Wanted: C-Suiter and specialists to ultra-rich

[SINGAPORE] Since the demand for alternative assets in Singapore heats up, the need to hire more employees in the field. In the leading recruitment agencies, further openings for such roles were opened in the first quarter of 2025. Robert Walters and Randstad reported an increase in the previous year by almost 20 percent in the number of such job advertisements in the city state.

In order to diversify your portfolios, family offices, ultra-high-net value (UHNW) and high-network values, individuals are looking for alternative investments.

The increase in job advertisements is “due to a higher demand for high -ranking talents in terms of original and structure as well as employees and analysts Business times (Bt).

There is a higher demand for leading roles such as Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Investment Directors in particular for PE companies that prioritize the value creation of their portfolio companies.

Private credit companies, on the other hand, are “quite significant and employers are looking for talents with traditional banking reasons, especially high -ranking experts with a strong customer network,” said Lim. She has honored a robust growth in the infrastructure that is set for senior bankers.

Robert Walters also sees job offers for infrastructure roles in PE and private loans, but for more junior positions such as employees and analysts. Overall, the demand seems to be the less lower roles in private markets, with occasional advertisements for the deputy vice president of Vice President, Serena Fernando, senior consultant for banking and financial services at Robert Walters Singapore, said BT.

As for international players When they came in the city-states, “they often bring an experienced investment principal from their international company to set up offices in Singapore and then generate functions such as sales and investment, an office manager and usually a compliance specialist,” she said.

The demand for more private market specialists in Singapore comes, since the total assets (AUM) to be administrated increases in all private markets. The number for all private markets -including credit, equity, infrastructure, real estate and risk capital -rose to $ 150.5 billion to $ 150.5 billion. This almost corresponds to the $ 151.1 billion registered for the entire 2023. This was almost twice as high as in the amount of USD 82.6 billion, which were logged in 2018.

Growth of assets management initiates the attitude

The DBS Private Bank, which manages the assets of people with an investable asset of at least 5 million s $, recorded an even faster pace of growth. “The assets of our asset customers in private assets have increased around five times in the past five years, which reflects the resistant demand for this wealth class,” group leader Joseph Poon told BT.

Relationship managers (RMS) of DBS Private Bank are not only specialized in private markets. The bank has built up its strength to continue operating Uhnw individuals and families, and a spokesman says that it currently employs more than 850 RMS. Between 2020 and 2024, this number has grown consistently with a composed annual growth rate of 8 percent, and the bank intends to stop 130 more RMS this year.

The Bank of Singapore (BOS), the private banking arm of OCBC, said that it has a committed alternative investment team and hires strategically to support growth. Bos had previously recorded a double -digit growth of its customers in alternatives in 2024.

“Knowledge of niche” Set ”

A struggle for talent arises because Singapore does not have enough workers with a private market knowledge, since this is “a niche skills that has to be promoted in the local workforce,” added Fernando.

At UOB Private Bank, the manager of the Managed Product Solutions Wong Meng Keet said: “While we feel comfortable with the size of our current team, we also see the potential growth in this area and are aware of the competition for talent when we have to build up the capacity of our team.”

The struggle for private market talents could warm up because the local banks are not the only ones that are set.

Samir Subberwal, Global Head of WEATTH solutions, mortgages and deposits by Chartered (Standhart), said that the bank is investing in its private market team.

“I think allegations of alternatives for customers are a trend here. It is in a way a pretty new trend in Asia, and it was only two or three years, while it was a very big trend in North American and Europe.”

Stanchart, which has a global team of private market experts who work together his RMS, hired some leading settings in Singapore last year. This includes Nicholas Cheng, the Global Head of Private Markets Group, who joined in mid -2024. Khoo Kian Jin, also based in Singapore, competed in January of this year as head of the private markets for Southeast Asia and South Asia.

Apart from the attitudes in Singapore, Stanchart recruited for the team in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates in the coming months in order to react to the growing interest of its customers about access to private markets.

The sovereign Wealth Fund Gic, which is an important player in the area of ​​alternative markets, offers 18 job advertisements that offer full -time positions for people with private markets, a check by BT.

The asset manager Natixi's investment manager based in Boston and Paris with $ 1.4 trillion to AUM, including private assets from its connected companies, also recruits private market specialists.

“We certainly have plans to expand our team to add more private markets to specialists to promote growth in wholesale,” Dora Seow, CEO of Natatixis in Singapore, told BT.

In particular, it expands its sales force. In December, Natixis Johan Lim stopped as head of the wealth for Hong Kong, Singapore and Southeast Asia. SEOW added that “shortly” will be an additional recruit that will be available for alternative investments resource for his wholesale in Hong Kong and Singapore.