WELCOME
….to the 18th edition of House and, as we enter Q4, we are still seeing significant pockets of hiring. Although activity in the investment banks has been largely quiet, cybersecurity continues to be on everyone’s lips; notably in the US where Gregory Touhill has been named the U.S. Government’s first Cyber Security Chief. Private equity firms continue to hire in response to new global regulation of the industry and the trend for lawyers to move from in-house positions to law firms also continues.
Cybersecurity
Hiring in this area has definitely increased in the last 6 months globally, with big hires in Government and at MNCs in the US. In the UK, the Government has announced a “ground-breaking” partnership with tech startups to develop cutting-edge, world-leading cybersecurity technology as part of its National Cyber Security Programme. However, this is not just a trend confined to the Western world. The HKMA has unveiled two initiatives; the FinTech Innovation Hub and a FinTech Supervisory Sandbox, which are aimed at spurring banks to embrace technology. Significant moves in Asia include the hiring by AIA of Steven Myers as the Chief Information Security Officer for Asia Pacific. PwC have also hired Marin Ivezic from IBM, indicating that professional services firms are seeing an increase in their cyber pipelines. These significant developments will only add fuel to the fire in a rapidly expanding industry that will receive increasing attention from both the public and private sectors.
Private Equity
Four private equity funds affiliated with Apollo Global Management, the $186 billion PE manager,, settled charges with the SEC last month agreeing to pay $52.7 million to settle charges they misled fund investors about fees and a loan agreement. The SEC said Apollo, which settled without admitting or denying the government’s allegations, was also charged with failing to supervise a senior partner who charged personal expenses to the funds. The SEC has since set out a series of distinct instructions on how Private Equity funds need to enhance their compliance structure and staffing. On the back of this we anticipate a lot more hiring in this sector.
Interim Consultants
‘New’ law firms such as Axiom and the recently launched Korum, a Hong Kong based firm, have really revolutionised the legal labour market in the past 6 months. Traditionally, the idea of flexible labour, short term contracts or interim managers were viewed as a lesser option to permanent employment. Uncertainty, especially amongst Western firms, has led to many of them looking at alternative resourcing options, such as interim managers. Another source of growth has come from Chinese Banks looking to hire interim managers to help with their growth, providing much needed IP and know-how on how to grow a department. We anticipate a growth in interim managers in compliance and financial crime to fill much needed gaps in times of headcount reduction and, indeed, increase.