Isabel Ortega from Alken is our Sales Manager of the Month

Isabel Ortega, Sales Director & Product Specialist at Alken, is our Sales Manager of the Month.

13 AUG, 2025

By Jose Luis Palmer from RankiaPro Europe

I was born in Madrid, the youngest of three siblings, and went to Saint Chaumond school. I have Asturian roots from my father and come from Albacete on my mother’s side.

I studied at ICADE 4, spending two years in France and two in Madrid. I began my career with internships at Commerzbank in Paris and Credit Suisse in Madrid. Later, I worked at Beta Capital and Cheuvreux, where I met Nicolas Walewski.

Since 2007, I’ve been Head of Sales at Alken, leading a team of five people.

Having three children has completely changed my life — I live in Madrid, travel often for work, and try to balance both worlds. I’m curious, cheerful, and still get excited about the things that truly make me happy. In my personal life, I’ve been lucky to meet amazing people who have all brought good things into my life.

I’m passionate about the financial world and love sharing our views and portfolio positioning with clients. I value good manners, honesty, close friendships, kind people, and positive energy.

What made you decide to go into the financial sector? Did you have any other vocations? How were your first steps in the sector?

Well, the truth is that when I was 18, I wanted to study drama, but my dad told me, "Sweetheart, do a serious degree first, and then you'll have time to act." So I went off to France to study ICADE 4, and that’s where I met Álvaro Guzmán, founder of AZvalor. He's not only one of the kindest and smartest people I know, but he also taught me to love life, value friendships, enjoy work, and sparked my interest in finance.

I started out doing an internship at Commerzbank as a currency broker — back when the peseta still existed! After that, I worked at Credit Suisse in private banking, then moved to Beta Capital, and from there to Chevreux, where I was selling Spanish companies to foreign clients. That’s where I met Nicolas Walewski, another finance enthusiast like Álvaro. Nicolas stood out from the rest of my clients — he had great instincts, was incredibly hard-working and well-read, humble but with a strong personality. In 2006, he asked me to join him in his new project, which today is ALKEN, and I can’t thank him enough for everything he’s taught me and how much I keep learning every single day

What does a typical workday look like for you? What do you enjoy the most about your job?

No two days are the same. From the moment I wake up, I’m calling clients, setting up meetings, planning trips and events, and constantly in touch with my team. There’s zero routine and the vibe is great. It’s honestly a privilege to work with friends you truly admire. What I love most about my job is traveling, meeting new people, and the thrill of getting something done — whether that’s landing a big meeting, winning over a new client, pulling off an event, or closing a deal.

In your opinion, what are the key drivers for successful fund distribution? How do you approach building and maintaining relationships with clients?

From my humble experience, I think that to succeed in sales, you really need to believe in what you're selling. Markets go in cycles, and your product won’t always be the best-performing one, but you have to be able to project confidence, patience, and conviction to your clients. And you need to be there — in the good times, sure, but especially in the tough ones.

Listening is key. Investors are overwhelmed with information, so understanding what they’re really looking for helps you save their time and capture their attention.

Being responsive is also super important. When a client needs something, you have to make sure they get the info quickly and without any hassle. In the long run, those small details build trust and loyalty.

Could you highlight any topic on which investors should focus for the long term?

In the long run, investors should evaluate returns relative to the risk they’ve taken, and take a pragmatic approach when reviewing performance. Equity returns aren’t linear, so equity investing requires a longer time horizon than fixed income.

How do you stay informed about market trends and changes in the asset management industry ?

At Alken, since we’re a small, family-style firm, we have direct, daily communication with the portfolio managers. That allows us to explain the investment strategy and market views to our clients with a lot of detail and clarity. I really value that, because I love being intellectually involved and up-to-date with everything we do in our funds. And for clients, it’s a big plus to talk to a salesperson who can actually walk them through the portfolio in depth.

What is your advise to investors , how should they position their portfolios with the current environment?

Given the current environment, we believe investors should have exposure to European small and mid-caps. This asset class has really underperformed in recent years, and we’re seeing lots of interesting opportunities.

What is the most exciting thing you have seen in the markets since you started working in the financial sector ? and the biggest challenge you had to face?

Let me start with the toughest moment — and then tell you about the most exciting one, because they’re very closely linked.

Between 2018 and 2020, our equity fund performance took a hit due to several factors: value investing was out of favor, and only momentum and growth names were going up. On top of that, passive investing was gaining ground over active management. And to make things worse, in 2020 one of our major holdings, Wirecard, turned out to be a fraud.

All of this combined caused a big drop in our assets under management — and for a while, we genuinely feared for the future of our firm, after years of putting our heart and soul into it.

In September 2020, we made it our mission to level up across the board, learning from our past mistakes. And the most exciting thing I've experienced in my career has been our spectacular comeback — both in performance and in assets under management in our European equity funds. I’m really proud of that, and I hope we keep building on it.

What do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities in the asset management industry today , and how would you address them as a sales manager ?

For stock pickers like us, the biggest challenge right now is passive investing. It keeps taking up a bigger slice of asset allocation among big banks and institutions, and boutique asset managers like us are getting left out.

That said, this trend of only investing in large firms with low tracking error might actually work in our favor — we’ll have access to great opportunities that are totally off the radar of the big players.