Chief Information Officer
Vanguard Group
[PNR]

Mutual fund giant Vanguard Group, with $1.6 trillion under management, operates largely as a web business, which underscores the critical role of   Paul Heller, 50. Chief information officer for the past five years, he is a 26-year Vanguard veteran who previously ran the institutional retirement services and retail businesses and did a stint in information technology, heading application development in the mid-1990s. Heller’s goals go hand in hand with Malvern, Pennsylvania–based Vanguard’s to maximize investor returns, customer service levels and operational efficiency. In 2010 he managed a major initiative to support the burgeoning exchange-traded funds business. “ETFs have technology implications from how we do the investing all the way out to the client experience,” he points out. Heller is also working to support international growth: “We are taking our investment operations global and investing heavily in technology to do that.” Like many of his peers, Heller is fixated on keeping pace with and getting ahead of rivals, but he defines the competition unconventionally. “We view our competitors as our clients’ favorite web sites,” such as Amazon.com, Facebook and Twitter, he says.