Our client is a Sovereign Wealth Fund based in the Middle East. The firm’s AUM is upwards of $650bn.

The client’s mission is to invest funds on behalf of the Government to make available the necessary financial resources to secure and maintain the future welfare of the region.

The client had grown significantly over the past 10 years and reached a stage where the firm wanted to create a new independent Risk Function to provide more strategic support to the business. Following a review by McKinsey, Sheffield Haworth were mandated to conduct a global search to find the new Chief Risk Officer and the executive leadership team who would support this individual.  These roles included Head of Investment Risk, Head of Counterparty Risk, Head of Operational Risk and Head of Risk Adjusted Portfolio Analytics.

The search targeted MD level candidates across both the buy and sell side industries globally, such was the desire to attract industry leading risk management professionals to the organisation. In addition, due to the change mandate, individuals who had demonstrable experience of creating and building risk functions in their career were prioritised.

Outcome

The team at Sheffield Haworth successfully filled all of the designated roles including the Chief Risk Officer along with four direct reports over and 18 month period.  In addition and in parallel, two mid-level team members were hired.

Challenge

Our client is a global investment bank and financial services firm.  Sheffield Haworth was mandated to work on a multi-year risk transformation project supporting both the incumbent Group Chief Risk Officer and, initially, EMEA Group CEO.  The client had been under mounting pressure from U.K., other European and USA regulators to bolster the CRO team at a senior level.  The initial mandate was to find a UK CRO which was a newly created role.

The subsequent build out touched every risk type and every risk infrastructure function globally. The hiring managers were regional Chief Executive Officer’s in APAC, EMEA and USA, as well as a newly appointed Group Chief Risk Officer.

Sheffield Haworth in partnership with the client has successfully transformed the leadership team by placing a large number of senior MDs from USA versus foreign bank organisations thus leveraging the CCAR and Fed experience these candidates could bring.

Challenge

Sheffield Haworth partnered with the Co-Founders of a new Fixed Income Systematic Fund, to build out their leadership, investment, data science & technology groups. Their business objective was to research, develop, and continuously improve a scientific investment process applicable to fixed income investment management.

They are developing fixed income investment themes ranging from style-premia methods to data science-driven alpha-generative techniques, including systematising those traditionally utilised by discretionary fixed income managers. Its development areas include structured data utilisation, scientific and evidence-based investment procedures, applied and fundamental algorithmic R&D, systematic alpha sourcing research, efficient market access, and creation of data science and analytical tools to facilitate alpha generation, efficient portfolio construction, risk management, and transparent sources of portfolio risk and return.

The firm’s guiding principles are a scientific orientation, intellectual honesty, and a process-driven approach to all key aspects of its business.

Within 12 months, Sheffield Haworth successfully completed the build out of their founding leadership team and a total of 30+ hires for the firm, including the Co-Chief Investment Officer and Head of Engineering, Finance Director and Head of Operations. This in turn put their human capital plans a year ahead schedule and allowing them to expedite their go to market strategy.