Darlene T. DeRemer

Senior Advisory Partner

Darlene DeRemer, Managing Partner

Darlene T. DeRemer joined Donald H. Putnam in founding Grail Partners LLC in 2005. In addition to heading up the Boston office, Darlene is the senior banker focusing on the asset management industry worldwide, and has advised clients in a wide range of strategic transactions. Grail is an advisory merchant bank serving the investment management industry from offices in Boston, New York and San Francisco; Grail partners have worked on over 250 strategic transactions involving asset management businesses over two decades.

Prior to becoming an investment banker at Putnam Lovell NBF in 2003, Darlene spent twenty five years as a leading adviser to the financial services industry, specializing in strategic marketing, planning, product design and the implementation of innovative service strategies. Her work on outsourcing and use of technology has transformed her fund company clients. She has participated in numerous fund company asset management restructuring transactions.

Since shifting to investment banking full time, Darlene has led or participated in a score of advisory transactions. Her current clients include sale and purchase mandates for institutional and mutual fund managers in the US, as well as restructuring assignments for alternative investment firms that seek to tap the public markets in the US and abroad.

Darlene ran NewRiver's eBusiness Advisory unit for four years, until 2003, prior to which she operated her own strategy firm in asset management, DeRemer + Associates, for eighteen years. DeRemer & Associates, founded in 1987, was the first consultancy focused on the U.S. mutual fund industry.

From 1985 to 1987 Darlene was Vice President and Director in the Asset Management Division of State Street Bank & Trust Company (now State Street Global Advisors) where she managed the $4 billion Pension Real Estate Department and developed Marketing Communications and Client Service programs. Before joining State Street, Darlene was a Vice President at T. Rowe Price & Associates from 1982 to 1985. Darlene's career started in strategic planning, at Tiger International and its subsidiary, Flying Tiger Airlines.

Darlene earned a BS in finance and marketing in 1977 summa cum laude and MBA degree in 1979 with distinction from Syracuse University. She graduated Beta Gamma Sigma (Phi Beta Kappa analogous).

Current Boards and Publications: 

Syracuse University

Darlene has co-authored five authoritative reports on the asset management industry:

  • Giants stumble, Predators Rumble — M&A Activity in Money Management Industry

  • Institutional or institutionalized — Are Hedge Funds Crazy

  • DC Foundations Report — co-authored with Strategic Insight

  • Investment style and its growing role in packaged investment products  — with PricewaterhouseCoopers

  • Selling Mutual Funds through Intermediaries — with Russ Allan Prince

Darlene was the proud recipient of the 2010 Syracuse University Whitman School of Management Dean's Citation award, given to an alumnus for distinguished service. She has been a frequent guest speaker to their Undergraduate and MBA students, The Orange Value Fund, Whitman Women in Business, as well as a career mentor.

Darlene has served on the Congressional task force which was instrumental in the passage of the Pension Portable Act of 1998 and she provided testimony to the U.S. General Accounting Office's 2000 Mutual Fund Fee and Expense Study. She also served on the Independent Director's Council task force for oversight of fund service providers' and fair value pricing whitepaper.

Most recently, Darlene contributed to an ICI white paper on the orderly resolution of mutual funds.