Amy Small is executive vice president and executive director of institutional custody at UMB Bank and a recently named Ingram’s WeKC honoree‡. We sat down with her to discuss the growth of UMB’s custody business and the people and values that drive her leadership.
Tell us about your background and what led you to UMB.
I started at DST Systems in 2000, and in my 18 years there, I grew from an entry-level representative to the director of operations, spanning various areas including client relationship management, finance, regulatory and financial control—while working with the team to build their alternative investment book of business from scratch.
Along the way, I became very familiar with UMB. In fact, I have been a client of UMB both personally and professionally for more than 20 years. As a client, I always received outstanding service and loved the people I worked with. Upon joining UMB, I learned it’s really the company-wide culture.
Until 2018, UMB’s custody function was an add-on service for clients of UMB Fund Services, which is a national leader in registered and alternative investment fund administration services. I saw an opportunity to build custody into a standalone business, and that’s what we’ve been doing.
What has propelled institutional custody’s growth as a standalone business?
We’ve grown from $60 billion in assets under custody to $239 billion (as of December 31, 2025), and we’ve diversified from a business almost solely focused on mutual funds to one where mutual funds comprise 30% and the remainder consists of alternative investments, government, insurance and corporate clients.
Three things are driving that growth. First, many municipal governments are now managing more complex investment portfolios than in past years and need additional risk monitoring, performance reporting, compliance monitoring, collateral management, and treasury and liquidity support.
In addition to size, increased complexity is driving the need for specialized services within the government and other political subdivision segments. We’ve seen a similar evolution among insurance companies, where middle-office services often focus on non-traditional asset servicing for alternative investments, foreign exchange capabilities, regulatory reporting and collateral management.
Second, liquidity solutions among asset managers continue to have high demand as they navigate volatile markets. We offer both reverse repo and line of credit options, and notably, we offer committed reverse repo facilities in addition to the more common uncommitted facilities.
Third, our business has grown as asset managers seek specialized support for private and semi-liquid funds. For these complex assets, robust middle-office services are crucial to an asset manager’s operational efficiency.
Why do private funds choose to engage a custodian when not required to?
Often the driving force is a request of one or more large investors who want the stability provided by third parties along with independent oversight of money movement controls and compliance with anti-money laundering requirements. Managers also use a custodian to take advantage of ancillary services that support efficiency in their cash management, document management and investor onboarding.
One area where we’ve seen significant interest is helping complete alternative investment subscription documents on a manager’s behalf. We also work strategically with customers and their existing lenders to enter into tri-party collateral agreements and to offer lending solutions such as credit facilities and reverse repurchase agreements.
What trends are you watching?
Cybersecurity is a familiar but all too timely theme. We regularly see clients’ email accounts compromised by bad actors who send us fraudulent instructions. These fraudulent emails are getting more and more sophisticated. Nothing looks off about them. Sometimes they even reference topics in other emails between the client and our team. Business email compromise is a huge challenge, and we urge all our clients to take it seriously.
We continue to keep a close eye on digital assets—not just the assets themselves, but what their growth means for intermediaries’ processes and technology needs. And we are actively working with our colleagues in UMB Fund Services in preparation for ETF share classes within traditional mutual funds.
Your team has grown through a period of enormous change. What are you most proud of in how you’ve built it?
The people. None of the growth I described happens without developing talent to match. Recently, we launched a mentoring and coaching program for the institutional custody and operations teams. I’m committed to building the bench so that people are ready when it’s their time to shine.
I also want my team to feel supported in living their priorities to the fullest, whether that is attending events for their children, education, volunteering, or career advancement. Intentional modeling along those lines can help employees learn to set their own boundaries and priorities.
That was crucial for me to learn early in my career. Fifteen years ago, when my second child was born, I was working 12-hour days and was on the verge of a breakdown. My manager said, “Why are you letting us do that to you?” He didn’t know I was working 70 hours a week until I talked to him about it. After that conversation, we put in place additional rotations and training for other people that made a difference.
When I was raising my kids, they kept me busy with band events, choir concerts, volleyball games, and golf tournaments, and I worked hard to ensure they saw my face in the crowd.
What’s meaningful to you away from work?
I married my high school sweetheart and we have two grown children. I enjoy traveling and spending time with my husband, our kids, and our new grandson. I’ve been a volunteer music director at my church for more than 20 years, and we host youth camps at our home each summer. Mentoring others is important to me as well as volunteering and supporting local charity organizations. I am passionate about paying it forward and helping others create new futures. Rather than exchanging gifts with one another, our team adopts families for the holidays through Mother’s Refuge, which helps mothers secure transitional housing, access education and employment resources, support their families and more.
I’m also passionate about helping often-overlooked members of our community, particularly those in their late teens. I’ve been involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters, and my husband and I have opened our home to a child in need of emergency placement. Someone once asked me what I would do if I had all the money in the world, and I said I’d build a large home to adopt teens who were about to age out of foster care so they could become part of a forever family and have someplace to call “home” for the holidays.
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