Case Studies.

London

HR build out for a scaling macro hedge fund

A rapidly growing hedge fund needed to build an entire human capital function from a nascent stage — six mandates spanning HR leadership, business partnering, talent acquisition, reward and people operations.

Process

1. 01Ran a single discovery phase with the CPO to define the target operating model for the non-investment side, then sequenced the six roles by dependency so the leadership hires landed first and shaped their own teams.
2. 02Built one consolidated market map of human capital talent across hedge funds, private markets and investment banking, allowing candidates to be assessed against several mandates rather than one.
3. 03Standardised the assessment: a common competency framework, calibrated interview panels and a shared scorecard, so the fund could compare across the programme and move at pace.
4. 04Managed offers centrally to protect internal equity on compensation, with staged start dates to avoid overwhelming onboarding.

Outcome

All six roles filled within two hiring cycles, every appointment retained beyond the first year, and a human capital function able to support the firm's next stage of growth.

London

Restructuring an in-house technology team

A universal bank's technology function had grown through years of acquisition and regional expansion faster than its leadership structure could support. Reporting lines had become inconsistent across regions, several senior technology roles were unfilled or covered on an interim basis, and the Group CIO needed a leadership bench capable of delivering a multi-year infrastructure transformation programme.

Process

1. 01Partnered directly with the Group CIO to review the technology leadership structure across regions - mapping reporting lines, role scope and succession depth against what the transformation programme actually required to deliver.
2. 02Redesigned the senior structure into clear regional and functional ownership - infrastructure and cloud, enterprise applications, and cyber and technology risk - each with a defined leader and an identified successor.
3. 03Led the search and internal mobility process for the resulting leadership roles, sequencing appointments so that critical regional teams retained continuity through the programme's peak delivery phase.
4. 04Advised the Group CIO and regional COOs on retention for critical senior engineers and architects, a build-versus-outsource view for specialist capability, and a governance framework that held up across multiple regulatory jurisdictions.

Outcome

A technology leadership structure aligned to the transformation programme, succession risk materially reduced across senior regional roles, and the infrastructure programme delivered on schedule.

Dubai

Optimising hiring operations through advisory

A multi-strategy investment platform was hiring reactively across corporate, control and talent functions — inconsistent processes between teams, heavy and fragmented agency spend across a wide range of recruitment suppliers, slow decision-making and offers being lost to faster competitors. The requirement was advisory, not search.

Process

1. 01Audited twelve months of hiring data across functions: time to offer, source of hire, agency spend and supplier mix, decline reasons and interviewer load across legal, compliance, risk, operations and HR.
2. 02Consolidated a wide, inconsistent panel of recruitment and executive search firms into a small preferred supplier list — retaining only the firms with genuine depth of relationship with the business and a proven understanding of the culture and what talent fit actually looks like day to day, rather than volume suppliers working roles at arm's length.
3. 03Rebuilt the process end to end — standardised role scoping templates, a two-stage interview architecture with defined decision rights and consistent scorecards, structured interviewer training to reduce inconsistency and bias across panels, and a compensation framework benchmarked against the relevant peer set in investment management.
4. 04Introduced a lightweight pipelining discipline so priority seats were mapped continuously rather than opened cold, trained internal talent teams to run their own market conversations, and set clear service-level expectations with the retained PSL firms so candidates stayed warm through faster decision cycles.
5. 05Provided fractional oversight through the first two quarters, chairing calibration sessions across functions, reviewing PSL firm performance quarterly, and stepping in only on the most sensitive mandates.

Outcome

Time to offer reduced by roughly half, external agency spend cut substantially through PSL consolidation, interview quality and consistency improved across functions, and a consistent internal hiring capability the platform now runs independently — supported by a small, trusted panel of search partners rather than a fragmented supplier list.