Market Overview
INTRODUCTION
The start of 2021 can be described in many ways; rejuvenated; resilient; refreshing. Simply put, after a very inconsistent 2020 the recruitment market bounced back strongly and has set up a positive year ahead. We believe that the reason for this was two-fold. The first cause is from what we are coining “COVID fatigue” – the idea that organisations, hiring managers and business leaders have spent the best part of 9 months either putting hiring plans on hold, or at least scaling back some of the proactive recruitment they were due to carry out. The prospect of continuing to do this and miss out on top talent has led some companies to become less conservative with growth hires and look back to the candidate market to attract top talent. This leads us on to the second point which is the backlog of roles from 2020 spilling over into 2021. Whilst we aren’t seeing double the volume, there are vacancies that were being spoken about in Q1 of last year that have reappeared nearly 12 months later with the same brief.
In other matters away from COVID, Q1 has seen a significant push on ESG related material, as well as roles which will be discussed in the role profiles section later on. Whilst there has been a significant increase in demand for sustainable investments being offered by fund managers, businesses have had to adapt or alter the investment profiles of over 250 European Funds. This has helped ESG investing hit a record €1.1tn by the start of this year, according to Morningstar. This significant push on sustainability and new or repurposed funds entering the marketplace has seen a big drive on Sales & Marketing teams looking to grow their distribution efforts, as well as their ability to communicate and promote their investment capabilities to the market. However the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulations (SFDR) that was implemented in March will mean that it could separate those firms who practice what they preach with regards to ESG, and those who do not.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
There have been a significant number of senior moves within the asset management industry in both sales and marketing across the UK and Continental Europe. Jo Hambro Capital Management hired ex Aviva investors Head of Client solutions UK & Europe, Tjeerd Voskamp to lead their distribution efforts across the UK, Europe, and Asia.
BennBridge made multiple hires for their client group team focusing on UK & Europe. Naureen Khan and Chales Oldmeado both joined the firm as Client Group Director UK & Europe.
Nilesh Parmar recently joined WinsdomTree from The World Gold Council as the new Head of UK Institutional Sales and Louis Wood has joined Seilern IM from Jupiter to lead their effort within the Wholesale Distribution space in the UK.
Sebastian Maciocia, has left Feldman Wollf to join GAM as their new Client Director and Ashley Dales joined CRUX Asset Management as International Director from Cadagan Capital Partners when he was CEO.
On Continental Europe, Jan Heyer left his business development role at Man Group to join Alliance Berstein as their new sales director DACH and Marco Negri has been appointed Country Head of Italy joining La Financiere de L’Echequier from Legg Mason where he was Head of Southern Europe.
Marketing has also been very busy with Rob Page recently joining GAM as their new Head of Marketing and Client Experience after 5 years as Global Head of Marketing at Janus Henderson.
ROLE PROFILES
We have seen an influx of roles in the alternatives space this quarter: across different product lines such as Private Equity, Real Estate, and Infrastructure, due to organic capital raising and inorganic acquisitions in this space. The role profiles we have seen this quarter have been from Sales Support through to Senior Sales Managers, providing capital raising support.
We have also seen a number of Senior Writing and Editorial roles with an ESG requirement. Our clients have been looking for individuals who can edit and write engaging and informative content focused on the transition to a more sustainable global economy, aimed at wholesale and institutional clients, new business prospects and distribution partners. We have also seen asset managers increasing their focus on ESG RFP roles to drive this change to a more sustainable economy, as well as external communications to keep environmental conscious investors up to date with the transition and progress.
We’ve also seen a growth in distribution positions, especially European Sales Directors, and we are currently working mandates in Italy, Luxembourg, Zurich and Copenhagen. These have been wholesale and institutional in focus, and we have a couple of supporting mandates at the more junior Sales Support levels, with language requirements.
PREDICTIONS
As we move towards a more “normal” working landscape, the return to the office will come at different times for different people. However, what we can be sure of is that the closer to the new normal we get, the more we can expect the market to recover from the economic recession of last year.
As we have experienced over the past 12 months the future of flexible, remote and part time working will become a paramount topic of conversation with regards to attracting (and retaining) top talent. The majority of the clients that we have been working with have indicated that they will either consider a flexible working well between home and office, or at least take individual cases on their merits and have a dialogue with the employee. At the start of March Liz Truss, Minister for Women & Equalities called for flexible working to be normalised, allowing employees the option to find the most suitable and productive working pattern that suits both employer and employee. Hopefully we see more of this in the coming months.
The continued need for sales and marketing staff to both distribute and promote funds and services will only continue to increase. After a year that focused on internal communications, PR, content and business development, there is a high likelihood that other areas of the business will be focused on to compliment this; digital marketing; RFP; investor relations/sales support and many more will be key requirements for businesses to keep up with the demand of investors and service their client base effectively.