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When Robyn Grew was working for Lehman Brothers in London in 1999, Japanese regulators raided the financial institution as a part of an investigation into accusations that it and others had helped monetary establishments conceal losses.
Grew was rapidly dispatched to Tokyo by Lehman’s high brass to assist cope with the financial institution’s response. She spent the following 12 months flying forwards and backwards between the 2 capital cities, ultimately shifting there along with her spouse for a stint.
The episode displays a number of traits that shut associates say outline Grew: a fast thinker and a pure downside solver whose curiosity drives an eagerness to be taught on her toes.
This week the gregarious former barrister was named incoming chief govt of Man, the world’s largest listed hedge fund supervisor with $144.7bn in property below administration.
By the tip of this 12 months — and for the primary time because it started life within the sugar business within the late 18th century — Man might be led by two ladies.
Grew will exchange longstanding chief Luke Ellis in September, and former Capital Worldwide govt Anne Wade is taking up from funding banker John Cryan as chair.
For 54-year-old Grew, who at current is the president of Man, the promotion marks the fruits of a 14-year profession on the FTSE 250 group that she joined in 2009 as its chief compliance officer. Since then she has held a wide range of positions together with international head of authorized and compliance, chief working officer, common counsel, group COO and head of environmental social and governance.
“I’ve seen her in numerous avatars . . . she’s fairly a power of nature,” stated Dev Sanyal, chief govt of Varo Vitality and a former non-executive director at Man. “She has a powerful compass about who she is and what she does.”
Born in London to an NHS physician father and a faculty instructor mom, Grew attended grammar college in Essex and had little concept that the world of economic companies even existed.
She studied enterprise regulation at Coventry College earlier than qualifying as a felony barrister after which being tempted into the extra profitable world of finance.
Responding to a newspaper commercial, she joined Constancy in 1994, adopted by a transfer to the buying and selling ground — the then London Worldwide Monetary Futures and Choices Alternate — throughout its heyday as an open outcry change.
She adopted LIFFE with senior positions at Lehman and Barclays Capital. Then a name from the highest executives of hedge fund GLG Companions — spun out of Lehman and who she knew from her days there — piqued her curiosity. She joined GLG and the hedge fund business in 2009, and the next 12 months Man purchased GLG for $1.6bn.
Man at present is a really completely different enterprise to the one Grew first knew. The deal was thought to be a reverse takeover by GLG and its aftermath was marked by a testing interval of consumer withdrawals, poor efficiency at Man’s flagship quantitative technique unit, AHL, and a tradition conflict between GLG’s swashbuckling star merchants and Man’s PhD quants. The GLG acquisition was later written down by greater than $1bn.
Then Manny Roman was appointed Man chief govt in 2013, adopted by Ellis in 2016, kicking off a reboot of the corporate. Behind the scenes, Grew performed a central function within the group’s turnround and restoration, working with Roman, Ellis and the then chief monetary officer Jonathan Sorrell. She was “the definition of cool, calm and picked up” in navigating the egos concerned, stated one individual there on the time.
“There have been some fairly tough issues we needed to do in reorienting the enterprise,” recalled Sorrell, now president of Capstone Funding Advisors. “Robyn was somebody you may at all times depend on to do the best factor and transfer issues ahead.”
Kate Barker, a former non-executive at Man, stated: “She’s actually good at pulling out the meat of a problem and distinguishing between huge strategic points and the element.”
In accordance with those that have labored along with her, Grew is an empathetic colleague and a vocal champion of distinction — not variety within the box-ticking sense, however variety of thought, expertise and strategy.
Whereas she has every so often encountered sexism and homophobia in her personal profession, Grew has met this with customary candour, believing that “turning up and being me and residing who I’m and speaking about my spouse and son is extremely persuasive”, as she has informed associates.
Grew inherits a enterprise in fine condition that has developed from a siloed organisation to a big technology-driven funding group. At the moment 60 per cent of its property come from its lower-margin options enterprise, providing bespoke and tailor-made partnerships with purchasers.
However she nonetheless faces challenges, past the regime change of upper rates of interest and better inflation.
Man has set out its stall on being an lively funding group, an strategy that faces steady strain from cheaper passive investing. It should develop within the US and keep related to traders in a world the place the hedge fund business is changing into an increasing number of concentrated. And it should navigate an more and more advanced and politicised surroundings for ESG investing.
For Grew personally, she should put her personal mark on the group after two high-profile chief executives. “Manny and Luke have been on the forefront of the business,” stated Sanyal. “What does Man Group below Robyn seem like?”
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