Practice Strategies
Banking, Wealth Sector In Ferment – A Talent Management Overview

What makes a good wealth manager, and what are the skills and qualities in demand today, and what is the state of the jobs market like right now? We talk to firms and executive search professionals for their views. This is part of a continuing series.
When a study from the world’s largest economy – the US – shows
that about a quarter of financial advisors expect to retire in
the next 10 years, that’s a wakeup call.
That data came from Ameriprise in a survey of
385 financial advisors from across the industry. This publication
has been familiar for some time with talk of how the
average age of advisors is rising. Well, with all this talk
of multi-trillion dollar generational wealth, this industry needs
fresh blood.
We’ve already
reflected on to what extent artificial intelligence (AI)
and other forms of technology might boost productivity and ease
strains. Firms have specific approaches – some “grow their own”
more than others. And when banks get into trouble and are taken
over – as in the case of Credit Suisse or
Silicon
Valley Bank – it also means that a lot of people have their
resumés on the market. But picking up teams of jobless bankers
isn’t always a sustainable strategy on its own.
“The hiring market has had a shot of adrenaline from the Credit
Suisse situation. A rare opportunity to jostle for bankers that
could move and most likely attract many of their clients due to
undefended books, at the same time if the hiring banks and
businesses are willing to hire from Credit Suisse many have then
decided to be open to the entire market,” Nick Dogilewski,
managing partner of Exeter Partners, an
executive search firm in the UK, said.
“The employment in the wealth management market is getting
busier. There is expansion in some of the key players on the
street which helps fuel movement across the entire market. The
demand is very much split across the bigger names through to
Tier-2 banks and independent wealth managers,” he continued. “The
leading demand is and will most likely always be for private
bankers with exciting books of business that were built up
directly by the banker (ie not inherited) and the banker who has
a network…the person who does not need the branding above the
door.”
At UK private bank SG Kleinwort
Hambros the impact of other banks’ problems was
also mentioned.
“We see opportunities from strategic exits by other organisations
to add to our pool of existing high performing talent,” Delyth
Richards, head of client solutions, told this
publication.
Over in the US, Buzz Bray, who runs Bray Executive
Search, was broadly upbeat on the state of the
market.
“There is still a healthy market for experienced UHNW advisors in
most of the US. Especially in the larger markets in the Southeast
and Southwest, we’ve seen more hiring in HNW/UHNW advisory and
more competition for top talent,” he said.
Keeping staff is as important as finding them in the first place,
Bray said.
“Culture is an important factor in retention. [It is about]
minimising arbitrary rules and unnecessary compliance-related
things to navigate. Equity is important to many of the candidates
we’ve worked with the past few years. Several of the MFOs
[multi-family offices] we work with are actively looking for
young professionals, in associate or junior roles where they can
develop careers in the industry.
In some markets it is challenging finding younger candidates, in
other markets there are good numbers of young wealth management
professionals,” Bray said.
It appears that in the currently hot area of family offices,
demand is outpacing supply. Consider data that
was issued a few days ago from Agreus Group, the consultancy,
and KPMG Private Enterprise – part of KPMG. It showed that 80 per
cent of professionals working in family offices get a performance
bonus that can be more than 200 per cent their basic salary. And
58 per cent secured a salary rise last year amidst higher
inflation. With locations such as Singapore home to hundreds of
new family offices, for example, there's going to be a talent
crunch.
Tech savvy
This news service has noted how tech savvy, breadth of experience
– even drawing candidates from fields such as
the military – are important considerations today. Even for
those wary about the ideology of some of it, the trend of
diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) also speaks to the brute
fact that the recruitment net must widen because clients expect
it.
Steve Bowyer, a talent acquisition manager at
UK-based Kingswood said the wealth
management employment market is “particularly tight at the
moment, particularly for good quality candidates in advice and
support roles.” “Often, when we are speaking to candidates,
they will have multiple opportunities open to them. This does
differ from region to region, with London in particular being the
most competitive but also offering the most candidates, whilst
more remote locations sometimes struggle in both quantity and
quality.”
We asked SG Kleinwort Hambros’ Richards where she saw the
strongest demand and where have things weakened?
“We continue to see a broad pipeline of candidates for open
vacancies depending on specialist functions or skillset,” she
replied. “SG Kleinwort Hambros has been investing in proprietary
tools to enhance the client experience and assist client advice
process. This enables transformation of the client engagement,
and has required training of staff to become familiar and
advanced practitioners in using the new modelling and
illustration tools.”
“We are also transforming our training interfaces with staff, to
enable new digital ways of accessing training via different
mediums, at times that suit our staff,” she said.
“Technology has the ability to enhance the onboarding experience.
Credit used to be very paper driven. We have, for example,
reduced the time it takes to process a credit application,”
Richards continued. “This has required new training and new
techniques for our client-facing and non client-facing staff,
from downloading and listening to podcasts to using our
proprietary interactive illustration tool. Our key is always to
keep things simple for our clients in order to simplify
their challenges and to design tools that can be easily
incorporated and adopted by our colleagues.”
Exeter Partners’ Dogilewski said adapting to technology is
inevitable.
“Bankers and others must have the technology skills. It is also
important to maintain and develop the skills as the next
generations coming in gain those skills through school and into
university,” he said. “We’re in the dawn of effective AI although
I doubt ‘ChatGPT’ will be taking wealth managers’ jobs in the
near future. There have been rumbles about AI wealth managers,
which might have a space at the lower end of the wealth spectrum,
but in the UHNW and family office space human contact is half the
job. Bankers are called “relationship managers’ for a reason, the
lure of a chat bot popping up in the corner of the screen to
discuss clients’ needs and requests is a step too
far,” Dogilewski said.
Jetting around?
Given compliance and other matters, the role of the jet-setting
private banker appears to have changed, if not permanently. And
it is not just the pandemic that might have affected
this.
SG Hambros’ Richards said regulations play a part in change.
“Post Brexit we work within an increasingly regulated
cross-border environment. We service clients in a restricted
number of countries. After Covid, more clients request virtual
engagement. Clients also maintain a close focus on service costs
and advisor’s ‘jet-setting’ lifestyles is incompatible with good
client outcomes!” she said.
Dogilewski does not think bankers have become less mobile. “The
reduced travel is more linked to cost controls by certain banks.
Cross-border rules impact bankers on a day to day [basis] across
Europe, although banks have found ways to get around this. Seeing
clients face to face is as important as it always was, clients
prefer in-person contact and appreciate the efforts made by their
bankers, instead of over Zoom. This goes for local onshore
bankers to international bankers based in one region covering
clients in another.”
Diversity
Another big theme in recent years has been that wealth management
must be less “male, pale and stale.”
Bray said there have been changes.
“Many wealth management firms have made progress in the past five
years in hiring more women, especially senior roles and
leadership positions. Most of industry will tell you it is still
far from ideal but many of our clients have made efforts to
improve in this area in the past five to seven
years; they’ve deliberately worked to improve and add the
number of females on their teams in senior roles and `seats at
the table’. Most firms want more diversity with non-white
professionals (male or female), though it is sometimes
challenging to find qualified candidates in some
markets."
Bowyer said the diversity issue is crucial.
“This is a very important topic, but one which must be addressed
in a balanced way, to avoid `tokenism’ and truly create an
inclusive, welcoming culture. The best candidate should
ultimately get the job, regardless of the position. Firms
recruiting individuals just to meet gender equality targets for
instance run the risk of not creating a culture which is
inclusive of all. The overall culture must be transparent,
positive and striving to continuously improve,” he
said.
“At Kingswood Group, we have taken steps such as unconscious bias
training, particularly in the recruitment of new colleagues, to
ensure we address such issues. As the organisation has grown, we
have also looked at our HR policies and people strategy to ensure
that we have the best possible environment for our culture to
develop and mature,” he said.
Finally, what makes a good wealth manager?
“Interpersonal skills and life experience counts for a lot. It’s
evident that there will be many bankers suitable for each client.
There has to be an element of trust and a bond when a client is
entrusting their hard-earned wealth to the banker and the bank,”
Dogilewski added.