Kevin DeWan

What is your personal mission at Formulary?

My personal mission is to make clients happy. I want to be extremely fast in the way I deliver exceptional service. But more than speed, I care about accuracy and the quality of client experience.

I want our clients to view us as a strategic partner, not a vendor. To me, this means eliminating pain points in clients’ back-office workflows, allowing them to focus on investment strategy and investor relations. As part of this, I am focused on building the best platform in the game and setting a new bar for the industry.

When someone starts a new fund and asks industry partners for advice, I want Formulary to be the obvious first choice with the best platform, world-class fund accountants, and the most trusted service for GPs and LPs.

AI is transforming every industry, including fund administration. Where do you think the industry is going?

AI is disrupting every aspect of the asset management industry. I believe that AI will be a source of competitive advantage and differentiation for the most ambitious funds.

We’re helping investment managers unleash their full potential with AI by providing analytics, intelligence, and insights. It’s exciting and invigorating to be at the forefront of innovation in financial services and to play an active role in transforming how funds operate on a daily basis.

What inspired you to join Formulary?

The agency to build the future.

A chance to work in an environment where, as an accounting manager, I am not siloed but instead work directly with engineers and clients to enable investment firms to grow.

Unlike other fund administration firms, where accountants are assigned a book of clients and legacy technology, Formulary gives me autonomy and resources to build tools that will enable me to be the best at my job.

What really inspired me is how Formulary builds technology. It’s a collaborative and inclusive effort, both within our team and with clients and industry partners.

Is there a particular type of accountant that Formulary is best suited for?

We hire accountants who can explain the reasoning behind their work and think from first principles. Knowing how to audit someone else’s work is not enough here. You need to be able to break things down to the atomic level.

We seek domain experts who are fluent in private markets and have a deep appreciation for the business context in which our clients operate. It isn’t only about whether the debits and credits are correct. It’s about what those numbers mean for the client in terms of business opportunities and risks.

Accuracy is non-negotiable for us because clients rely on the Formulary platform for decision-making, from capital formation and LP communications to how they manage their teams and portfolios.

Formulary accountants have a firm grip on the numbers while also keeping the client context top of mind. Our interactions with LPs, auditors, and tax teams do not just reflect on Formulary, but on our clients as well.

We understand that client service extends beyond just the accounting and reporting cycle. It affects all aspects of relationship building between us and our clients, and between our clients and their investors, portfolio companies, and third-party service providers.

If someone is considering joining Formulary, what would you want them to know?

You will be working with people from different backgrounds and with different experiences, immersed in a meritocracy of ideas. You won’t be siloed; instead, you will collaborate with everyone.

Your day-to-day will be very different: how you operate, how you solve problems, and how you carry out your responsibilities.

You will have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to build a world-changing fund administration business. You will also be expected to share ideas, discover new ways of working, and solve problems in real time with the engineering team.

Service always comes first for us, and client centricity is one of our core values. At the end of the day, it is about making clients happy: actively listening to their needs and identifying opportunities for white-glove service.

We turn pain points into solutions, not only to make fund accountants better and more efficient at their jobs, but to also provide world-class service and best-in-class technology to our clients.

What are you aspiring to in your role at Formulary as Accounting Manager?

I aspire to make happy clients. I see my role at Formulary as headache reduction and pain point elimination for clients. For me, this means quick responsiveness, accurate data, and high-touch service.

How would you describe Formulary’s culture as compared to traditional fund administrators?

Our culture is about growth.

We stand for craftsmanship in how we deliver white-glove service and build technology solutions for clients. We raise the bar in fund administration in terms of speed, responsiveness, and data capabilities. Our goal is to be the first phone call for any client question or problem.

How we operate on a daily basis is very different. We’re hungry to change the status quo, to invent.

What excites you most about the vision behind Formulary?

We’re building tools that everyone in the industry will want and need.

We will become the new standard in fund administration. Our powerful technology capabilities—determinism with AI—open up unprecedented capacity for us as accountants to dive into the human side of things, to be there for clients, and to serve as strategic partners. This is what’s incredibly exciting for me.

The days of doing mundane, low-level tasks are over for accountants. What’s invigorating is that we are fundamentally changing how fund administration works.

Is there anything else people should know about joining Formulary?

Be prepared to have an opinion, stand up for what you believe in, and challenge things.

This is not a traditional administrator, where you’re given a book of business and go through the day-to-day operations.

Here, you will push us all to become better at what we do. You will bring to bear your past experiences, lessons learned, and insights to create a better product and service experience for clients.

When you join Formulary, you will make an impact on the future of fund administration and financial services. You will be a part of fixing the issues at the core of this industry, and you will never hear “it is what it is.”

Instead, you will help us find the best possible solution to any problem, and we will build it together.