Our client is a leading UK Investment Platform. The business has a reputation for providing world class investment solutions and retirement expertise to institutions, individuals and their advisers.
The role was to lead the platform’s strategic and operational development in what is a very competitive market place. The breadth of business responsibilities included leadership of sales, marketing, client service and operations.
During the opening meetings, our client expressed their preference to hire a female due to a reflection on their predominantly male workforce and recognition of the value that having a diverse group of senior leaders provides. Our initial research highlighted that only 20% of the obvious talent pool for this role were women. We therefore actively sought female candidates and utilised our extensive network to gain knowledge of professionals who had the gravitas and potential to excel in the role but who through their current position and/or level of seniority were not immediately obvious candidates. Taking this pro-active approach and further research into the market and assessments we presented our clients with a shortlist of suitable candidates, 40% of which were female.
The successful candidate was hired due to her depth of experience across distribution and client service within the Platform context. She had previously managed large teams, developed and executive distribution strategy and built a strong profile in the market. In addition, our candidate’s high energy approach and drive to take her career to the next level was an appeal to our client and we were delighted to have the opportunity to facilitate the introduction and align both our client’s needs with the aspirations of an ambitious, talented and hardworking candidate.
AMC are proud to have assisted in placing another women leader in her next role and are looking forward to actively seeking further female talent and supporting their career progression. This placement illustrates the seriousness with which AMC considers its responsibility as recruiters to contribute to achieving greater gender diversity in financial services. However, through our work with investment managers, we know that despite diversity being part of most firm’s talent strategy a shortage of female leaders still remains. We therefore believe it is necessary to grow the female talent pool in this area and ensure that financial services companies are organisations that provide opportunities to all employees regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, age or disability status.