Sterling Asset Management 20th Anniversary 2001-2021

Why the Dolphin? By Michael Hirst, Prism Communications It was late autumn in 2000, and I was sitting in the creative department of McCann- Erickson, the advertising agency, with Louis Matalon, the agency’s chief designer. “Lou”, I said, “Charles Ross is forming a new finance company, an asset management company called Sterling, and he wants us to come up with a logo design”. Lou said, “That’s easy. Sterling is the currency of the United Kingdom, so we can just customize the symbol for the pound sterling”. “Not so fast”, I said, “They’re going to be U.S. dollar experts, so using the symbol for a pound could be a bit oxymoronic”. I leaned over, put on my holier than thou creative director pose, and said, “Look, you know, financial service companies don’t sell a product, they sell a service. A service is intangible. It’s not like you’re selling toothpaste, or beer or cars, you can’t touch of feel a financial product. It’s intangible, it’s a service, so we need to create something that can symbolize Sterling, like a bank in Canada has a lion for power, or a building society in England has a stallion for strength, or a big insurance company in the United States uses a whale. They all stand for something. And they’re all warm and fuzzy. People everywhere have a soft spot for animals”. So, Lou said, “What about a giraffe? You know, Sterling will always stick its neck out for you”. “That’s great lateral thinking Lou, but I need something that symbolizes intelligence, agility, friendliness, speed, all in one animal”. We then had a good laugh about the giraffe because he was kidding, of course. Anyway, a couple of weeks later, Lou comes back with a design for Sterling, and he’s come up with a dolphin. I instantly liked it. Everybody loves dolphins. They’re everything we needed – intelligent, agile, friendly and fast – and they dominate their environment, the sea, but they’re known for the help they give to human beings in distress. Well, we presented it to Charles Ross, and he had a couple of options to choose from, but he came back to me shortly thereafter and the rest, as they say, is history. Approved all the way. A timeless symbol for everything Sterling stands for. As an addendum to this story, a fewmonths later, Sterling held its first business retreat at theMorgan’s Harbour Hotel in Port Royal, with key staff and business partners. When the business section of the retreat was over, we were sitting on the dock of the hotel to have lunch. As we sipped a cool drink and looked out of KingstonHarbour, there in front of us, 100 yards out, lo and behold 2 dolphins leapt out of the water, like a salute to us all. I turned to Charles and I said, “Now that’s a good omen”. It turns out it was. 2000 - 2019 2019 - 2021 2020 Dolphins are: ā Intelligent ā Agile ā Friendly ā Fast