MMI/Barron's 2021 Award for Disruption
MMI/Barron's 2021 award for Disruption was given to Franklin Templeton Investment's new Goals Optimization Engine (GOE). GOE was created by Dan Ostrov (Mathematics & Computer Science) and Sanjiv Das (Finance) in conjunction with Franklin Templeton. The Disruption award honors "a groundbreaking new product, technology, or process that will fundamentally alter the future delivery of [financial advising] solutions." (Dan's previous reputation for disruption has been more campus based.)
The award describes GOE as "enabl[ing] advisors and financial services firms to deliver personalized, high-value services to end-investors at greater scale. Based on proprietary research that won the prestigious Harry M. Markowitz Award in 2018, GOE combines Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions’ portfolio construction expertise with dynamic programming to deliver individualized portfolio pathways based upon an individual's unique goals. With the ability to handle and optimize between multiple investor goals, GOE uses probability of success as the driver for the initial asset allocation and each reallocation in order to maximize likelihood of achieving the goal. Portfolio paths further adapt to client changes and portfolio performance."