Jensen Partners, an executive search and corporate advisory service provider for the alternative assets industry, has developed a new data platform to help firms monitor and improve their diversity efforts and report progress to investors

For most firms across the alternative asset management industry, increasing workforce diversity has been a priority for two decades, or longer, at this point. Yet, despite the significant effort and resources devoted to the goal of greater workforce diversity, the data consistently shows little progress has been made. While many hoped the public outcry over systemic racism and police brutality would mark an inflection point for diversity and inclusion across the industry, early empirical data does not reflect such a trend. 

To understand why progress has been limited, it is important to recognize why so many well-intentioned diversity initiatives have failed to achieve the desired results. What we at Jensen Partners have learned as we help the largest alternative asset managers around the world hire and retain talent is that when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), good intentions are not enough. Like so many other business objectives, successful DEI efforts require proper design, implementation, maintenance, measurement, and refinement. 

Each of those efforts require data – quantitative and qualitative information that can be used to highlight challenges and identify opportunities. In this way, data is truly the only way to achieve transparency and accountability on a firm’s DEI methodology. That is why Jensen Partners mapped the full organizational hierarchy of all the top managers and platforms across the alternatives industry to develop our proprietary DiversityMetrics™ platform. Over the last decade, we have built a unique dataset, which includes verified demographic data for more than 25,000 investment and distribution professionals from across the industry – including 8,000 who self-identify as having a diverse background – across more than 100,000 positions. We harness that data to help firms benchmark against competitors, analyze hiring and retention practices, identify biases in workplace culture, and report progress to investors.   

While a growing number of firms have embraced a data-driven approach to DEI, those firms are an exception, not the norm. By and large, the industry’s approach to DEI has been fraught by a key irony: managers intrinsically embrace data across all core business objectives – and for good reason. But when it comes to simple human capital management data and diversity analytics, even the front runners in DEI are not applying the same systematic, data-driven approach that they have applied to most other core business objectives. That disconnect sends the wrong signal to the market and, as we’ve learned from the data, often results in failure to achieve the desired results. 

If the alternative asset industry is truly dedicated to becoming more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, the time is now. Investors are increasingly viewing diversity and inclusion as a ‘must have,’ not just a ‘nice to have.’ At the same time, a growing body of empirical research suggests that across industries and across business objectives, diverse organizations tend to perform better than non-diverse ones. DiversityMetrics™ provides the tools and insights firms need to make data-driven human capital decisions, benchmark against competitors, and report progress to investors, stakeholders, and employees. The alternative asset management industry has arrived at the point where good intentions are no longer good enough. The tools for progress exist, and the market is sending clear signals that those who get it right will benefit. 

To learn more about how DiversityMetrics™ can help your firm improve DEI, download Jensen Partners’ whitepaper above.

About Sasha Jensen
Sasha Jensen, Founder and CEO, launched Jensen Partners in 2012 with the focus on solely identifying the preeminent human capital talent for raising capital within the alternative investment industry. In fact, Ms Jensen was described as “the most successful executive recruiter for asset gatherers” by Institutional Investor magazine. In 2020, Jensen Partners expanded its team to Europe with the addition of two senior professionals. In February 2020, Peter Mayer, previously a partner from PJT Partners, was appointed Head of Europe. The following month George Lewis was named Managing Director, Infrastructure practice in London. Over the last five years, Ms Jensen’s firm has received several rounds of institutional funding, experienced transformational growth and expanded to 14 professionals located in New York and London. Further, Jensen Partners’ executive recruiting model applies a ‘big data’ approach to mapping out the entire fund distribution teams at the largest alternative investment platforms, totaling more than 600 firms.

Uniquely, Ms Jensen’s experience recruiting distribution specialists spans nearly two decades. She was previously the Director of Alternative Asset Management Recruiting for The Gerson Group in New York and London. Before joining Gerson Group, Ms Jensen served as the Global Head of Fund Distribution for Kinsey Allen International. Ms Jensen was previously an investigative journalist and latterly worked as Head of Investigations of the Sunday Independent and Saturday Star newspapers in Johannesburg. Sasha graduated with an upper-class double-honors in Philosophy and Literature from University of Warwick.