The institutional fundraising environment across asset management remains fiercely competitive as we approach year-end 2014. Demand for experienced distribution professionals is very high, and a hiring market that stayed busy even during the financial crisis has become even more active and complex. As industry players move rapidly towards a model that is more focused on client solutions, the challenges of designing and maintaining a sales force to keep pace are becoming more pronounced. In addition, the opportunity cost and financial implications of mis-hiring within the distribution function are enormous for both the hiring firm and the prospective candidate.

Our intention with this paper is to share our market insights and understanding, to help hiring firms create the best clientfacing teams possible and help distribution professionals understand the current environment so they can find (or realize that they already occupy) positions best suited to their talents and aspirations.

This paper reflects our recruiting experience, conversations with heads of distribution, candidate referencing among allocators and the results of proprietary surveys conducted by Heidrick & Struggles. For quantitative data, we focused on the 64 individuals (out of 586 total respondents) who characterized their current role as either institutional sales/fundraising or hybrid fundraising/investor relations, and who characterized their current firms as traditional asset managers. Heidrick & Struggles published a similar paper on hedge funds and multi-product firms earlier this year, and we will endeavor to publish a separate report in early 2015 focusing on the consultant relations role.