Disrupt or die – that was the message to the exchange-traded funds industry from Lee Kranefuss, the man who engineered the ETFs that led to the products’ global success.

Although global assets in ETFs have soared to trillions of dollars, there is still immense scope to devise creative versions of the products that subvert conventional approaches to asset management, Kranefuss, chairman of ETF provider Source, told the Inside ETFs conference in Amsterdam on June 14.