Business Unit:North America Advisor & Intermediary Solutions
Job Description:
The Investment Analyst is an essential member of the Portfolio Consulting Group (PCG), a team of investment professionals with a passion for financial markets and the wealth management industry.
This role is responsible for creating, delivering and presenting in-depth analyses, tools, compelling illustrations, and data-informed insights often featured in client-ready marketing collateral. The subject of the collateral ranges from Russell Investments’ comprehensive suite of asset class-specific and multi-asset investment solutions to our investment approach, manager research capabilities, and capital markets thought leadership. In addition, the role serves as the primary subject matter expert on key competitors’ investment solutions and in assisting advisors with constructing bespoke portfolios for their clients, based on our proprietary asset allocation models.
To best support the Advisor and Intermediary Solutions Sales Team’s consultative selling efforts across Canada, the successful candidate will possess a combination of extremely rigorous analytical capabilities, effective client-facing communication skills, and familiarity with the intricacies of various investment vehicles used by wealth management professionals, including pools, ETFs, separately managed accounts, model portfolios, tax-managed strategies and corporate class structures. The ideal candidate will relish the challenge of confidently synthesizing highly technical investment and portfolio management data (e.g., complex and large sets of performance attribution data for extensively diversified liquid and illiquid equity, fixed income, and real asset portfolios) into impactful and original insights for Regional Sales Teams to share with financial advisors, investors and executive decision-makers at national dealer firms.
This role requires a great deal of collaboration with business units across the firm, such as the Investment Division, Product, Sales & Service, Strategic Accounts, Marketing, Compliance, and Performance Reporting. As such, the successful candidate will have a demonstrated track record of effective collaboration, a “team-first” mindset, strong work ethic, the organizational skills and flexibility to balance and prioritize multiple tasks and initiatives concurrently, as well as a desire to grow their skills and knowledge.
The responsibilities of the individual in this position include:
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Primary contact for Canadian regional sales teams’ ad hoc queries for consultative expertise and analysis regarding the performance, holdings, positioning, investment & market themes, and flows of our investment solutions, as well as their competitive standing (including pricing, availability, flows, performance, investment approach) relative to peers and benchmarks.
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Stay abreast of market and product developments within our solutions and those of competitors in order to proactively generate relevant and timely stock-, sector- or country-specific stories and capital market commentary that our sales team can share with financial advisors and investors.
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Evaluate advisors’ model portfolios and craft bespoke analyses designed to identify opportunities for potential investment efficiency and effectiveness gains, and incorporation of Russell Investments’ products.
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Collaborate with PCG peers and Marketing to create monthly and quarterly market and product materials (including presentations, commentaries, blog posts), product pitch presentations, competitor insights, data searches.
The successful candidate will have extensive demonstrable skills and experiences including the following:
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B.A. degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics or related field
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CFA or progress towards CFA preferred
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3-5 years’ experience working directly with clients/ investors in either a consulting, sales and service, or analytical capacity
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Strong knowledge of global capital markets, the wealth management industry and investment vehicles commonly used by financial advisors
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Proven analytical, technical, and systems skills (e.g., solid knowledge of financial concepts and performance measurement standards and the mathematics behind them; knowledge of Morningstar Direct, YCharts a plus; strong proficiency with Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and related tools)
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Strong communication skills with colleagues and clients and the ability to find engaging ways to explain complex concepts in a simple and easy to understand manner
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Proven analytical thinking, including exploring all sources of information, providing honest analysis for effective, timely decisions
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Ability to work under pressure, and to work on different projects simultaneously
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Self-starter and prior self-directed work experience
Top Skills
Russell Investments Toronto, Ontario, CAN Office
100 King St W, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5X 1E4
