Preparing for leadership succession – redefining the CIO role to ensure future readiness
Warren Partners
Key Objective
With one long-tenured individual in a key executive leadership position, the board of our financial services client needed assurances about access to relevant talent to step into the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) role.
Challenges
A future change in the role was also felt to be an opportunity to reconsider the way the role was positioned in the organisation, including skills and responsibilities, role in development strategy, job title and remuneration.
Process
We conducted thorough stakeholder engagement to gain insight into the responsibilities and challenges of the current role, build alignment on key needs, and assess the overall willingness for change.
Drawing on our deep financial services knowledge and market engagement and using fresh secondary desk research, we were able to:
- Share investment team structures and leadership in comparable companies
- Present individuals who would be interested in the CIO role in the future
- Provide feedback on the current remuneration levels and demonstrate what could be achieved with changes to this
- Establish and test robust go-to-market search footprint and strategy
Outcome
After presenting our findings to the board, they were reassured that their organisation and the role is viewed positively and that they can attract high calibre, interested and affordable individuals. The board also felt ready to go to market at the appropriate time.