Business Continuity

Updated: March 2024

Baird has a business continuity program in place to help ensure safety, continuity of service, and support for our clients and associates. The program includes periodic evaluation of risk and risk management controls, business impact analysis, business continuity strategy, emergency response planning, crisis management planning, business continuity planning and periodic plan maintenance. Various rehearsal exercises are conducted throughout the year to evaluate our readiness. Audits of the business continuity program are performed, as needed, and progress is reported to a Business Continuity Steering committee.

Each department has a business continuity plan that contains procedures for response, recovery and resumption of critical business processes. Department plans include contact information for associates, vendors and critical business partners; business process detail with identification of necessary applications/systems; recovery strategies for various disruption types including personnel, facility, technology, market and third-party disruptions. This information is updated periodically and is available electronically through a program that is hosted off-site, or in hardcopy. A plan may be invoked in whole or in part, depending on the severity of the incident and the functional areas affected. It is the firm’s objective to continue business during any foreseeable disruptive event and to provide clients prompt access to their funds and securities.

Emergency response procedures are in place for building evacuation and weather emergencies at our headquarters as well as other Baird offices. Regular drills are in place, where permitted, to exercise these procedures. Communication and direction throughout any incident are coordinated through the Crisis Management team and escalated to the Executive Committee if needed.

Alternative sites have defined workspace that can be used for the recovery of certain trading and related clearance and settlement as well as other functions. Additionally, various Baird sites will be available to accommodate the work of other department recovery teams and allow continuity of operations. The alternate Baird sites are at locations that give us the ability to recover from disruptions, including without limitation, city-wide and regional events, affecting various locations such as our headquarters building and its surrounding area. In addition, our primary client information service vendor is highly resilient and gives us the ability to process orders and otherwise service our clients from Baird sites not experiencing a disruption. They also have a business continuity plan in place that provides for data backup and redundancy. They test their recovery capability regularly.

In the event of a power disruption at our corporate headquarters, we have alternate power generation capability sufficient to support our trading, information technology and critical clearance and settlement functions. In addition, these functions are covered at several other Baird locations. Longer-term disruptions may require relocating personnel to other Baird sites.

Our main telephone system is redundant across multiple locations. In the event of branch office outages, phone calls can be directed through Baird’s software-based phone system or our corporate headquarters, where designated Financial Advisors can assist clients with their investment needs.

Baird utilizes multiple data centers spread across many geographies around the world including third party cloud partners. Critical systems are architected with redundancy, which allows for failover operation in the event of hardware or network failures to ensure continuity of operations. System backups are performed for recovery purposes and stored at alternate locations.

Baird’s business continuity plan, which is comprised of each department’s business continuity plan, is rehearsed regularly. Notification and emergency communications exercises are run on a regular basis. Generator tests occur monthly while IT technical recovery rehearsals are conducted as necessary. The plan is reviewed by senior management on an annual basis and is monitored by Baird’s dedicated business continuity team. The plan is updated throughout the year and in the event of any material change to the firm’s operations, technology, structure, business, or location.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact your Financial Advisor or call us toll-free at 800-792-2473 and ask for the Manager of Business Continuity.