process, that all of that continuum is happening in the best way possible.

Douglas Yones:

It's so easy for me to be on camera and say, "Oh, look at ETFs, they tend to be much more tax efficient." We make all these statements and it's really the women and men at your team and across the industry doing the work you're talking about. That's where the rubber meets the road. It's where the efficiency actually happens. So it's great to have you on and talking about some of that. I want to talk briefly if I can with you a little bit about SIG.

So for me personally, I've known, I guess it all started with Damon so many years ago, Bart, the whole team at SIG, when you meet anyone there, the nicest people in the world, some of the smartest people I've ever met in the ETF industry, you've gone more and more global. You provide liquidity across every single trading location. You're newer in there. And so SIG, Bala Cynwyd located Philadelphia, go Birds, of course, but there's been sort of articles over the years of people trying to creep into what goes on behind those curtains. Let's dig into Oz a little bit. When you entered there for the first time, was it as magical and mysterious as these articles we read are? What's the general culture like?

Jennica Ross:

Yeah, I found refreshing, and it's always been important to me, and I think we'll probably talk about this a little bit later on, is I want to work with real people. People that there's not a person behind the curtain. There's just real people that are willing to roll up their sleeves every day, think intelligently, think in a differentiated way, and get work done. And I think Susquehanna really has that mentality throughout the organization. It's a very flat organization, but there's no person that's at our firm who's not in the weeds doing something of incredible substance every day.

We don't have hierarchies and fancy conference rooms where people are just sitting and... We're actually getting work done. And I think that really is something that sort of reflects the organization, reflects why we've had the success that we've had and why it's sort of been the foundation of these core businesses as well as a lot of very successful people in our industry who started their careers or spent a part of their career at Susquehanna. Because it really does instill that, really the excellence in terms of knowledge set, skill, and expertise in the area that they focus on.

Douglas Yones:

And I want to talk about this with you, your career journey, because we all watch the fun Wall Street movies, but when it comes to real life, it couldn't be further from the truth. Today's Wall Street is really smart, really friendly individuals who are collaborative, cooperative, and to help get things done every day with very small egos versus large. But hey, the movies are great. Talk a little bit about for you though, how did you end up doing the work that you're doing today?

Jennica Ross:

Yeah, I mean, probably like a lot of our stories, I think it's a combination of that hard work, rolling up the sleeves and not being afraid to get things done. I think second, probably most important, probably even more important than anything else, just an incredible network of mentors and peers that I've relied on, leaned on, looked to for guidance. And it would really also kick me the pants and forced me to step up to stretch myself, to get in over my head and then figure it out. So that network of peers and mentors, I attribute a lot of the reason that I'm at the job that I am right now, the career that I've had has come from that group of people who have listened to me, who know me very well, who I've been very authentic with. I'm not trying to prove anything or show anything that I'm not, but because of that authenticity, they've been able to see me and known when they're ready to pull me into a new opportunity, pull me into a new role and seen something and had a vision for me.

And then I think the final thing that probably all of us, and whether it's in personal relationships, professional, it's more than a little luck. It's being at the right place at the right time, but you kind of create that luck for yourself. For me, I started, I was a politics major. I had no idea what finance was. To me, it was like you're either an investment banker or a consultant, a lawyer. I don't know what finance is. And so I went to Princeton, was there at the career fair that they have, and I was actually working at the career fair because I'd done some nonprofit fellowships the prior summers, and I actually thought that that might be a path that I would go down and I'm at the nonprofit recruiting people to come and take a two-year fellowship as part of a program that we had.

And this guy from behind me kept stealing these lollipops and I turned around and I was like, "UBS Wealth Management. I have no idea what that means." And he started explaining to me, we've got a 60,000 person plus global bank and we've got a wealth management and an asset manager. And so I started learning about this organization that was this global financial organization. Then I kind of put two two together and I said, "Wait, I'm at the nonprofit booth. You're at this 60,000 person global financial services organization. Shouldn't it be you that's giving everyone the lollipops and us stealing them from you versus you stealing them from us?"

But that conversation and that sort of engagement, I put my name in a hat for a two-year management training program at UBS. I still had no idea what it was when I was interviewing for it, but it tapped a lot of the buckets that I knew that I wanted for myself. And that was work in a very intellectually stimulating environment, work with fantastic people who are passionate about what they did, and also just good solid people that I knew would become lifelong friends.

Douglas Yones:

I love that story because you're exactly right. Yes, there's luck, but put yourself in a spot to be lucky. And people will say, "Well, how do you do that if you don't know the right people?" You don't need to know the right people. Look, you're out there giving away lollipops, but what is it you had? An openness, a willingness to talk to someone new, a smile on your face, and a willingness to ask some questions and learn. And those open up unbelievable doors. So here you are. If you look back for a moment, we take this second to say, okay, for someone young, for someone who's coming up through the ETF industry, are there other best practices? Do you have advice for someone that says, "Hey, I want to be successful, too. I want to be like Jennica, help me." What are those pieces of advice?

Jennica Ross:

Yeah, I think I probably started doing this a little bit, not by intention, but it's something that I've really spent a lot of time cultivating and really focusing on. And I actually have a weird little practice that I do on a monthly basis. It's what I call my network audit. What I have found is when creating this network, creating this group of people that you can rely on-

Douglas Yones:

Could you share that? What do you mean by a network audit?

Jennica Ross:

Yeah, so it's like what I try to do is I try to make sure that I have a range of people that I am connected with. And it doesn't mean I'm sending emails on a monthly basis or on a yearly basis, checking in with everyone. But I always make sure that I've got people that have known me at various points of my career and know me in various ways. And again, that can be from a peer relationship, that could be from someone that's worked for you in a prior role, it could be someone that's a mentor, and I make sure that there's sort of diversity in that network. People that are at different inflection points of their own careers, people that sit at different spots within our industry, because there's a lot of different functions within our industry, people that have different skill sets, people that manage people in different ways.

And I really make sure that you kind of surround yourself with people that have had different experiences because it's those experiences that you can tap into, learn from, and digest some information that might be relevant for you. And so to me, that's been a really important part of the journey that I've gone through, is making sure that that network reflects and equips me to be in any scenario that I might find myself in. And so that audit's also just like, hey, my friend John, who I've known now for 20 plus years, was one of the first people that knew me in the business and tapped me for some things that I was definitely not equipped to do at the time, but he had some sort of faith in me and pulled me into some much more senior situations. I haven't talked to him for 18 months. Let's sit down and grab coffee. Let's reach out. Let's ensure that connection, which I know is there, but making sure that you maintain that in the appropriate way.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, I mean, what a powerful message. So we all recognize the importance of networks. We all recognize the importance of mentoring, whether that's a sideways mentor or a more formal mentor, but hey, just building a very simple tool for yourself, whether it's a calendar update or an Excel spreadsheet, can really make that turn into something that's much more powerful in your life. So I hope everyone listening out there takes that to heart and thinks about maybe borrowing, leveraging Jennica's idea. So you started at UBS, you're kind of moving through the industry. Was there an aha moment for you where you said to yourself, "Boy, I really need to be in ETFs?"

Jennica Ross:

Yeah, there was. And I think it was another of those moments where it's like, "Aha, I really don't know what's going on out there and I need to learn quickly." So I think for me, this goes back to 2010 timeframe. So at that point, I had been about seven years at UBS on the equity capital market side. I was in the weeds with initial public offerings that were happening, secondary deals, these overnight transactions that were happening, these big monthly closed-end fund raises that we would do over the course of the late two thousands. But at that point, I'd made the jump over from UBS to Guggenheim, and Guggenheim had just acquired a firm called Claymore Securities, which was out in Lisle, Illinois, the suburbs of Chicago. And I was out there with this new Guggenheim leadership team, and we were out there with this amazing group of people that had come from the Claymore side, and we were this new organization, Guggenheim.

And so what we were doing is we were rebranding some of the products, their ETFs and their closed-end funds that they had under this Guggenheim name. And we were also sitting there and saying, who is Guggenheim at the time? Because no one knew who they were outside of the insurance channel. I realized that I do know who Guggenheim is, but I don't know what ETFs are. At the time, there was less than 1,000 US ETFs in the US listed. I think we were still sub one billion dollars of total AUM, but I felt something. Obviously Guggenheim had made a decision for a specific reason to do the Claymore acquisition and to bring these ETFs under the Guggenheim banner. But more broadly, I started seeing peers of mine, colleagues that I knew throughout the business that were changing the careers maybe from the equity space or from some other areas of the industry, the mutual fund or the SMA world, and were moving into this ETF space.

So I just felt this tide of sort of innovation that was happening, talent sort of being attracted to something, and I realized that I needed to explore more and get familiarized with what this ETF ecosystem was, why there was this buzz behind it and why it really felt like we were just at the cusp of something very significant happening. So I spent a lot of time, pretty much two years, those two years at Guggenheim really in the weeds on the ETF space and set me up for the trajectory from there.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, I mean, I've talked about my background before and how I feel like I just sort fell into luck in a lot of ways and had people around me kind of pushing me. But for you, you noticed a trend. You saw it very early and said, "Hey, I feel like there's something going on over here." One of the things that I love that you do is you're making that happen now for other people. And one of the ways you're doing that for the industry is through the organization, Women in ETFs. So for anyone that doesn't know, Jennica is the co-president of the Women in ETFs organization in the United States. Tell us a little bit about everything that you do and what that organization does for really, the ETF industry.

Jennica Ross:

Yeah, it's a phenomenal organization. It's one that I've been fortunate to leverage and to be able to give back to. We're today as an organization coming up on our 10-year anniversary, which is absolutely phenomenal. The organization was founded back in 2014. It was a group of these women who come from various facets of the ETF ecosystem. You had Sue Thompson, you had Debbie Fuhr, Linda Zhang, a number of others who came together and just had the vision that this industry is here to stay, but there's not that many women that are in the industry overall, let alone in leadership positions throughout it. So they constructed an organization with the mission of connecting, inspiring, and supporting women and bringing together members of the industry. And that includes you, Doug, one of our women in ETF members, and someone that's been an advocate from day one.

I think you might've been there for some of those actual conversations that were happening. It might've even happened at the New York Stock Exchange. But today we stand at over 9,300 members across the globe. We've got 26 chapters across cities and regions around the globe, and we've got 55 corporate sponsors that have committed to promoting the broadening of women throughout our industry. And that includes doing things like networking, professional development, mentorship, education. There's events that are happening, leadership opportunities.

We've really created a broad platform that marries both the human connection as well as the career support that many people within our organization don't get on a day-to-day basis. Or they might be in a specific role where it doesn't afford them the opportunity to meet people that are doing other things in the business outside of the organization. So the organization has had the chance to really strive to fulfill that mission. And membership is great, so if you're looking to connect with people that are doing interesting and different things throughout our business, sign up for your local chapter, sign up for the organization. Even if you can't make it there in person for some of the events because you've got other personal commitments, we've got webinars, we've got podcasts, we've got virtual events that we do. So there is an opportunity if you're looking to sort of step up and see what's going on more broadly within the organization to do that through the Women in ETFs organization.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, and we're coming up on 10 years. We should have 10,000 people signed up by then. So if you're listening in, please go check out the Women in ETFs organization. I want to stay on the topic for a moment. I know younger people will also sometimes listen in on the podcast. My daughter who's entering college, a young woman, for someone who's either entering college or early, early on they're maybe exiting college. We've got the interns all sort of ending their internships all across our industry right now. What's some of the best advice for those individuals out there? What's something that maybe you wish you knew then that you happen to know now?

Jennica Ross:

Yeah, one of the most important things I think, is it is okay to not know anything about the industry that you might be putting your name in the hat or exploring an internship. There's no expectation for you in college or even coming out of college or a couple years out of college that you need to have this information set in order to succeed in a specific industry. We use jargon, we use acronyms. We love them. They're very intimidating if you're not in the weeds and understanding of what they are, but that's okay. Don't let that deter you from putting your name in the hat, taking a job in something where you feel like it's the right environment for you, but you don't know the subject matter yet. I think that that's something that we oftentimes forget to tell people that it's okay to not know.

I mean, I can definitely tell you that there's a zillion things I don't know, but that's part of the fun for me. It's more important finding an environment that you feel is going to empower you to achieve the things that you want and feels good to you and is going to give you sort of opportunity and flexibility. Find that environment. We'll teach you the rest once you're here. And I think that there's another good friend of mine, Doug, who says, "You remember that your first job is just that it's a first for a reason because you're going to have another job." I think the other thing that oftentimes there's so much pressure about that perfect internship, that perfect first job, that perfect next step in your career. Remember also, you're going to have an entire career ahead of you. You also only get four or five years, however many years you spend in your undergraduate program.

It's okay to put some of the career planning stuff to the side and focus on the opportunities that you have around you in the immediate to create connection with people. Take the class that you wanted to take that may be outside the scope of your career trajectory or what you think you want to do, take advantage of that undergraduate or that college experience. Because that will equip you with a lot of the skills, experiences, connections that will set your career up to succeed. And you don't want to just gloss over this phenomenal and very important time of your life to enjoy it, to learn about yourself, to learn about a lot of different things around you. Don't gloss over that time. Just always seeking the next step.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, fantastic and wonderful advice. I know I had a recent conversation with someone ending an intern class and they were going to start applying, and they were kind of looking for advice on, how do I best interview when I don't really know the subject material? And it was eye-opening to this individual, not necessarily to you or me, which is, no firm is expecting you or looking for you to answer questions in that interview about the subject matter. We'll teach you that. What we can't teach someone on this side of the fence is energy, positivity, a willingness to learn, a willingness to come into work each day excited, a willingness to be a contributing member of the team, of the business, and in a positive way.

I mean, we sort of forget the fact that we spend most of our waking moments together as an organization. When someone's hiring you, they're hiring for you as an individual. Everything else can be taught. And so don't forget to let your personality come through in those interviews. Okay, so let's take it back to ETFs and why we started our conversation here today. Are there best practices for trading ETFs? Does it matter if someone's out there by asset class thinking about how they trade ETFs? What do you tell them?

Jennica Ross:

Yeah, absolutely. I think first, regardless of what type of ETF or what ETF you're trading, you definitely want to keep these very high level guidelines in the back of your head. Point number one, if you're executing an order in your own and you're not giving it to someone else to execute for you, just remember at least consider the order type that you're using. We say it out there, but be very hesitant of market orders. You want to take control of your order. You want to take control of the execution experience that you have. So we oftentimes talk about limit orders being one of the mechanisms that you can use to sort of empower you to sort of know what you're going to get. Two, and it's nothing science here, but be careful of trading at the open or the close, unless that's something that you intentionally want to do.

Probably not best to trade on the open or the close. And three, it's kind of common sense. Be aware of the overall market environment you're in. If it's a more volatile time or there's a certain point of the day where there's some FED announcements going on and there's news that is happening, be aware of the time and the environment that you want to trade in. Four, we always like to remind people, especially as the size of your orders start to increase, you might be an RIA who's sitting and all of a sudden that ETF size is something quite meaningful. You want to just make sure that you have an understanding of that ETF liquidity profile, what makes up the liquidity of the ETF itself as well as the underlying components of the ETF.

And I think what I sum all of that, and this is very high level and we could get really in the weeds on any one of those components is, to me, the best practice that you can have when trading an ETF is to leverage the resources around you. And that's information from exchanges, issuer capital markets teams, your custodian's trade desk or your wealth management platform's trade desk. If you're an institution, a liquidity provider like Susquehanna or a market maker like us, there's a tremendous number of resources that are around. It's one of the great things that we're starting to get to this more mature part of our industry is we are not in the early days when there was no information, there's great resources that have been built around the trading and the execution of ETFs. So you just need to remember to leverage them and to put them to your advantage.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, and maybe a spoiler alert for a future podcast, but one of the things that we at the New York Stock Exchange continue to focus on and finding solutions for is the idea around trading at the open, trading at the close. So many people want to be able to trade those auctions for ETFs. And as a result, November 14th last year was the very first ETF PIMCO's BOND transferred to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. We now have 10 ETFs on the floor to launch this week directly on the floor, all to take advantage of the designated market maker position where they can personally, a human can trade the auction for ETFs. Again, for a future podcast. When you look out at this marketplace, Jennica right now, and you and the team, I guess at SIG, are there opportunities that you see for investors and advisors?

Jennica Ross:

Yeah, I think absolutely. People always say ask, are we at sort of the saturation point in terms of the number of ETFs that are out there, or the ways that the ETF wrapper can be tapped to provide interesting and thoughtful investment solutions for advisors and for clients? And I think we are definitely not at the finish line. There's a lot of innovation to come, and there's a couple of areas that I think we're really excited to see people continue to spend a lot of time thinking about how they can deliver those intelligent solutions. And some of those areas are, active ETFs are absolutely an area where I think we're just getting started. I think you're continuing to see investors and really across the spectrum, both institutional investors, down to individual investors, start to embrace the ability to put an active strategy within an ETF wrapper, tap into the inherent efficiencies that you see with ETF structure, but still allowing that alpha generating capability of active management to sit within the wrapper and allow investors access to that.

So I do think we're just getting started with active ETFs. Fixed income continues to be an area where we're continuing to see not just adoption, but creativity and use of those products in interesting ways, tapping into subsets of the fixed income market, packaging interesting structures together within one wrapper. For us at Susquehanna, being a derivatives firm and experts in trading derivatives, we're really excited to see the continued embracing of derivatives and options within the ETF wrapper. And sometimes you hear these defined as the structured product ETF offerings or the defined outcome strategies. And there's an incredible amount of strategies that can be put within the ETF wrapper to achieve certain objectives depending on what an investor's looking to do. So I think we're just getting started with derivatives within the ETF wrapper. You continue to see a lot of assets go into a certain number of these products.

There's innovation that's happening every day, so we're really excited to see that. And I guess the last area that I think is the next iteration of it is this continued growth of the model ETF space. ETF models, there's I think, four trillion dollars in the ETFs model space right now according to Broadridge. They're expecting that to be 10 trillion in the next five years, and ETFs are a large piece of that. So I think both ETF innovation at the product level, as well as models and strategies that incorporate ETFs to achieve some sort of objective are really sort of where the things that we're going to be watching here.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, and if anyone out there is thinking about the actively managed ETF industry, I mean, first and foremost, we produce here at the New York Stock Exchange a newsletter comes out fortnightly, you can subscribe, it's free. It's all about the active ETF industry. Just go to homeofetfs.com and you could subscribe. The amount of growth rate there has just been unbelievable. I mean, a five-year assets under management CAGR of almost 50%. This year alone, 25 brand new issuers launching active ETFs, and the growth rate just continues to grow year over year. So if we can be supportive or helpful in your plans in your business at the New York Stuff Exchange, reach out to me or my team through LinkedIn. You can email us at etf@nyse.com. Jennica, do you have a favorite ETF?

Jennica Ross:

Oh, I think it's a trick question. You're putting me on the spot. We deal with a lot of issuers, I have to be really careful how I answer this one. Not a favorite ETF, but maybe a favorite sort of genesis of an ETF coming to market. And that would be an ETF that has a good distribution strategy and has an appetite for it. There needs to be solving for something. So I think when we see an ETF come to us, and issuers bring to us interesting products all the time, oftentimes one of the first questions that I ask is not getting into the nitty-gritty of what the basket constitution looks like and where they're going to be striking NAV to and all these different kind of complex behind the scenes question it's, what's the plan for this ETF? Who do you think is going to be buying it? What's your plan for getting it into investors' hands?

So for me, that ends up being more of a determinant of whether or not the ETF hits successful AUM metrics. It's got viability. It's something that ends up trading a lot, which benefits Susquehanna, it benefits the investor, it benefits the exchange. So we want to see healthy ETFs come to market and a lot of times that starts with a really good distribution strategy for getting that ETF out there. So distribution number one for me.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And for anyone who's maybe not following the New York Stock Exchange on any of our social media accounts, please do so. You'll start to see all the different sales and education and distribution support mechanisms that we continue to build here each and every day. Again, spoiler alert, but we're about to launch a New York Stock Exchange TV, NYSE TV, that'll be live each day. We've got 33 news agencies running from the floor. An unbelievable amount of partnerships across the industry from everything from ETF Guide, VettaFi, morningstar, wealthmanagement.com, Asset TV, FinTech TV, the list goes on and on. If you need help and you need support and you're not part of the New York Stock Exchange community, please reach out. We'd love to help you really kickstart some sales and distribution efforts on your behalf. Jennica for an ETF issuer that's thinking about coming to the market, or maybe they're here and they're saying, Boy, we need to be talking to Susquehanna." How should they be engaging with you and your team?

Jennica Ross:

Yeah, they can reach out to us directly. We love having the conversations. I'll give you an email address here in a second. Just reach out to SIG, S-I-G, desk, D-E-S-K at sig.com, reach out to us and reach out to us early. Don't wait till the ninth inning when you've got the product coming to market and have everything buttoned up. Involve us in those conversations sort of maybe at the fifth or sixth inning. You're going to have done your homework. You're going to have gotten your kind of key partners. And Doug, it's one of the reasons that we obviously love working with you and the team and a couple of the other exchanges is when issuers are working with you as an exchange, one of the parts of the process that you make critical with them is they're new engaged with the market making community.

And that's not just one of us. Please don't just come to Susquehanna, engage with several of us, get our feedback on the basket. Because what you want to do is make sure that you're bringing a product to market, that a universe of us are very comfortable pricing, are very comfortable understanding what's in that basket, and are ready to provide liquidity again on exchange or direct to clients for the product that you're bringing to market. So get our feedback, we're happy to give it. We don't sugarcoat anything. We'll let you know exactly what we think, and then hopefully you can take that feedback and digest it and figure out what works for the overall strategy on what you can incorporate, and you can optimize the ETF that you're bringing to market.

Douglas Yones:

And maybe, just maybe, if you get a chance to visit Jennica and her team at the Bala Cynwyd office, they'll get you some fresh Philadelphia soft pretzels from a place around the corner.

Jennica Ross:

There you go, yeah.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah. Jennica, thank you so much. This is a wrap on today's edition of ETF Central's The Podcast. As a reminder, you can find this episode as well as many other episodes. And by the way, you can spend time utilizing that free ETF screener, that's right, I said free, at the website, etfcentral.com. Thank you, Jennica, for being here to share your insights. Please stay tuned for upcoming episodes featuring thought leaders from across the ETF ecosystem. I'm Douglas Yones, today's host, Head of Exchange Traded Funds at the New York Stock Exchange, the home of the ETFs.