Hi All - I wanted to gather some views on sales roles within Asset Management. I understand that at large asset managers (e.g., BlackRock, JPMAM, GSAM, etc.), the sales team's primary focus is on getting their products (e.g., Mutual Funds, Separate Accounts, etc.) on the shelf at wirehouses, RIAs, Broker-Dealers, etc. This doesn't seem all that interesting and I would imagine comp isn't amazing, but does anyone have any insights?
For the alternatives players (e.g., Ares, Blackstone, KKR, etc.) who are getting into retail and getting their products on the same shelves, are there opps to move into product management / investing? Is the comp more similar to retail sales or institutional sales at the alternative asset managers (the folks who work with SWFs, pensions, etc. to invest into their flagship funds)? I see this as a growing segment and think there is great opportunity here but want to make sure it's still a viable career path.
Never worked in the field but have some buddies who are in sales (institutional, national accounts and retail) at a several of the larger asset managers and they all seem to enjoy the work. Can't speak to comp specially but all seem to be living pretty well and I don't think the hours or the stress is too bad, if I had to guess all these guys are making 200K+ but they have all be doing it 8-10 years. I'm sure there is a thread on comp on these roles somewhere here. From what I know about the job, I would prefer to do institutional or national accounts over retail but have a friend who does retail and he loves it. Was a grind for him to get promoted to external but now he pretty much runs his own business inside the firm.
I would imagine that alternative asset managers pay better than larger traditional asset managers as the fees are higher.
In terms of internal mobility- One of my buddies thought about moving to product management but it would have been a pay cut so he decided against it, does not seem like too many people move to investing roles. One area that I think could be interesting is client portfolio management, where you are the voice of the PMs for a certain asset class/strategy, generally takes some interest/knowledge of a specific asset class but I think that is a nice mix between sales/product/investing.
On the retail side of things you start as an internal wholesaler. As an internal you work out of the home office and call on retail advisors within your channel. Pay starts around $60k and tops out around $150k. You do this for several years with the goal of becoming an external wholesaler. As an external you travel and meet with advisors within your territory. As an external you’ll make a minimum of $200k. I’d guess the average comp at a tier 1 shop is $300-400k with the top guys between $500-800k (a few crack a million).
On the institutional side it is a bit different. You are normally split up between covering consultants and directs. A lot of these are people who used to cover retail and moved over. Many have CFAs. I don’t know the comp as well but would guess it’s around the same as I stated above with the top guys making more. One difference is institutional normally has a higher base salary because the sales can be lumpy and not as consistent.
National accounts has traditionally made less money but that has started to change in recent years. With more wires moving toward models, this role has become more important. There are less of these roles but I think this is an interesting place to be. You’re still making over $200k as an external account manager but I’d guess the ceiling is lower than the other roles.
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