Senior Manager

Skills-Based volunteerism as a learning and development strategy. Looking for a gold star example of proving the business value of your skills-based volunteerism investment? Fidelity Investments provides a shining example. The business case. 96 percent of employees reported, after participating in skills-based volunteerism programs co-led by Common Impact, which works hand-in-hand with Pyxera Global as a unified organization, that the experience was a useful professional development opportunity. 83 percent gained specific experience connected to their interests, career goals or business needs. 85 percent improved their collaboration and teamwork skills. And if that's not impressive enough, 76 percent strengthened their strategic thinking and problem-solving skills. This data is hot off the press, from employees who participated in a series of programs during the first half of 2026. And it's impressive, especially as CSR professionals everywhere are being pushed to "make the business case" for their investments, a major headline in both the State of Corporate Purpose 2026 from Benevity and the 7th Annual CSR Insights Report from ACCP and Blackbaud YourCause. Fidelity not only understands but also brings to life one of the Benevity report's recommendations. "Position volunteering as a learning and development tool." Pyxera Global and Common Impact see this in action every day, working side-by-side corporate partners, delivering impact and helping them prove the case for a key business priority - retaining and developing talent. Insight from Teresa Pelletier, Vice President of Community Relations explains Fidelity's approach. "At Fidelity, we offer associates skills-based volunteerism opportunities that align with their personal interests, support targeted skill development, and address real nonprofit needs. By applying their professional expertise, associates help strengthen nonprofit capacity while supporting organizations' ability to serve more communities. Through our collaboration with Common Impact, we have also worked to help nonprofits better leverage skills-based volunteerism to advance their missions and expand their impact." The key word here is "align." Fidelity, in work driven both by its Community Relations team and key business unit teams, seeks to understand what its associates are interested in personally and how they can develop targeted professional skills while addressing real nonprofit needs. Learning and development: strengthening soft skills. Those skills, whether they are critical thinking, agility, collaboration, customer focus, storytelling, or dealing with ambiguity, for example, are vital to employees' ability at any organization to grow as professionals, particularly if they have leadership roles in their sights. Collaborating on projects with nonprofits provides opportunities to try new things or strengthen existing skills in a different environment. Skills-based volunteerism is a proving ground that also builds connection with others and pride in the company that made the opportunity possible. In one project conducted collaboratively with Common Impact, Fidelity launched a digital workshop series to help community organizations leverage skills-based volunteerism. The goal was to expand the reach of this type of work, going beyond the consultative support Fidelity associates have provided nonprofits, which is estimated to have a fair market value of more than $100,000. The impact is significant, for the recipient nonprofits and the people giving their time. As is often true, you gain more than you give when you volunteer, and when professional skills are involved, this truism is amplified exponentially. As social impact leaders seek to prove the business case, they'd be wise to share key takeaways from the industry reports linked above with HR, learning and development professionals, and business unit leaders across their organizations. Companies are made up of people who seek to do good work and advance in their careers. As Fidelity knows, skills-based volunteerism, aligned with personal interests, is a smart way to invest. These reports add more data to the conversation and, Pyxera Global hope, lead to more good work for the world. Tune in to part 2 of this blog post to learn how Pyxera Global at Pyxera Global approach impact measurement, equipping leaders with the data to go along with their social impact narratives.

Mercer Advisors launches AI platform for family office services. Mercer Advisors has launched Aspen 2.0, an AI-enabled platform that unifies client data and workflows to enhance family office services across its 42,000-plus clients. Developed over the past three years by the technology team at Mercer Advisors, the firm has now rolled out its second AI-enhanced version of the platform. Aspen 2.0 is now deployed across the firm's more than 1,100 interdisciplinary wealth professionals. Built to address one of the most persistent industry challenges, fragmented data and technology that hinders collaborative service delivery, Aspen creates a single, unified environment that allows advisory teams to work together to deliver the full power of the Mercer Advisors platform to clients. Mercer Advisors built Aspen as a family office platform, to support its advisory teams in local markets in delivering its comprehensive offering and orchestrate its deep bench of interdisciplinary professionals. As wealth firms add services for their clients (planning, investing, tax, estate, insurance, financial administration, and more) it becomes increasingly important to provide team members with a real-time view of each client and a shared environment for client service. Unlike many advisor systems that simply display data, Aspen maps the relationships between the firm's clients, team members, and the services being provided. It forms a unified knowledge graph that connects client data, acts as a system of record for the work that is being done and integrates directly into specialist systems in each advisory domain. Because of its unique architecture, Aspen allows Mercer Advisors to deploy AI tools within workflows, directly alongside team members, in a supervised manner. The platform's name reflects its design and philosophy. In nature, what appears to be a forest of Aspen trees is often a single living organism, connected by an extensive underground root system. In the same way, Aspen connects data, workflows and communication across Mercer Advisors into a single platform, allowing individual advisors and teams to operate as local boutiques while remaining deeply connected to a shared source of intelligence and capability. "Our ultimate aspiration is to deliver the highest standard of financial care to families and create the context where leading fiduciary professionals can do the best work of their careers," said Daniel Gourvitch, president of Mercer Advisors. "For families, Aspen allows us to deliver the full capabilities of a $110 billion+ family office through each of 450 advisors. For our teams, it is the engine that simplifies the coordination and execution of work, so they can spend more time with clients while also doing more for them. And at the firm level, Aspen supports consistent delivery, rapid innovation, and the integration of innovative technology partners directly into advisory workflows. Aspen represents the future of wealth management, where AI, automation and personalisation converge to support fiduciary advisors in delivering institutional-grade outcomes to individual families." Aspen features integrations with industry-leading technology providers Orion, Box, eMoney, Estately by FreeWill, Pontera, Salentica, Salesforce, Zoom and Microsoft, as well as multi-custody integrations with Charles Schwab, Fidelity Investments, Raymond James Financial, Goldman Sachs and others. "Orion is excited and proud to collaborate with Mercer Advisors as an Aspen integration partner," said Reed Colley, president of Orion Advisor Technology. "As an AI-native company, we are building solutions that make advisors more human, not less. Aspen delivers a true, AI-enabled family office experience by connecting teams, data, and client goals into one coordinated platform that helps set a new standard for how advice is delivered at scale." "AI is fundamentally changing the way work gets done, and agents will define this next era by understanding context and actively participating in complex workflows," said Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box. "Aspen is helping to set the pace for what agentic AI looks like in the real world, bringing intelligence directly into the day-to-day work of advisors in a secure, compliant way. We're excited to collaborate with Mercer Advisors to demonstrate how organisations can use AI to scale expertise, surface insights faster, and help deliver better outcomes without losing the human element that matters most." Serving as Mercer Advisors' primary system for its wealth management teams, Aspen powers hundreds of thousands of discrete actions each year for its 42,000+ clients. Each of Mercer Advisors' services is powered by Aspen, from core advisory work like building financial plans, managing portfolios, and preparing tax returns to daily distributions and contributions. And by embedding documents, email, meetings and other communications, it provides shared context across every interaction, and connects them to the related work. This positions the firm's advisors, specialists, and client services professionals to collaborate more effectively and allows them to deliver stronger insights and recommendations. "Aspen is a testament to our belief in working as one team for the benefit of every client. At its core, Aspen orchestrates the collective intelligence and capabilities of our planning, investing, tax, and estate professionals in delivering a cohesive family office experience," added Dave Welling, CEO of Mercer Advisors. "Aspen is the result of focused execution and innovation from our technology team, led by chief technology officer Christine Cataldo and our technology partners, including Avantos, who have worked together to create a platform that strengthens how we serve clients today and positions Mercer Advisors for continued growth and innovation in the years ahead." Founded by longtime fintech entrepreneurs, Avantos is an AI-native operating system that provides financial services firms with a platform to systemise and institutionalise client data and servicing at scale. Supported by a team of 50+ AI engineers, the company is backed by leading venture firms, Mercer Advisors and strategic partners including Vanguard, The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America(R) and SEI(R). As Mercer Advisors continues to establish itself as the destination of choice for like-minded advisory firms, Aspen also plays a critical role in accelerating post-acquisition integration and preserving service quality at scale. The platform helps reduce operational friction by bringing newly acquired teams onto a single, unified system, streamlining onboarding, simplifying training, and enabling more consistent workflows across the firm. By quickly connecting advisors, specialists, and client data to the same shared foundation, Aspen helps provide continuity for clients while allowing new teams to integrate faster and contribute more effectively from day one. Re-disseminated by Wealth and Society