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Case Studies

Over the last 21 years, Godliman Partners has provided executive search and talent advisory services to asset management firms and investment businesses globally. The firm delivers senior executive hires, strategic team moves, and complex team lift-out assignments through a research-led and highly consultative approach. Delivering Best-Fit candidates has remained central to the Godliman search process, ensuring alignment across leadership capability, technical expertise, and cultural fit. The case studies below demonstrate a selection of successful executive search and strategic advisory projects completed for clients over the past two decades.

Identifying Commercially-Driven Product Specialist to Rebuild Flagship Franchise

Hiring a business development-focused Product Specialist to support the rebuild of a flagship multi-sector Fixed Income franchise in growth mode.

Team Build-Out – Real Assets

Building a five-person Real Estate team to internalise a £2bn property portfolio, with Godliman’s advisory work helping to secure board approval for the project.

Retained Team Lift-Out

A global search to identify and place a top-performing Emerging Markets Debt team, which grew AUM from $1.5bn to over $30bn over the following eight years.

Evergreen Talent Cultivation

A multi-year talent cultivation strategy that placed two ‘Star’ Fixed Income fund managers, contributing to a six-fold increase in AUM over a decade.

Advising a Non-Expert Client

A top-10 UK charitable endowment lacked the investment expertise to define a new CIO function or guide the hiring process. Godliman advised on both, completing the hire within six months.

Private Credit Team Build

Building a five-person pan-European Private Credit team from scratch across London, Frankfurt and Paris, for a client with no prior illiquid debt capability.

Team Move – EMEA Team

Helping an EMEA franchise leader move a niche strategy to a more supportive platform, whilst navigating strict contractual restrictions and maintaining full market confidentiality.

Team Move – US & EMEA Team

Helping a US-relocating Emerging Markets franchise leader find a new platform with EMEA distribution capabilities, and reassemble his team, within nine months.

Testimonials

Godliman has helped us build out new areas of our business, providing in-depth market knowledge to assist our thinking and approach to internalising investment strategies. These have sometimes been new areas for them as well as for us but I have trusted their search process to uncover excellent candidates who fit our asset-owning culture and are capable of delivering in the role. I have worked with Rupert for over 20 years and have always felt confident that Godliman’s extensive experience, thorough process, and sound judgment will deliver what we need. Testament to this is that all their placements are excellent additions to our team and are thriving

CIO, Top 10 UK Pension Fund

We have always prided ourselves on our distinctive culture so it has been important to work with a firm that recognises how critical it is for us to find people, regardless of the highest technical or personal skills, that will fit with that culture and how we operate. Godliman does just that, they conduct an almost scientific research process that ensures ongoing comprehensive coverage of the whole market to find the best candidate for us and who will have the best chance of success at the firm. In turn, this is matched with the necessary high-level insight and analytical skills from the experience and caliber of the Godliman team.

Head of HR, S&P 500 Global Asset Manager

Rupert was instrumental in helping us understand the talent we had in-house: the gaps we had in skills to meet our strategic goals, and the landscape for talent externally. His approach was truly consultative: he never pressured us to take a candidate to complete a search and always kept the culture and fit at the forefront of his mind. Rupert was an indispensable partner and helped us grow our business more than 5x during a decade of engagement with our team. My only hesitation in recommending him is I don’t want him working for the competition

Global CIO Fixed Income, FTSE 100 Global Asset Manager