The hottest job in private equity: Keeping investors happy

Business Insider

5 days ago

Fundraising in private equity used to be relatively easy. First, you'd schmooze with executives of foundations, endowments, and pension funds, and then they'd write you a check with 6, 7, or even 8 zeroes. You'd go back for an even bigger check five years later, after doubling their money. Rinse and repeat.
Now, with private equity returns slumping and allocations to buyout funds increasingly maxed out, firms are finding they need to work a lot harder to get those big checks — driving up demand for professionals whose job it is to woo investors and keep them happy once they've invested.
Hiring for fundraising and investor relations roles at private equity and alternative asset firms surged to a record 3,378 in 2024, nearly double 2020 levels, according to data from recruitment firm Jensen Partners. That momentum has carried into 2025, said Sasha Jensen, founder and CEO of Jensen Partners, noting that first-quarter hiring hit another record high.
A survey from recruiting firm Odyssey Search Partners suggests pay for this group is also rising. Total compensation grew an average of 20% from 2023 to 2024, the survey of alternative industry fundraisers and investor relations professionals showed.
"There's a short supply of what the general partners are looking for," Jensen said, referring to the industry term for the financial sponsors in charge of these funds.
Business Insider spoke to four recruiters who specialize in hiring professionals who interact with investors on behalf of private equity firms and other alternative asset managers. They broke down the jobs, skills, and experiences that are most in demand as a result of the fundraising squeeze.
Sales skills vs Rolodexes
There is an age-old debate on Wall Street about what makes a salesperson shine — their Rolodex or their sales savvy.
Demand for professionals with preexisting relationships continues to be high in some investment hotbeds, like the Middle East and Asia, said Jennifer Xu, head of investor relations recruitment at Selby Jennings. But overall, times have changed.
"We tend to view the Rolodex as being a little bit overvalued. In today's world, no allocator will invest in a fund just because a known quantity is representing it," said Lisa Steele, a partner at recruiting firm BraddockMatthewsBarrett.
Recruiters said clients are looking for fundraisers with a proven ability to run a good sales process, keep track of outbounds to new investors, and continuously develop a new pipeline of potential investors. In other words, people who can sell to investors and win meetings without a preexisting relationship.
"This is not rocket science, but it is a process," Steele said, adding, "The sales process in institutional fundraising is very long, and somebody has to be comfortable and thrive in that process."
Private wealth "army"
As institutional fundraising dries up, more private equity firms are launching products they can sell to high-net-worth individuals — a trend started by Blackstone in 2017.
Jensen Partners' data shows that demand for professionals who can sell alternative investments to private wealth channels jumped 40% last year over 2023.
Selling to wealthy people is different from institutional fundraising. These products often need to be greenlit at the firm level before fundraisers can even begin persuading individual wealth advisors to pitch them to their clients. Both Steele and Jensen said it can take an "army" of fundraisers to be successful.
As with institutional fundraisers, firms are looking for professionals with proven experience and comfort with the process, which tends to move more quickly than institutional fundraising.
"In private wealth, you're in a world where they're executing and closing much more quickly," Steele said.
Some firms are adopting a sales model popular among traditional asset managers: the external/internal approach, Steele said. In this setup, externals handle field sales, while internals support from the office, including by supplying key sales information to the externals.
Talk like an investor
Investor relations professionals are in high demand because they play a key role in fundraising. Once the investor is onboarded, they take over the relationship, keeping fund investors, known as LPs or limited partners, informed.
The right IR team can mean the difference between a bigger check at the next fundraising round — or no check at all, recruiters said.
The job is increasingly demanding, said Anthony Keizner, cofounder of Odyssey.
"LPs want more frequent updates about their investments as they answer to their own stakeholders," Keizner said, adding, "they might want to know, for example, the effects on their investment from macro environment changes like tariff policies or a Fed rate cut."
Jensen said she is also seeing demand for professionals who work with investors at the capital formation stage, making sure investments are structured to the LPs' liking and acting as a de-facto portfolio manager.
She referred to them as strategic account development or strategic partnership professionals and said they tend to be senior executives with deft communication skills, acting as translators between their investment team and the LP.
"From an LP's perspective, you need a point of contact that can sit and talk toe-to-toe with the CIO," Jensen said. "They need to know exactly what risks the CIO is prepared to take on the platform, and communicate how they should structure investments around their portfolio."
Transferable skills
Recruiters said their clients are looking for sure bets — or what Xu called "someone who's plug-and-play."
Given the rising demand for these roles, however, some employers have become increasingly open to candidates with transferable skills and experiences.
"You might have sat on the investment side, decided you have the DNA of a salesperson, and made the pivot," Jensen said. People with backgrounds in consulting have also been known to make the pivot, she said.
On the private wealth side, firms have considered candidates in sales roles at traditional asset managers, Steele said.
"One benefit is that they have highly rigorous training, which is hard to find in alternatives sales," Steele said.
Some firms are responding to the talent shortage by building their own in-house programs to train entry-level workers.
"In recent years, there's been more of an effort to train entry-level investor relations professionals," Xu said.
Entry-level fundraising jobs are few and far between. Xu said firms that hire at this level tend to task those staffers with preparing presentations, running data, and providing behind-the-scenes support.
Find your niche
Recruiters said specialization is increasingly in demand, especially at large firms looking to raise money for distinct investment strategies, such as private credit, infrastructure, or private equity secondaries.
Xu said even the specialists are becoming more niche, with private credit specialists narrowing their focus to areas such as asset-backed finance or direct lending.
It could also mean having expertise in a specific style of LP, like insurance. One in-demand role is a head of insurance to help usher more insurance capital, especially for credit funds that use that money to make loans.
"When a private equity firm decides that they're going to develop a credit business, they're most likely going to hire a person or team that's focused on credit fundraising," said Bill Matthews, partner at BraddockMatthewsBarrett. "The generalist model doesn't work so well when you're developing different business models."