Laura Lutton’s career path took her from community newspapers to leading research on complex investment funds, highlighting the value of both curiosity and adaptability when forging a career in financial services.
As the global head of manager research at Morningstar, she helps financial advisors better understand and compare investment products. In recent years, that means evaluating portfolios that combine public and private companies. These types of funds have increased in number as more advisors seek easier access to private investments that offer greater liquidity and often lower minimums than traditional private market stakes when building client portfolios; however, they can be complex and at times confusing for investors. Financial advisors utilize Lutton’s work to understand and assess the merits of the often-opaque products.
Lutton began her career as a journalist, earning a master’s degree from Northwestern University. She worked as a reporter for a community newspaper in Chicago and later as the Midwest bureau chief for American Banker magazine. Her ability to analyze data and draw evidence-based conclusions made her a natural fit for Chicago-based Morningstar’s newly created equity research team, where she began covering bank stocks. “There is a lot of data involved [in reporting], and drawing conclusions based on evidence and new information,” she said. “Equity research is very similar.”
At the start of her career at Morningstar, Lutton worked on content for Morningstar.com before joining the fund research team in 2001. Her role involved interviewing portfolio managers, which she found particularly rewarding. “That was always my favorite part of the work—talking to world-famous portfolio managers about their portfolios, what they are buying and selling, and why,” she said. One memorable moment was meeting Joel Tillinghast, the well-regarded manager of Fidelity’s Low-Priced Stock Fund, who impressed her with his detailed knowledge of the 2,000 companies in his portfolio.
In 2016, Lutton became the director of manager research practice for North America. She later joined Morningstar’s asset management solutions group and served as the director of ESG product management at Sustainalytics, an ESG research company owned by Morningstar. These roles deepened her understanding of how investment funds are marketed, sold, and redeemed, she said, preparing her for her current position.
Lutton returned to Morningstar in 2024 to lead manager research, just as semi-liquid funds were gaining traction (the number of semi-liquid funds in the U.S. has grown from 113 in 2020 to close to 500 today). Her team’s goal is to produce independent research on the funds and equip financial advisors with the tools to compare them effectively. “Our goal is to make sense of all of that and to create ratings, data, and research so that it will be easy for investors to say, ‘Okay, that’s quality,’ or ‘That’s where I need to ask more questions,’” she explained.