Leaving His Own Legacy

Being compared to an accomplished father can sometimes be unfair especially if you don’t exactly achieve as much as your father did.  For Ned C. Johnson III he took over a company founded by his father and made it even bigger. Now in his 80’s his achievements helped propel Fidelity investment into one of the largest mutual fund institutions in the world.

Ned C. Johnson III joined Fidelity Investment in 1957. Learning the ropes he stared out as a research analyst.  Then the following year he was given charge of Fidelity Trend Fund until 1967. Another responsibility was added to his load when he became the pioneering portfolio manager of the well-known Magellan Fund in 1963, holding the position until 1971. The next year he finally headed the company his father founded.

By this time there was already $3.9 billion worth of assets under management. The son proved to be an able leader. What his father started would soon grow tremendously. Introducing new products and services the company became an even larger player in the financial services industry. One of his innovations was the direct marketing of mutual funds. He was a trend-setter in using technology to provide services to clients. He started funds for a variety of investment strategies gaining a larger portion of the mutual fund market.

Today Fidelity Investment is a diversified financial service company. It is huge, as of 2010 it had $3.5 trillion of assets under administration with $1.6 trillion of assets under management.  It is one of the leading companies in mutual trust funds and is the number one provider of IRA’s in the U.S.

The company is into asset management, personal investing, workplace investing, and provides institutional services like clearing and custody. Its contribution in the field of philanthropy is just as impressive with the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund being the country’s largest donor-advised fund program. It has given over $11 billion in charity since it started.

Ned Johnson III took over from his father and simply grew the company to soaring heights.