Stromberg, 57, once a star football player for Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, fits that profile. He has been at the company for 30 years -- as an analyst, portfolio manager and executive.

In a 2016 study, the company found that a majority of its 18 U.S. equity strategies beat their index benchmarks across multiple time periods over 20 years. Some of the funds topped their benchmarks by a wide margin.

The firm’s biggest fund, the $51 billion T. Rowe Price Growth Stock Fund, beat the S&P 500 Index over five years and 10 years. The $20 billion New Horizons Fund beat the Russell 2000 Growth Index by roughly 4 percentage points a year over 20 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The $28 billion Mid-Cap Growth Fund exceeded its benchmark by 3 percentage points a year over the same period.

Higher Price

T. Rowe Price’s “consistently solid investment performance and reasonable fees” are an important competitive advantage, Greggory Warren, who follows asset managers for Morningstar, said in a March research note.

Most of the firm’s biggest stock funds charge between 70 and 80 cents per $100 invested. Many index funds and ETFs charge about 5 cents. Making an analogy between mutual funds and hotels, Robert Sharps, T. Rowe Price’s co-head of global equities, said, “If we can deliver a better experience, we should be able to charge a higher price.” Performance is calculated net of fees.

New spending initiatives are aimed at making T. Rowe Price more competitive and attracting flows. By beefing up its distribution in Europe, the company is hoping to tap into a bigger pool of investors. Currently only 5 percent of assets come from outside the U.S.

The new products will focus on providing income using a mix of asset classes, said Stromberg. One fund, which opened this week, is a variation on T. Rowe Price’s target-date retirement series. Called Retirement Income 2020, it will allow investors to receive regular monthly distributions after they retire.

Technology Center

Like other money managers, including BlackRock Inc. and Tudor Investment Corp., the hedge fund run by Paul Tudor Jones, T. Rowe Price believes it needs to improve its technology skills to keep up with competitors. Its technology center, which opened this year in New York, expects to have 50 to 60 people with expertise in fields such as big data and machine learning.