Talent acquisition the biggest challenge for Asia PE – AVCJ Forum

“This industry has grown tremendously over the last 20 years, far outpacing the talent pool growth,” said Ming Lu, head of Asia Pacific at KKR. “As a result, anybody who has a few years’ experience and a good track record is in greater demand today, not only within our industry, but also from outside – increasingly we see start-ups and technology companies actually try to grab our people away.”

Sweetening compensation packages can help to entice the best employees, but changes in corporate culture have proven to be effective as well. KKR, for example, seeks to give employees more work-life flexibility, allowing flexible scheduling and working from home. Rather than being committed to working in a particular time and place, employees will ideally be able to operate just as efficiently no matter where they are.

GPs have also focused on attracting a more diverse range of candidates, actively seeking out women and underrepresented groups to join their teams. These candidates can provide a wider range of views and insights to help firms identify new opportunities, which gives managers a powerful argument in the face of questions from investors about the financial resources required for these investments.

“LPs don’t like to see firms grow their fund size and continue to raise more and more capital, and so they’re always pushing back on that,” said Jean Eric Salata, CEO and founding partner of Baring Private Equity Asia. “But as you grow your firm and assets under management there’s more and more opportunity for your team to grow. You can promote people, you can create room for young talent to rise, and you can create new product areas.”

Moreover, an expanded team gives a GP the opportunity to add expertise in sectors such as technology, facilitating in-house execution of functions that ordinarily would be farmed out to external advisors. This can help the firm to identify and move on opportunities more quickly, and to give portfolio companies better guidance on their business strategies. However, GPs should recognize when they are likely to remain outclassed.

“There’s a lot of talent and expertise in a firm like Accenture. You may have 20 people in your firm, but you’re never going to match the 2,000 people they have across the world,” said K.Y. Tang, founding chairman and managing partner at Affinity Equity Partners. “It’s not that there’s no room for that, just that trying to balance between in-house resources and external talent is a challenge around the world.”

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• Topics
• GPs
• Technology
• People
• AVCJ Events
• KKR
• Baring Private Equity Asia
• Affinity Equity Partners