When you oversee half a trillion dollars of other people's investments, you tend to keep close tabs on the world's economic pulse.

That's where 47-year-old Martin Flanagan finds himself as chief executive of Invesco, a company that despite its Midtown base and decades-old Atlanta roots is little recognized in its hometown.

Mikki K. Harris/AJC (ENLARGE)

Martin Flanagan, CEO of the investment management company Invesco, discusses his perspective of investing on April 1, 2008.

"It's one of the very few truly global independent asset managers in the world. And it's here in Atlanta," Flanagan said.

While its top executives were based here, its official headquarters moved to London about 15 years ago and only returned to Atlanta in December. And up until last year, the company operated under the unwieldy name Amvescap, leaving its businesses — handling everything from AIM mutual funds to Atlantic Trust wealth management — to operate under their own names.

Flanagan, brought in 2 1/2 years ago as the company tried to rebuild after poor performance and regulatory troubles, spoke recently about career advice, regulations and what he sees ahead for world economies. His comments were edited for space reasons.

Q: What would you tell someone who is about to enter college and wants to find a career that offers the best shot at becoming fabulously wealthy?

A: See the world. Have an open mind. Don't go into college with a predetermined outcome. ... There are so many influences in the United States and the world that we have not seen before that if you have a closed mind, you will not be successful in business or in life.

There are 6.5 billion people in the world. Effectively, half of that population has come into play in the last 10 or 15 years. Largely, I'm talking about China and India and Asia. Understand the way people think in the world, the customs, how business is being done.

Q: What would you tell someone entering college who wants to know what's the best path to making the world a better place?

A: Some version of the same answer. To make the world a better place, first you have to understand it. I did my business degrees, but the fact of the matter is where I probably got better educated was through the art history classes, through going to school in Spain or Peru and those types of things.

Q: What do you see 10 or 20 years out as far as big economic shifts and future growth segments?

A: You have a growing population, but an aging population and wealth creation. But also much of it is being created outside the United States. It's not just India and China. You go to Russia with the oil or the Middle East with the oil. ... You can't underestimate the ability of the United States to evolve and evolve quickly. You can contrast that to an economy such as Japan, which is still the second-largest economy in the world but it has been stagnant for 10 years, 15 years. That's not sustainable. ...

Right now, China is the fourth-largest economy, about to become the third. Who would have ever thought something like that? It is those dynamics that will have an impact on the United States. Our engines of growth are really from education, health care, financial services. I feel quite confident we will continue to be a leader in that.

Q: What percentage of Invesco's revenue comes from outside the United States?

A: About 40 percent.

Q: Give us a sense of how people around the world have different views of investing for retirement.

A: Investors around the world are feeling they have less time than they have ever had before. ... There is an endless amount of information you can find about investing, what to invest in, how to invest, about a stock, about a company, about a mutual fund. ... People have less time today, with excessive information, with people not having the education around it, and I find that to be a very dangerous formula.

Q: Thinking about the larger economy, what worries you?

A: I'm a very optimistic person about where the world is going. ... My personal opinion is in the second half of the year you are going to see the [U.S.] equity markets start to respond. We're probably in an economic slowdown for the next six to nine months.

Q: What worries you about Invesco?

A: If the stock market depreciates, the level of assets we manage decreases, which has a direct downward correlation to our revenues and impacts the earnings of the company. I don't know if it is a worry. It's just a fundamental fact. As an organization, we are financially quite strong.

Q: What do you see coming that maybe many of us haven't clued in on?

A: The Chicken Little, the world is falling part — that is usually the time you want to start thoughtfully paying attention to the market and selectively investing in the market.

Q: Invesco has had troubles in years past. There was the $451 million paid after regulators investigated allegations of market-timing. And some investment assets performed poorly compared with peers. What's been the game plan for changing things?

A: Getting on a plane, trying to get a deep understanding of the company. ... Going around the world to meet people and know people and build a management team.

Q: What will you do to make Invesco better known in the United States?

A: We went on a process of what we called building a brand from the inside out. The parent company was called Amvescap. It was a holding company of asset managers. Part of it was changing the operating model to be a global investment management company. We then started external branding. The parent company name changed to Invesco. There's a single logo around the world.

Q: In some quarters, there are concerns about sovereign trust funds — the investment vehicles of nations, some of which have heavily invested in the United States. Do they create a big risk for the stability of the U.S. markets?

A: That's the silliest thing I've ever heard in my life. ... It's a global market. ... We should encourage free trade. The capital that is being deployed is actually a healthy thing for the United States.

A LOOK AT THE COMPANY

• Clients: Individuals and institutions in 100 countries. Products include mutual funds, college savings plans and investments in distressed companies.

• How much it manages: About $500 billion.

• Invesco's own revenues: $3.88 billion in 2007.

• Employees: 5,500 worldwide; 300 in Atlanta.