The Virtual Space: Building Trust and Creating Urgency with Clients and Prospects

Kenneth Haman is the Managing Director of the AB Advisor Institute (AB AI). AB AI provides insights from the behavioral sciences, including behavioral finance, to client-facing financial advisors to improve their marketing outreach and relationship-building efforts with investors. Haman began his current role at AB in 2005. Prior to this, he managed a psychotherapy practice in the Washington, DC market for 20 years. Haman holds a BA in business administration from Lebanon Valley College; an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary; an MAPC from Moravian College; and certifications in clinical hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programing from the American Hypnosis Training Academy. Location: Nashville

Gershon M. Distenfeld thrives on facing challenge, solving problems and putting people with different personalities and different viewpoints together to "make the engine run." When he joined AB in 1998 from a role as an operations analyst at Lehman Brothers, Distenfeld had long been fascinated by the high-yield market, and he led that practice at AB from 2006 to 2016 before assuming responsibility for all of credit. He has been co-head of fixed income since 2018.

In an industry that tends to focus on the short term, Distenfeld's investment philosophy takes the long view, considers a range of outcomes and focuses on the downside. This approach puts process and constant innovation at the forefront, making full use of AB's proprietary technology to mine the insights of fundamental and quantitative research.

"We're constantly reinventing ourselves," Distenfeld says. "We don't just sit still. We adapt to new information so we can find new factors that work."

Distenfeld's eye toward the long view extends to his charitable work with organizations like New Jersey NCSY. This youth organization for disaster relief partners with Habitat for Humanity and NECHAMA to repair homes and lives affected by natural disasters.