Advancing Technology Dramatically Impacting Search Requirements
Every manager we work with, from CEOs to department heads to portfolio managers, is grappling with the impact of technology. It is now demonstrably impacting every search we conduct, changing the job descriptions and shifting the search strategies. Examples of how we are seeking out new skills include:
- CFOs need extensive skills in accounting automation, ERP, and complex risk management technologies.
- Investment leaders and their PMs must master non-economic data aggregation and analytics, often using AI, and apply optimization methods across trading and portfolio construction.
- Marketers are using extensive digital tools for brand and product messaging and now aggregate extensive client data and use predictive analytics to guide sales teams.
New targets are necessary for prospects on our searches as companies need to bring these technology skills to the forefront quickly. Managers are wrestling with the tradeoffs of retraining teams of existing employees, or hiring or acquiring the new skills they need quickly.
The pace of change only continued to accelerate. Bill Gates recently wrote:
“The development of AI is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone. It will change the way people work, learn, travel, get health care, and communicate with each other. Entire industries will reorient around it. Businesses will distinguish themselves by how well they use it.”
Integrating these tools and technologies quickly into every aspect of work will be essential to success and profitability. One of the reasons that there is not more discussion in open forums about the issues today in the asset & wealth management business is that those who are discovering the early successes are keeping the information quiet as a key point of strategic advantage over competitors.
Q1/Q2 2023 Recruiting Trends
Following a disappointing 2022 in financial performance and compensation for many professionals, confidence has returned to the market. Executives are making investments for the future, despite the abundance of caution that it still warranted in volatile markets. We are busy, but final hiring decisions are being made in a more measured fashion.
The demand is occurring in pockets across the market, essentially following the flows in asset owner allocations. In wealth management, it is into RIAs and other boutique advisors, including the single-family office, and out of the traditional wirehouses and private banks. In marketable securities, it is out of core and into smaller and more inefficient asset classes, such as emerging markets, distressed debt, and single industry thematic strategies. In product categories, clients are seeking multi-asset class solutions-based products that frequently have risk management collars or overlays, and leaving mutual funds for ETFs. Broadly, asset allocations continue to flow into a wide variety of alternative asset classes such as real assets, private equity, private credit, and venture capital.
Any firms or business groups in these functional, distribution, or product areas that are seeing positive asset flows are experiencing demand for key executives, and compensation levels are remaining stronger. The bid away for a team member to a competitor is a greater risk. Despite these pockets of demand, we have observed a greater degree of moderation in the offers clients are making to new employees, often slowing the recruiting process.
Rather than capacity-related demand driving our search work, increasingly, it is the faster skills rotation that is changing what companies need and driving the demand for new talent.
Hybrid Work
The flexible hybrid work style that incorporates both co-located time and reduced commuting of virtual work one or two days a week is here to stay. Firms that are slow to migrate employees back into the office, at least on a hybrid schedule, will suffer strategic setbacks over time. It is essential for business leaders, from the CEO down to the department team leader, to quickly bring a new and more effective skillset into play when there are fewer days working together in the office. Deloitte/Casey Quirk’s recent paper citing the importance of the five C’s of co-located work of creativity, collaboration, coaching, culture, and conflict resolution is essential reading that we highly recommend. Our earlier Leadership Series on Hybrid Work cited the same issues and necessary adaptations.
I hope we can share our insights in the near future on these exciting developments. These issues are impacting every search we do.
- President & CEO – $40 bil RIA
- President & CEO – $30 bil ESG Investment Firm
- President & COO – $5 bil RIA
- President & CEO – Leading Financial Services Association
- President & CEO – $4 bil Family Office
- Board Member – $2 bil ESG Private Equity Firm
- Board Member – $110 bil Global Asset Manager
- Board Member – $10 bil Mutual Fund Complex
- Division Executive & Head of $2 bil Investment Business – Mission-Driven Payment Services Fintech
- Managing Director & ETF Division Manager – $80 bil Asset Manager
- SVP & Head of ETFs – $1 trillion Global Asset Manager
- Partner & Head of Retail Distribution – $200 bil Private Equity Firm
- Head of Retail Marketing – $200 bil Private Equity Firm
- Head of Retail Sales – $200 bil Private Equity Firm
- Partner & CFO – $30 bil Hedge Fund
- Partner & CFO – $2 bil ESG Private Equity Firm
- Chief Investment Officer – $3 bil Endowment
- Partner & CHRO – $40 bil Global Asset Manager
- Partner & COO, Trust Services Business – Large Regional New Hampshire Law Firm
- Managing Director & Head of Client Service & Operations – $40 bil RIA
- Partner & COO – $4 bil RIA
- EVP & Chief Marketing Officer Retail – $1 trillion Global Asset Manager
- SVP & Head of Digital Marketing – $1 trillion Global Asset Manager
- Head of US Retail Channel Marketing – $700 bil Global Asset Management Firm
- Partner & Chief Marketing Officer – $10 bil Global Institutional Asset Manager
- Portfolio Manager, Emerging Market Local Currency Credit – $50 bil Asset Manager
- Portfolio Manager, Global Small Cap Value Equities – $60 bil Asset Manager
- Head of Investments – $4 bil Family Office
- Head of Risk Management – $30 bil Hedge Fund
- Head of Human Resources – $30 bil Hedge Fund
- Head of Channel Marketing – $80 bil ETF Specialty Firm
- Head of Talent & Deputy CHRO – $80 bil Asset Manager
- Product Manager, ETF & Blockchain Asset Classes – $80 bil Asset Manager
