- “Business development” has become a coveted role at hedge funds amid the battle to recruit top prime ministers.
- Citadel BD Ace Matthew Giannini joining the Walleye was one of the most significant moves of 2024.
- Hedge funds hired dozens at BD in 2024 – BI tracked the names of more than 40 who joined top firms.
One of the most intriguing hedge fund personnel moves in 2024 came late in the year. It wasn’t a superstar portfolio manager or another big bank executive migrating to the buy side.
There was someone with almost no media profile: Matthew Giannini, a senior executive in Citadel’s business development unit, whom Walleye Capital hired in October as chief operating officer of its long-term equity business.
The move from the $66 billion industry’s killer whale to a much smaller fish surprised some industry insiders Business Insider spoke to at the time, underscoring the continued demand for the special vetting and vetting role of investment professionals. .
BI wrote in May about the evolution of the “business development” role, which has grown into a coveted specialty amid the boom in multi-manager hedge funds. These firms, prized by investors for strong returns unrelated to the stock market, have added $200 billion in assets since 2019. Hiring has followed suit—employees have since grown by 90% at multimanagers compared to just 6 % in other hedge funds – provoking a talent war that has been one of the industry’s defining themes and challenges in recent years.
Although total assets under management by these firms fell in 2024 for the first time in seven years (some investors pulled money amid rising costs coupled with thin returns in 2023), “the war for talent appears to be continuing unabated” , said the Goldman Sachs CEO. The services team said in a September report on multi-manager hedge funds. Those 50 or so firms added 2,400 employees last year, Goldman found, a 15% increase.
Employment in multi-manager hedge funds has far outpaced the rest of the industry. Goldman Sachs Core Services
Business development was no exception, with dozens of hires from major hedge funds in 2024, according to industry sources, LinkedIn bios and publicly reported moves.
Millennium, the largest multimanager, with $72.1 billion in assets under management and more than 6,000 employees, hired at least 10 people in business development in 2024, BI found. Balyasny, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars hiring prime ministers this year, added at least six new BD executives to facilitate hiring, including three managing directors – most recently commodities specialist David O’Connor, who joined in Nov. by external research firm Maven. .
Citadel has also been hiring, adding a handful of people to one of the most respected BD units in the industry. The hedge fund last year became its most profitable of all time, something its founder and CEO Ken Griffin attributed in part to an “unparalleled” ability to “recruit seasoned professionals to Citadel” and “tremendous success by attracting talented graduates from major colleges and universities.” Surprisingly, Griffin’s talent whisperers are in high demand.
Perhaps no one has more gravitas than Giannini. Some industry professionals who know him say he is tall, charismatic, intelligent and adept at winning PMs — someone who offers a real edge in an industry desperate for him. Giannini’s departure from Balyasny in 2018 to rejoin Citadel contributed to a turf war between funds.
“Matt is, if not the best, one of the best relatives I’ve ever met,” one BD pro told BI this year.
Leaving Citadel for Walleye might raise some eyebrows, but joining Walleye offers a potentially lucrative advantage for Giannini compared to a typical BD role. The heads of business groups at these funds typically take home a cut of their unit profits, and while Walleye struggled in 2023, it has conducted an overhaul that is paying off. The fund was up 15.4% through November, putting it near the top of its 2024 group.
He also joins some familiar faces at Walleye, including Thomas DeAngelis, a former Citadel BD executive who is now president of Walleye, and Anil Gondi, a longtime PM who joined from Balyasny this summer and will oversee the division of shares with Giannini. The two overlapped in Balyasny in the 2010s.
The hiring of Giannini and dozens of others at major funds in 2024 signals that the voracious demand for investment talent, and those talented at recruiting it, is unlikely to wane anytime soon.
“A clear theme from our conversations with multimanagers was that the ‘war for talent’ synonymous with this segment has not seen any material de-escalation in the last year,” Goldman Sachs said in its report.
BI tracked business development professionals who joined top funds in 2024, using industry sources, LinkedIn bios and publicly reported moves. This list is not exhaustive and we may update it as we learn more.