Type: Case study

Globalising an asset management business

The Brief

A UK Asset Management firm with an international presence planned to grow further and, in doing so, wanted to develop a truly global model of working. The aim was to shift from a centralised model of decision-making to a decentralised global model where decisions were made in the right location by the right people with knowledge of the markets, clients, and solutions. The premise was this would enable better decisions to be made and the organisation to move more quickly.

It was appreciated that this was a significant shift in both strategy and culture and the firm planned this on a 5-year horizon. It was also clear that the solution would be multifaceted and involve inorganic activity, change in reporting lines and a significant investment in technology. Our role was to work with the CEO and HRD on the people and culture elements.

The Engagement

There are many different aspects to globalising an asset management business, the highlights were:

Develop a global leadership conference, to be held outside the UK for the senior leaders in the business.  This became an annual event and was critical for building relationships and empowering new decision makers.

Develop and deliver a global strategy roadshow to all regional executive committee members, with the purpose of communicating the group strategy and establishing alignment. The delivery was consistent in structure and message, with allowance for discussion and debate.

Enhanced leadership development through designing and delivering a series of enhanced leadership development programmes for global leaders focusing on empowerment, autonomy and decision-making.

The Outcome

The firm is operating more effectively on the global stage. This was a huge project involving all aspects of the client’s business. However, we can say with pride that our part significantly contributed to the overall success of the strategy.

Implementing a new strategy for growth

The Brief

The client was a diversified publicly listed regional bank and the Group CEO wanted support discussing, designing and implementing a new strategy to enable expansion of services and geographical reach, leverage emerging technology to reach new customers, and improve operational efficiency and effectiveness.

The Engagement

Goldcrest engaged for an initial term of 12 months on a retained basis for 1 day per month, covering regular one-to-one meetings and additional behind the scenes work on specific topics at the principal’s instruction. The central themes of the work were as a thinking partner, providing specialist organisational design and key employee competency frameworks, influencing the Board and executive committee, and developing the mindsets and skills necessary throughout the organisation to execute successfully.

The engagement inspired many related development activities including executive coaching for key contributors, leadership and team workshops, communication training, and an updated performance measurement system to monitor and motivate employees.

The Outcome

The engagement was a great success. Once clarity of purpose and strategy was achieved, the detailed and lengthy process of putting it into practice was undertaken. Throughout the CEO reported feeling more confident in decisions and actions, stepping more fully into the authority that comes with the role.

Navigating complexity

The Brief

The client was the CEO of a significant global real estate business.  The organisational structure meant that there were limited opportunities for conversations of a particular quality to take place internally and the CEO recognised they were missing an independent sounding board to talk things through and clarify their thinking.  They were looking for specific support and advice around the cultural challenges in the business and succession planning.

The Engagement

The engagement was for an initial term of 12 months on a retained basis for 2 days per month, covering regular one-to-one meetings and additional behind the scenes work on specific topics at the principal’s instruction.  The relationship encompassed conversations with the wider executive committee to understand the context and complexity, and presence at important meetings to observe dynamics in action.

The intensity of an engagement of this nature varies with periods of significant involvement followed by phases of less frequent meetings. Throughout the engagement our Goldcrest CEO Advisor was ‘on-call’ to support with any issues as they arose.

The Outcome

The principal found the relationship to be hugely valuable, that it provided them with the forum they were seeking and brought clarity to their decision making.

The Goldcrest CEO Advisor was able to bring to bear the full range of our knowledge and services to help the CEO to tackle issues across the organisation, making positive changes to culture, leadership, and teamwork while navigating complexity.

Elevating leadership behaviours in private equity

The Brief

The client was a senior partner of a US-based private equity firm. The brief was to support their transition from co-lead to sole lead of a significant investment strategy. The areas of focus included handing over deals to the others in the team, challenges with the team structure, and how to empower and engage their own direct reports.

The Engagement

The engagement was a 9-month executive coaching relationship with a focus on developing the next level of leadership skills to succeed in the new role. It included a detailed 360-degree process of interviews with critical stakeholders (both internal and external) followed by one-to-one coaching sessions.  Given the geography, these were all held virtually, and when the coach and the client occasionally were in the same country, they made the most of the face-to-face opportunity.

The Outcome

The client found the engagement to be valuable when it came to elevating leadership. Providing support at a time of change, insight about areas of strength and development, and the tools to take their leadership to the next level.

Design and facilitation of a global working conference

The Brief

The client wanted to bring together all its managing directors (c.80 people) from across Europe for its first in-person gathering in 5 years. Much had changed in that time, however. Due to various factors the opportunity to bring everyone together had not occurred. The cohort was mixed, with many recent joiners but the common theme was an absence on in-person connection.

The aim of the 2-day conference was 2-fold: Open debate about critical strategic decisions, inviting ideas and generating buy-in; build the network across the MD population to encourage collaboration and cross-selling.

The Engagement

Goldcrest was engaged to both co-design and to facilitate the conference.  Our key stakeholder was the CEO and we collaborated to help draft their opening session to set the tone. Additionally, we worked with the CFO, sector leads and others to coach them through the creation and delivery of their sessions.

The Outcome

The result was a highly engaged and enthused MD population with tangible messages to take back to their teams.  Some acknowledged that they arrived sceptical of such gatherings but left positive and delighted with the quality of the presentations, the conversation, the venue and the facilitation.

Adaption to the demands of a scaling business

The Brief

The client was a dual role COO/CFO at a medium sized private equity house, who had been with the firm since formation. They had a broad range of responsibilities that included not just finance and operations but also HR, IT and anything else inside of the business that needed doing. The client was personally overstretched and becoming a bottleneck. The brief was to change the way of working to enable more delegation to direct reports and an elevation of contribution to a more strategic level.

The Engagement

The engagement was a 12-month executive coaching relationship with a focus on developing the next level of leadership skills to succeed in the new role. It included a detailed 360-degree process of interviews with critical stakeholders and psychometrics followed by one-to-one coaching sessions. The coaching topics explored were time management, team dynamics and working through others.

The Outcome

The client found the process to be insightful and impactful, with a noticeable change in work habits. These changes resulted in a higher tempo of deliverables, a more engaged and empowered team, and the bandwidth to attend to higher value activity.

Develop a more effective executive committee

The Brief

The client was the CEO of a regional bank. They were looking for independent leadership support and advice.  Initially the focus was around issues relating to their team and some particular people challenges alongside some personal development areas around communication and confidence in professional authority.

The Engagement

The initial engagement was for a 12-month term, on a retained basis for ½ day per month. The engagement was primarily online due to location, with periodic in-person meetings. Over time, the scope of the work grew from team and leadership topics into matters of strategy and engagement. 

In addition, we started to work with the wider team in a facilitation capacity, and given we were in different countries, planned regular in-person gatherings where we could make the most of being in-person.

The Outcome

The client found the relationship to be of significant value. They have successfully resolved their team issues, stepped more fully into the authority of their role and are operating at a more strategic level in the business.

Leading through adversity

The Brief

The client was a NASDAQ listed asset manager who were looking to support a high potential leader as they transitioned from one functional area to another. There was a degree of organisational stress present due to market and competitive conditions, which needed navigating with assurance.

The Engagement

The engagement was a 9-month executive coaching relationship with a focus on letting go of subject matter expertise, building resilience, addressing team dynamics, influencing for change with peers, and developing strategic leadership skills. The meetings were a mixture of in-person and online, as best suited and engagement.

The Outcome

The client found the experience to be very positive with both the sector expertise of the Goldcrest Partners coach and their understanding of a diverse range of relevant topics standing them apart from other coaches. The relationship continues with an extension to enable continued support as the client is considered for promotion.

Career transition for an investor

The Brief

The client was an experienced investor with a strong career at Europe-based asset managers. Following their departure from their most recent employer the brief was to support the move into the next chapter with specialist transition coaching.

The Engagement

A Goldcrest coach with experience working as a portfolio manager engaged with the client for a 12-month term. The coaching themes were reflecting on the previous employer, evaluating purpose and priorities for what came next, exploring personal investment philosophy and process, evaluation of opportunities and finally role application and interview preparation. A psychometric test was used, along with an emotional intelligence diagnostic and a specialist risk appetite survey to generate self-awareness and inform the conversations.

The Outcome

The presence of a companion at a difficult moment always tends to have value and this was very much the case in this engagement. The client has happily taken a position at a firm that shares their values and appreciates their investment approach, which augurs well for the future.

Repairing a broken executive committee

The Brief

The client was a national bank where relationships on the executive committee had become strained. This unfortunate situation was depleting energy and impacting the effectiveness of execution. The brief was to bring everyone together to ‘have it out’ and rebuild the trust between team members necessary to perform.

The Engagement

We partnered with the CEO to understand the issues and how they were presenting. This informed the process design to address and remedy the challenges within the executive committee. As a result, these were the actions we took:

  • One-to-one meetings with each executive committee member to establish trust in Goldcrest and the process, and to hear their perspectives
  • 2-day offsite to work through the Goldcrest high performing team framework to establish a positive template to work towards and highlight the interdependency of each team member and their functions
  • Facilitated ‘clear the air’ conversations to work through issues and achieve recognition that the execution of strategy was being hampered by the lack of cohesion
  • Established clarity and commitment about roles, responsibilities, and rules of engagement necessary for success


The Outcome

Feedback from the client described the process as refreshingly honest and essential to moving forward. The executive committee are still using the tools and structures agreed upon to make better decisions, to address contentious issues and communicate more effectively with one another. Goldcrest provided ongoing support to cascade this into the individual executive committee members’ teams.