Wholesale is mainly an asset manager role, built around partnering with life companies, DFMs and banks rather than selling to advisers one at a time. With the size and scale the national networks and consolidators have reached, a lot of that business has arguably become a wholesale sale too, and I'm seeing more asset managers put them in their wholesale division.
It's a different job from intermediary sales. More of it is co-manufacturing, where funds are built to sit inside someone else's proposition. The deals are longer and closer to institutional in style. The work happens in a tight project team, with much more involvement from legal, compliance and marketing on both sides. And once a partnership is live, there's a lot of ongoing support and training to keep the partner's own people confident with what they're selling.
That suits a particular kind of person: patient, structured, comfortable with long cycles, and good at keeping a partner engaged long after the launch.
Where I place Heads of Wholesale
- Asset managers
- Fund groups building co-manufactured and white-labelled ranges
Who I've worked with
I've worked with Vanguard for 10+ years and work closely with their digital and co-manufacturing team.
How I work
Exclusive or retained, one brief at a time. That means a proper look across the whole market rather than the first ten CVs on a database, and a shortlist of people I've actually spoken to. Usually four, not forty.
If you're hiring into your wholesale team, I'd like to hear about it.