Private practice · By referral · Investment systems & operational-risk advisory

We build the systems
that run your firm.

Boutique managers and family offices run research, risk, and reporting on a patchwork of vendor tools and spreadsheets. We design, review, and operate that infrastructure — data platforms where every figure carries provenance, monitoring that refuses to fail silently, and recovery that is demonstrated rather than assumed.

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One inbox, read by the principal · no forms, no funnel
Engagements

Three shapes, in ascending commitment.

Every engagement is scoped, owned, and delivered by the principal. Capacity is deliberately limited — this is a practice, not a bench.

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01 · Fixed scope · 4–8 weeks

Investment-systems readiness review

For the manager preparing for — or recovering from — an operational due-diligence exam.

  • Every reported figure traced to its source
  • Failure modes surfaced — including feeds that read green while dead
  • Recovery demonstrated, not attested
You get a severity-ranked findings register and a remediation map your team can execute.
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02 · Retainer · 1–2 days weekly

Fractional research & data infrastructure

The seat a boutique cannot fill full-time: ownership of the research and reporting data platform.

  • Vendor data ingestion, validated at the door
  • One governed warehouse, with documented lineage
  • Monitoring that alarms on freshness, coverage, and run-health
Two seats held, total. When they are taken, they are taken.
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03 · Fixed scope · Project

Built systems, handed over

A defined system designed, built, tested, and delivered with its runbook.

  • A reconciliation rail, a reporting pipeline, a data-platform migration
  • Documented and self-contained
  • Built to survive its builder leaving
Handover is the deliverable — any engineer can pick it up. No lock-in.
Who we serve

Managers between the spreadsheet and the org chart.

Three buyers, three situations — slide through.

📈Boutique & emerging managers
🏛️Family offices
🏢Established managers
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Boutique & emerging managers

Institutional capital is knocking, and the operational due-diligence questionnaire has questions the current stack can't answer well. We make the answers true first, then easy to give — engagements 01 and 02.

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What we take ownership of
Research & reporting data platformVendor data ingestionFeed & reconciliation monitoringData lineage & provenanceBackup & demonstrated recoveryModel-governance readinessODD-exam preparation
Integrations we build
Bloomberg API / B-PIPEBloomberg back-officeFactSetMSCI BarraAxiomaRiskMetricsRefinitiv / LSEGS&P Capital IQCustodians (Schwab · Fidelity · IBKR · Pershing)Fund admins (SS&C · Citco)Portfolio accounting (Addepar · Orion · Geneva)OMS / EMS (Charles River · Bloomberg AIM)Identifiers (CUSIP · ISIN · SEDOL · FIGI · LEI)Security masters & ontologies
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Family offices

Multi-custodian reporting where the family — or a trustee — should be able to ask where any figure came from, and get an answer. Consolidated reporting with provenance, built and run as infrastructure rather than a spreadsheet someone maintains.

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What we take ownership of
Consolidated multi-custodian reportingCustodian & admin feedsFigure-level provenanceDocument & audit trailReporting the family can interrogateInstitutionalization & succession readiness
Integrations we build
Custodians (Schwab · Fidelity · IBKR · Pershing)Portfolio accounting (Addepar · Orion · Geneva)Fund admins (SS&C · Citco)Bloomberg · FactSetQuickBooks · Xero (entity books)Identifiers (CUSIP · ISIN · SEDOL · FIGI · LEI)Security masters
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Established managers

The team exists; what's wanted is an outside pair of hands with institutional context — an independent systems review, a build-versus-buy read, or a migration delivered end to end. Engagements 01 and 03, project-shaped.

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Bespoke engineering
Independent systems reviewBuild-vs-buy assessmentData-platform migrationCalculation · rules · mapping enginesSemantic layersETL & data pipelinesSecurity mastersReconciliation railsAnalytics & reporting platformsTechnical due diligence
Integrations we build
Bloomberg API / B-PIPEFactSetMSCI Barra · Axioma · RiskMetricsRefinitiv / LSEGS&P Capital IQOMS / EMS (Charles River · Bloomberg AIM)Fund admins (SS&C · Citco)Identifiers (CUSIP · ISIN · SEDOL · FIGI · LEI)
Method

Measured, not asserted.

Four working rules — the same ones an allocator's operational due-diligence team is trained to test for.

Every figure carries provenance

A number that cannot name its source is a liability wearing a suit. Every figure we publish traces to the feed, the file, and the run that produced it.

Nothing fails silently

Freshness, coverage, and run-health are alarmed separately — a feed that dies while reading green is the failure mode that costs the most. The same discipline runs to recovery: a backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a control, so restores are exercised byte-for-byte and the wrong key must be refused by name.

Handover is real

Systems ship documented, tested, and self-contained — with the runbook, not instead of it. If we ever part ways, any engineer can pick it up. No lock-in, ever.

The data answers back

Dynamic, interactive, visuals-first surfaces — not a monthly PDF. Click the figure and drill to its source; filter the book your way; watch a feed's health live. A report you can interrogate builds the trust a static page only asks for.

Trent Kilpatrick, principal of Kilpatrick Strategic
The principal

Twelve years inside asset management.

Trent Kilpatrick — CFA charterholder, FRM. M.S. Quantitative & Computational Finance, Georgia Tech.

Market and treasury risk, buy-side market risk at a multi-billion-dollar multi-strategy fund, family-office reporting and analytics, and fund-administration risk production — the systems this practice builds are the systems he ran.

Independently, he built and runs a production research and data platform — a working laboratory for the patterns this practice installs. Personal R&D, unaffiliated with any employer or client.

  • 2023–26
    Manager, Risk Development & ProductionSS&C / Lighthouse
  • 2020–23
    Manager, Reporting & AnalyticsStrenta Family Office Services
  • 2016–19
    Senior Market Risk AnalystLighthouse Investment Partners
  • 2014–16
    Senior Associate, Market & Treasury RiskKPMG

Start a conversation.

Most engagements begin with a referral and a thirty-minute conversation about what your allocators, your auditors, or your own mornings keep asking.

[email protected]
What this practice is not. Kilpatrick Strategic advises on systems and operations. It does not provide investment advice, does not manage assets, does not make securities recommendations, and does not publish or reference any trading performance. Engagements concern the infrastructure investment work runs on — never the investments themselves. Client engagements are never named or referenced publicly; confidentiality survives the engagement.