Is this a dumb take on company culture/career risk?

Title is a serious and using a throwaway.

Bit of background about myself:

  • Non target

  • Got a chance at a mid-tier investment strategy (multi-asset - asset allocation, idea generation for the absolute return strategies) seat out of undergrad but by no means a Wellington/Fido/T-Rowe/Hedge fund

  • Switched to a more quant research style role and made named PM in less than 5 years since my first day FT, solid performance. Lead everything about implementation but also making the final calls on the smaller books.

  • Recently been given the opportunity to lead another set of strategies (much larger AuM) at my firm

  • Just finished a quant masters (think financial engineering/math) 

…  despite top decile-quartile performance there are no flows into the smaller products and long term out flows in the larger ones has zero flow - I know this is an industry wide problem.
 

More importantly everything at my firm currently is dominated by politics down to the idea generation side for the discretionary books (whether to pitch these or not). I know it is a fact of life one has to deal with politics but I just want to focus on developing my skills and generating pnl at this point in my career. There seems to be no ambition to drive flows, it is a top heavy business for sure. Performance is also not reflected in comp however, my best guess is the tenured guys are well comped based on lifestyle/house etc.



Is thinking it’s time to leave to new pastures given the opportunity set that crazy?


I have long wanted to switch to a junior HF seat (I am aware enough that getting an investment role right out the gate is unrealistic), my big concern staying in AM is other places will not be that different. If I want to focus on risk taking, what types of things can boost the chances? My track record is limited…


any and all comments welcome, it’s a bit of a rant/therapy I guess. I do definitely have an inferiority complex/imposter syndrome, am working through that.  

 

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