Latest news with #Rolodexes
Daily Mirror
01-08-2025
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Outdated office gadgets workers are glad to see the back of
A study of 2,000 adults found that many were more than happy to wave goodbye to landline desk phones, business card holders and even floppy disks, as they are consigned to work-life history The office relics consigned to work-life history now include fax machines, Rolodexes, and clunky filing cabinets. A poll of 2,000 employed adults found that many were more than happy to bid farewell to landline desk phones, business card holders, and even floppy disks. Others expressed relief at saying goodbye to correction fluid, hole punches, and paper diaries or planners, which once dominated their desks. Today, 52 percent of workers treat their smartphone as a fully-fledged portable office, with 62 percent claiming it has improved their ability to multitask at work. The office itself has also evolved, now featuring comfortable seating areas, relaxation spaces, and collaboration pods. However, 12 percent of those aged 50 and over admitted to struggling to incorporate new software into their working lives. It comes after a huge VPN change announced as everyone in the UK is targeted by major web update. Everyone in the UK with WhatsApp put on red alert and told to follow three new rules Annika Bizon, from Samsung, which commissioned the research to mark the launch of the AI business enhanced Galaxy Z Fold7 Enterprise Edition, that aims to give workers the ability to work the way they want, said: 'Thanks to cutting-edge technology, the modern office looks nothing like it did 25 years ago. 'Today's professionals don't work in one place or on one schedule, and their tech shouldn't be confined to any restraints either.' The research also revealed that 50 per cent of workers begin their workday during their commute at least some, if not all, of the days they travel to work. Throughout the working week, 37 per cent now have fully office-based jobs. With just under one in five splitting their time 50/50 between the office and home. As such, just 37 per cent have assigned seats or desk space at work, with over a quarter (26 per cent) hotdesking instead. With more digital technology being used in the workplace, 61 percent have received employee training on evolving software. TOP 10 OFFICE RELICS: Fax Machines Floppy Disks Correction Fluid Landline Phones Filing Cabinets Rolodexes Physical Diary/Planners Sticky Notes as Password Reminders Paper Hole Cutters Business Card Holders
Business Insider
11-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
The hottest job in private equity: Keeping investors happy
Fundraising in private equity used to be relatively easy. First, you'd schmooze with executives of foundations, endowments, and pension funds, and then they'd write you a check with 6, 7, or even 8 zeroes. You'd go back for an even bigger check five years later, after doubling their money. Rinse and repeat. Now, with private equity returns slumping and allocations to buyout funds increasingly maxed out, firms are finding they need to work a lot harder to get those big checks — driving up demand for professionals whose job it is to woo investors and keep them happy once they've invested. Hiring for fundraising and investor relations roles at private equity and alternative asset firms surged to a record 3,378 in 2024, nearly double 2020 levels, according to data from recruitment firm Jensen Partners. That momentum has carried into 2025, said Sasha Jensen, founder and CEO of Jensen Partners, noting that first-quarter hiring hit another record high. A survey from recruiting firm Odyssey Search Partners suggests pay for this group is also rising. Total compensation grew an average of 20% from 2023 to 2024, the survey of alternative industry fundraisers and investor relations professionals showed. "There's a short supply of what the general partners are looking for," Jensen said, referring to the industry term for the financial sponsors in charge of these funds. Business Insider spoke to four recruiters who specialize in hiring professionals who interact with investors on behalf of private equity firms and other alternative asset managers. They broke down the jobs, skills, and experiences that are most in demand as a result of the fundraising squeeze. Sales skills vs Rolodexes There is an age-old debate on Wall Street about what makes a salesperson shine — their Rolodex or their sales savvy. Demand for professionals with preexisting relationships continues to be high in some investment hotbeds, like the Middle East and Asia, said Jennifer Xu, head of investor relations recruitment at Selby Jennings. But overall, times have changed. "We tend to view the Rolodex as being a little bit overvalued. In today's world, no allocator will invest in a fund just because a known quantity is representing it," said Lisa Steele, a partner at recruiting firm BraddockMatthewsBarrett. Recruiters said clients are looking for fundraisers with a proven ability to run a good sales process, keep track of outbounds to new investors, and continuously develop a new pipeline of potential investors. In other words, people who can sell to investors and win meetings without a preexisting relationship. "This is not rocket science, but it is a process," Steele said, adding, "The sales process in institutional fundraising is very long, and somebody has to be comfortable and thrive in that process." Private wealth "army" As institutional fundraising dries up, more private equity firms are launching products they can sell to high-net-worth individuals — a trend started by Blackstone in 2017. Jensen Partners' data shows that demand for professionals who can sell alternative investments to private wealth channels jumped 40% last year over 2023. Selling to wealthy people is different from institutional fundraising. These products often need to be greenlit at the firm level before fundraisers can even begin persuading individual wealth advisors to pitch them to their clients. Both Steele and Jensen said it can take an "army" of fundraisers to be successful. As with institutional fundraisers, firms are looking for professionals with proven experience and comfort with the process, which tends to move more quickly than institutional fundraising. "In private wealth, you're in a world where they're executing and closing much more quickly," Steele said. Some firms are adopting a sales model popular among traditional asset managers: the external/internal approach, Steele said. In this setup, externals handle field sales, while internals support from the office, including by supplying key sales information to the externals. Talk like an investor Investor relations professionals are in high demand because they play a key role in fundraising. Once the investor is onboarded, they take over the relationship, keeping fund investors, known as LPs or limited partners, informed. The right IR team can mean the difference between a bigger check at the next fundraising round — or no check at all, recruiters said. The job is increasingly demanding, said Anthony Keizner, cofounder of Odyssey. "LPs want more frequent updates about their investments as they answer to their own stakeholders," Keizner said, adding, "they might want to know, for example, the effects on their investment from macro environment changes like tariff policies or a Fed rate cut." Jensen said she is also seeing demand for professionals who work with investors at the capital formation stage, making sure investments are structured to the LPs' liking and acting as a de-facto portfolio manager. She referred to them as strategic account development or strategic partnership professionals and said they tend to be senior executives with deft communication skills, acting as translators between their investment team and the LP. "From an LP's perspective, you need a point of contact that can sit and talk toe-to-toe with the CIO," Jensen said. "They need to know exactly what risks the CIO is prepared to take on the platform, and communicate how they should structure investments around their portfolio." Transferable skills Recruiters said their clients are looking for sure bets — or what Xu called "someone who's plug-and-play." Given the rising demand for these roles, however, some employers have become increasingly open to candidates with transferable skills and experiences. "You might have sat on the investment side, decided you have the DNA of a salesperson, and made the pivot," Jensen said. People with backgrounds in consulting have also been known to make the pivot, she said. On the private wealth side, firms have considered candidates in sales roles at traditional asset managers, Steele said. "One benefit is that they have highly rigorous training, which is hard to find in alternatives sales," Steele said. Some firms are responding to the talent shortage by building their own in-house programs to train entry-level workers. "In recent years, there's been more of an effort to train entry-level investor relations professionals," Xu said. Entry-level fundraising jobs are few and far between. Xu said firms that hire at this level tend to task those staffers with preparing presentations, running data, and providing behind-the-scenes support. Find your niche Recruiters said specialization is increasingly in demand, especially at large firms looking to raise money for distinct investment strategies, such as private credit, infrastructure, or private equity secondaries. Xu said even the specialists are becoming more niche, with private credit specialists narrowing their focus to areas such as asset-backed finance or direct lending. It could also mean having expertise in a specific style of LP, like insurance. One in-demand role is a head of insurance to help usher more insurance capital, especially for credit funds that use that money to make loans. "When a private equity firm decides that they're going to develop a credit business, they're most likely going to hire a person or team that's focused on credit fundraising," said Bill Matthews, partner at BraddockMatthewsBarrett. "The generalist model doesn't work so well when you're developing different business models."
New York Times
16-04-2025
- Automotive
- New York Times
With NASCAR Alumni Network, drivers who felt forgotten find an open door
When Kevin Lepage walked away from NASCAR following a 20-year career that spanned more than 550 national series starts, he didn't get so much as a phone call from anyone. So it didn't surprise Lepage when he ran into another former NASCAR racer a few years ago and found they had a shared experience. Advertisement 'They didn't care about me when I was there, and they didn't care about me when I left,' Lepage said he was told. But earlier this month, when making his first visit to a NASCAR race since his 2014 retirement, Lepage said he'd changed his outlook due to a new initiative called the 'NASCAR Alumni Network.' He grinned as he spoke about the experience of walking back into the garage area for the first time in more than a decade, getting handshakes and back slaps from old friends while fans approached to get their pictures taken with him. 'All these years later, for NASCAR to come up with this program and to see how well it's run, to me it's saying, 'Thanks,'' Lepage said. That's special to drivers like Lepage, many of whom had fallen through the cracks in NASCAR until recently. He won twice in NASCAR's second-tier Xfinity Series over 350 races but also made more than 200 Cup Series starts. He didn't have a Hall-of-Fame career, but it was also far from anonymous. Lepage said he did everything asked of him over the years — autograph sessions and interviews and souvenir trailer visits and charity softball games and golf tournaments. 'I gave my heart and soul to NASCAR,' he said. 'I did all the stuff they needed.' But in the end, it felt thankless. When his career vanished, so did Lepage. That's where the NASCAR Alumni Network comes in. Thanks to the year-old initiative, former drivers, crew chiefs and owners who invested their time and energy into NASCAR (with a minimum of 100 national series starts) are now being welcomed back — with the doors flung wide open. It began when Amber Wells, a longtime NASCAR employee who manages incoming NASCAR Hall of Fame classes, realized the company's database of former drivers was sorely lacking. Some of the contact information was still stored on paper Rolodexes. In 2023, Wells was tasked with tracking down retired racers to inform them they'd been selected to NASCAR's 75 Greatest Drivers list — except it was difficult to locate phone numbers even for drivers as high-profile as two-time Daytona 500 winner Sterling Marlin. Advertisement 'Nobody knew where he was,' Wells said. 'That group of guys, when they walked out of the garage or stepped out of the race car, they weren't able to stay connected. I don't think it was ever an intentional thing, I just think we move so fast, and there wasn't a place within the NASCAR walls that owned the responsibility for that connection.' So Wells began circulating the idea of an Alumni Network, which quickly gained backing from NASCAR chairman Jim France and senior advisor Mike Helton — two of the most passionate advocates of the NASCAR legacy. Wells was named executive director, and the first event was held during NASCAR's 'Throwback Weekend' at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina last spring with a follow-up at the same track in early April. 'Like anything within NASCAR, I was able to get it in front of the right people who listened and gave us the support and the platform to be able to do this,' Wells said. 'It's just having the bandwidth and the capacity to be able to facilitate it. And it's fun and rewarding, because you talk to guys like Lepage and he's just like, 'Oh my gosh, this is great.' It's making people feel special.' Part of that feeling was deciding how to welcome former drivers back to the track. In NASCAR, there are two different types of passes that give access to the garage and pit area — a single-event VIP pass and a 'hard card,' which is good for the entire season and skips a visit to the credential line outside the track. Hard cards cost more than $3,000 (yes, even current Cup Series drivers have to pay), but NASCAR decided to give free hard cards to its Alumni Network members. 'All the things we went through for this sport, we expected to just get this sent to us without asking (in years past),' 18-time Cup Series winner Geoff Bodine said, grasping his Alumni Network hard card. 'But there was a time when we had to beg. What they've done now is say, 'Come on, the tracks are open to you.'' The new @NASCAR Alumni is incredible 🏁 THANK YOU @ChipWile and Amber Wells and team 💯 — Kenny Wallace (@Kenny_Wallace) May 11, 2024 Wells said one reason to go with hard cards for the alumni was because much of the feedback from former drivers was along the lines of, 'I don't even know who to contact to get a pass.' NASCAR wants the alumni to be as visible as possible, so Wells said it was important to 'give them that easy pathway to get back to a racetrack.' Advertisement That's important, because former drivers like Lake Speed — who hadn't been to a race in years — said the old, familiar anxiety about race traffic and finding where to pick up passes and park were potential roadblocks he had to shake off before arriving. 'It was like, 'Is this going to be any fun, or is it going to be a real pain?'' Speed said. 'It turned out to be extremely good.' Part of that was due to a large, private hospitality tent where the alumni were able to gather, relax and share old stories. It felt like a family reunion, drivers said, with Speed quipping the best part was seeing everyone together at a time when 'it wasn't for a funeral.' Said Bodine: 'We didn't like each other. When you're in competition, I don't care if it's in pool or racing or pickleball, you want to beat them. Now we're just in there having fun and appreciating everybody and what they did for the sport.' The Alumni Network isn't actively recruiting new drivers to add to its existing 75 to 100 members, instead relying on word of mouth. Wells asked those in attendance at Darlington to be ambassadors for the program and tell others who may be interested to get in touch; Lepage was one of those who had received the 'Call Amber' message from a fellow driver. 'They want to stay connected, and there are a ton of opportunities we haven't even thought of yet,' Wells said. 'It is an honor for me to be the one who gets to own those relationships.' Wells hopes the Darlington gatherings will become an annual anchor event, and she has heard from drivers who missed it this year but promised to never do so again. Others have already been spreading the word among old friends that even if they haven't felt welcome since retirement, now is the time to come back. 'It makes us feel like all the times we hit the wall and all the times we weren't with our families and all the times we had to suffer through the sport, that it was worth it,' Bodine said. 'It really does.' (Photo of, from left, Kyle Petty, Richard Petty, Eddie Wood, Geoff Bodine and Kevin Lepage at a NASCAR Alumni Network event last week in Darlington, S.C.: James Gilbert / Getty Images / Courtesy of NASCAR)
