“Because our size, our scale and our ownership structure is so unique, we have this natural ability to continue to lower cost,” Davis said.

Consumer Platform

Davis is taking over as CIO after Vanguard announced this month that the current investment chief, Tim Buckley, 48, will become chief executive. Bill McNabb, 60, is stepping down at the end of the year after holding the top job since 2008.

An “inexorable tide” toward fee-based advising has acted as a tailwind in the U.S. and overseas, according to McNabb. A new European regulation known as MiFID II that takes effect next year will shine a light on inducements paid to distributors for selling funds, highlighting the more relationship-based approach to advice promoted by the likes of Vanguard. The rule also requires reporting ETF trades -- they’re now mostly off-exchange -- potentially boosting liquidity in that market.

The company’s advisory outfit will support its global aspirations, Davis said. The firm’s Personal Advisor Services platform garnered $83 billion since it began in 2015 for U.S. investors, and help with money-management is something needed by investors around the world, he said. The company started a direct-to-consumer platform in the U.K. in May.

“The regulatory landscape has shifted in a lot of markets and there’s the big global trends toward transparency around fees, better regulation, clearer understanding of the value chain and a recognition that cost actually matters,” McNabb said.

‘Culture Carriers’

The company plans to open an office in Germany, where it might list some of its ETFs. It has also opened a sales and marketing office in Shanghai and added economic and strategic resources to an outpost in Hong Kong. Most recently Vanguard hired a new head of its Mexican business to help the firm expand.

High achievers rotate around these bases, with Davis spending time in Australia before his most recent role. These executives act as “culture carriers” for Vanguard’s brand of asset management, with employees encouraged to think of one another as “crew members” who lunch in a canteen called The Galley and exercise at the Shipshape gym.

As McNabb says, “when you walk into these offices, wherever they are, you’d think you were here -- except for the accents.”