Some Early Allocator Advice

By Hunter

I ran across a great Substack post from Conor Macwho is a strong Fintwit follow that I strongly recommend. Weirdly, I didn’t even know he had a Substack as he doesn’t really seem to promote it much on his feed, which is refreshing in a world of relentless self-promotion. But it seems he’s been at it for awhile. It may skew a little too stock-specific for readers here but he’s got some great posts. 

Anyway, I’m going to piggyback on his post linked above as it got me thinking about career development in asset management (not that he wrote it specifically for that topic, per se, but it intersects nicely with things I’ve been mulling over personally). Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of working with young people and helping to influence their professional growth. And the more you do that, the more you try to think critically about the advice you could/should give to these young professionals. I suppose from an egotistical perspective I really want to figure out what I would want to have told myself in my early twenties, given the opportunity. 

[Obviously, I recommend that you read through his post first so you have context for my comments below.]

Conor’s first point on “mentorship” is great. I’ve come around to really appreciating the value of mentorship in our industry. I hear the hedge fund/quant/etc. folks say this from time to time but I think it applies to us as allocators as well (and, to be honest, anybody that professionally manages money on behalf of someone else). As I have spent more time in the industry I really think it’s an important aspect of professional growth. It really is an apprenticeship based industry where you need that structure and guidance early in your career to help climb the learning curve. I’ve been lucky enough in my career to work with some knowledgeable, experienced folks that took an interest in my development and I feel that it’s made a huge difference. I don’t mean to imply that you can’t develop a solid skillset purely from reading research or completing certifications or whatever but I think there are certain skills that you need some personalized guidance on, especially soft skills that require nuance and lived experience. Plus, there are elements of almost any vocation that don’t translate from the academic textbooks to the real-world practical implementations. And a skilled hand to provide some perspective can be invaluable early on. Conor also touches on an important point, which is that the relationship does not have to be one-sided. Early in my career I was lucky enough to find myself in a position where I was more technically-oriented than my older colleagues so I had some currency to trade in exchange for valuable guidance. I’d also point out that smaller firms are great for this kind of development because you have close proximity to decision makers and other functional areas of the business where you can hopefully add value and learn.

His third and fourth points (“Make yourself indispensable” and “Be open to doing everything”) go hand-in-hand, in my opinion. It’s a great way for young people in the industry to offer something of value. Being willing to do whatever task, no matter how menial or unpleasant, is a great way to build goodwill and demonstrate value early in a career, especially when you have little in the way of technical or relevant experience to offer. In my experience, it puts you in an ideal position to learn processes from the ground up and potentially provide enhancements. Often times senior leaders in organizations are so abstracted away from the day-to-day mechanics of these menial tasks that you can become useful just by understanding the processes and being able to articulate how they work, what they impact, etc.

Perhaps the one piece of advice that Conor didn’t include that I would have (again, thinking about this in relation to our industry, which he of course was not) is to consume as much information as possible early on. My number one piece of advice to young folks in the industry is to read/watch as much as they possibly can. You never know what you are going to consume that will influence your thinking or understanding of a subject. In all honesty I think that half our job as allocators is to consume as much relevant information and read as widely as possible. I joke with my wife that most of my job is just sitting quietly so I can read and think. Most of our work does not look like work at all - it’s mostly staring blankly at a computer screen. And while I recognize that this might change as your career progresses, I think that increasing the “surface area” of your learning early in one’s career is extremely important. It’s how you form views and opinions that influence the rest of your career.

Hopefully, this hasn’t been too scatter-brained, but Conor’s post touched on some topics that I too had been thinking over as I try to provide some guidance to my own younger colleagues. Again, I encourage you to read his post (and follow him on X/Twitter and sub to his Substack) as I found it quite insightful. If you have thoughts on the subject of career development in the asset management industry I’d also love to hear your perspective as well. Feel free to reach out via email, comments, or X.