In the unrelenting talent war of the $5 trillion hedge fund industry, top recruiters have become coveted assets, commanding multimillion-dollar compensation packages at the sprawling multistrategy giants that have come to dominate the space.
The thirst for business development executives who can move the needle in vetting and recruiting top portfolio managers and researchers has led to churn at every major multimanager hedge fund. But industry heavyweight Citadel, Ken Griffin’s $69 billion firm, has experienced a rash of changes in its BD ranks over the past year.
The most recent departure came last week when Ansh Kalra, the head of BD in Citadel’s Global Quantitative Services division, resigned to join rival Balyasny Asset Management. Kalra, 34, worked at third-party recruiting firms before joining Citadel in March 2020. He’d considered leaving previously only to be convinced by the fund to stay, two people familiar with the matter said.
He’ll have to sit out a two-year noncompete before joining Balyasny, the people familiar said. A Balyasny spokesperson declined to comment. (With Intelligence first reported the move.)
But Kalra is just the latest, adding to a handful of senior departures in the firm’s equities divisions:
- Mark Hansen, head of Surveyor Capital BD, left last month
- Derek Maltz, who worked in Surveyor with Hansen, recently left
- Alex Topkins, head of BD for the Global Equities unit, left in April
- Evan Anger, deputy head of equities BD, left in January
- Katelyn Nutter, who reported to Anger and ran central equities BD, also left in April
- Matt Giannini, formerly the top equities BD exec and whom some industry insiders consider among the best in the role, left last October for a role as Walleye’s chief operating officer of long-short equity.
Citadel has hired reinforcements for its senior BD ranks as well. Former Point72 chief fundraiser Laura Sterner was brought on in September to fill Topkins’ role as the head of BD for the firm’s Global Equities unit, which is run by onetime Point72 PM Justin Lubell.
Justas Povilenas has been hired as head of BD in Europe for the Global Fixed Income division, Business Insider has learned, joining from BlackRock’s fund of funds unit.
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“Citadel is the No. 1 destination for talent in our industry, and our team is well-positioned to drive the firm forward,” said a Citadel spokesperson.
Churn amid industry talent war
Industry insiders who’ve worked with or in Citadel’s BD apparatus didn’t identify a unifying reason for the recent spate of departures. Several were terminated and others left voluntarily, people with knowledge of the matter told Business Insider.
Citadel, accustomed to industry-leading returns, is having a down year by its standards, returning 5% through September and trailing most of its peers. Some of the exits predate 2025 performance issues.
The pressure and demands of the job are a common refrain. Citadel BD execs are evaluated in part on performance metrics related to the success of the candidates they introduce to Citadel’s business leaders, three people said.
At Citadel, that’s not unique to BD; the firm’s exacting reputation and expectations are well known.
Churn is also a common byproduct when a new executive shows up. Last October, chief people officer Matt Jahansouz left the industry, a move that had been planned for months, a person familiar with the matter said. He was replaced the following month by Sjoerd Gehring, a former Apple executive with an extensive background in recruiting at firms such as Johnson & Johnson and Accenture.
BD execs at Citadel work and recruit for business unit leaders — like Lubell in Global Equities or Navneet Arora in GQS — but also report into the chief people officer, the company’s top recruiting exec.
It’s not clear whether Gehring’s arrival directly contributed to the recent departures, some of which were in the works before or shortly after he joined, people familiar with the matter said.
While churn at Citadel, or any multistrategy hedge fund, is expected to an extent, the ever-increasing compensation figures for BD pros are what have the industry’s attention. While it is now accepted that top portfolio managers will cost big-name managers tens of millions, the fact that top recruiters are now getting seven-figure pay packages is shocking, several longtime industry players said.
It’s a ripple effect of the fight for those top traders and the right to pay them like professional athletes. Just like sports, where agents, coaches, and team executives also make millions, hedge funds are paying top dollar to get the best people who can get the best people.
At the Robin Hood investor conference last month, Griffin was asked about the fierce competition over personnel and acknowledged that losing some talented people was inevitable at a firm with Citadel’s track record of success.
“Good firms drop acorns that grow into small trees,” he said, according to people who heard the comment.
