Sourcing An Investment Risk Specialist for A Pension Fund

Opportunity

This client came to us looking to strengthen their Investment Risk team. This was not a particularly senior position; the main challenge was that the combination of skills needed for the Investment Risk Specialist role was rather niche and hard enough to find in more developed markets with larger talent pools of potential candidates than the Middle East or for someone willing to relocate to the region.

Approach

In such a situation we know that to deliver a successful outcome we will need to “kiss a lot of frogs” to find our Prince. We embarked on an extensive and detailed search and selection process across the major financial centres of the UK, Europe, Canada, Asia and Australia. Through this extensive exercise, we were able to identify several suitable candidates with the required financial, actuarial and regulatory risk management skill set, experience and motivation our client needed.

Outcome

The interview process ended up being a little slower than normal due to the availability of some senior stakeholders in the process. This was a risk to the success of the recruitment process doe to the huge demand in the UK and internationally for such Investment Risk Specialist candidates. We mitigated this risk through constant communication and by using the delays as opportunities to educate the candidates the benefits of living and working in the region. We were thus able to keep the candidates engaged in the process and through to the final stage of interviews. A preferred candidate was offered a competitive package which was accepted, and they subsequently joined the business within six weeks of accepting the offer.