Instructors:  Bill Cavanagh

Bill has spent his entire professional career involved in all aspeccts of the financial services industry in both Canada and the U.S.

With over 40 years of experience in the financial industry operations and executive management, Bill is a results oriented executive business leader, with senior-level Projec Management skills. his experties lies in operations management and in leading large-scale, full life cycle projects comprised of multi-disciplinary teams. He brings this depth of experience to the Smarten Up Institute in both course design and instruction.


Bill is able to work effectively at all levels of an organization and is experienced in working in large domestic and large multi-national firms.  This skill transfers well to the classroom where he can identify with the issues and challenges faced by the different roles and departments that make up an often diverse audience.

Specific industry expertise includes financial services including Global Custody, Broker/Dealer, Insurance, Mutual Funds, Pension Funds, and Wealth Management in both middle and back office applications.  

This snapshot of projects Bill has led as a managing director for Peer Connect for large scale clients shows the depth of experience:

• Project Manager, Wealth Core Platform conversion TD Wealth Management
• Project Manager, Trust to Bank Conversion Project
• Program Manager, for a Canadian Bank owned Broker/Dealer to implement Affiliate Management for the Broker/Dealer to manage and control all trading and processing for their Bank Owned Trust Company as well as the Banks’ Management division.
• Program Manager, with a Canadian Subsidiary of a US Bank of a strategic program for the outsourcing of various financial applications for Fund Accounting and Mutual Funds processing including Transfer Agency applications.
• Program Manager, Central Credit Unions outsourced back office services group:  This program developed and delivered a central back office to support the various Credit Union Centrals to offer Mutual Fund services to their clients as well as Discount Brokerage and Full Service Brokerage to their various Credit Union memberships.
• Program Manager, with the Canadian Capital Market Association (CCMA) involved the Wealth Management groups, the Banks, the Broker/Dealers, and the Global Custodians as well as the Canadian Depository for Securities Limited (CDS). The overall program was to complete all transaction requirements to match the Trade Date + 1 requirement as outlined by the regulatory bodies in Canada and the USA.
•  Program Manager, for a consolidated Financial Services Group including two Mutual Funds firms and one Insurance Company: The program included the development of a consolidated process to engage one Global Custodian to handle all aspects of the consolidated groups.

He’s now enjoying his time mentoring both young and the more mature on the ski hill and also as an instructor with Smarten Up Institute. He lives with his wife in Squamish in beautiful British Columbia.

• Persons presently outside the industry looking to increase specific financial knowledge or seek entry to the industry
• Operational and administrative staff, particularly settlement, corporate action and custody staff in the financial and/or securities industry
• Investment and financial firms' IT staff
• Investment and financial firms' program and product developers
• Investment and financial firms' customer service representatives
• Employees of regulatory agencies
• Employees of custody agencies
• Industry vendors' employees

• Brokerage Operations

• Gain in-depth knowledge of the services of the Global Custodian Bank / Cash Management / Risk Assessment / Securities Lending
• Gain more knowledge of Proxy Voting, Trade Rules and Instructions, Witholding / Non Witholding Tax, Corporate Actions, Dividend and Interest Income
• Gain an appreciation for the services of the Custodian Bank, the Requirements for Financing, the Foreign Exchange (FX) Marketplace, and Securities Lending (national and international)