Susanne Petrie from Spring Capital is our Sales Manager of the Month
2 OCT, 2024
By Jose Luis Palmer from RankiaPro Europe
Susanne joined Spring Capital in 2020 and is responsible for the European distribution of UCITS; Zennor Japan fund, Evenlode Global Opportunities, Evenlode Global Dividend, Fulcrum Diversified Absolute Return, Tata India Equity, specialising in Switzerland. Prior to joining Spring, she worked with Sanditon Asset Management and Trium Capital in European distribution roles. In her early career Susanne launched and published Hedge Funds Review. In 2016 Susanne co-founded a charity for young people, LVA Trust, and in her spare time she loves running and playing football.
What made you decide to go into the financial sector? Did you have any other vocations? How were your first steps in the sector?
I took a degree in Mathematics and had no thoughts whatsoever of joining the capitalist world. Working for a charity, in a developing country, felt a more natural fit. I chose a maths degree, not simply because I found maths easy, but because my father promised he would give me the car! Having graduated, I quickly realised how difficult it was to secure a job overseas without experience; what is more I needed money, so I took a job selling financial products on a commission only basis. Here I realised two things, firstly that I could sell better than most, and secondly that the products I was selling were not cost-effective for clients. That pricked my conscience and caused me to move; I joined one of my clients, selling advertising! Five years later I found myself selling advertising for Investment Week – the platform for a career in publishing, and the launch of my own magazine brand, Hedge Funds Review. Eventually I took my IMC, and at the age of 45, I started to sell funds.
What does a typical workday look like for you? What do you enjoy the most about your job?
I endeavour to spend as much time as humanly possible talking to those invested in our investment partners’ various funds – discovering what makes them tick and the way in which their portfolios are performing. I still derive tremendous satisfaction from finding that one of our funds fits into a gap in their portfolios.
In your opinion, what are the key drivers for successful fund distribution? How do you approach building and maintaining relationships with clients?
The person to person relationship is what matters most. Even if none of our funds meet an investor’s requirements at the particular point in time, it is vital to maintain the integrity of the relationship. Clearly, as a fund distributor, I am always trying be as helpful as possible, sharing only the information which I believe the investor will find useful and relevant. I would never wish to flood them with information, or equally to miss out important details.
Could you highlight any topic on which investors should focus for the long term?
For me, trust is the most important thing. So, time constraints accepted, it has always surprised me that more investors don’t visit fund managers at their offices, to see what actually happens on a day to day basis.
How do you stay informed about market trends and changes in the asset management industry?
I listen to interviews and read as much as possible. I enjoy reading Bloomberg’s John Authers daily, and The Economist weekly, and listen to numerous podcasts… and indeed to investors to ensure I stay up to speed with the way they’re thinking and feeling. I would observe a great deal of commonality across different investors.
What is your advice to investors, how should they position their portfolios with the current environment?
I get nervous when investors are still so heavily biased to the US and I fear the FOMO may be the key driver here. A balanced and well diversified portfolio should include many other geographies and asset classes. I like India and Japan as equity markets, and believe there is a highly compelling rationale for investing in either.
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?
The emergence of ESG and the way in which pension funds have more or less forced asset managers to align themselves with the Paris Agreement has been brilliant. It has been really encouraging, particularly for women coming into the industry, and has made the financial sector a more purposeful place to be. It is vital that we consider additional ways in which we can encourage more women into our industry. As to my biggest challenge, that was probably right at the start of my career, in 1997, as a female from a state run school, when it dawned upon me that I would need to try a whole lot harder to fit in than I had anticipated. On some levels it felt like I had arrived on a different planet.
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?
Cognitive diversity, which we have been grappling with as an industry for some time now, is a huge challenge – whether we’re talking about gender, university disciplines, culture, background or otherwise. I would not wish to sound like a stuck record, but on my business trips, the only women I see are often the ones making the coffee. Many firms are genuinely trying to diversify, but it isn’t easy. One of the things we have done here at Spring Capital is to encourage school leavers and undergraduates from all disciplines to join us; we have an intern programme, where young people can absorb what it really means to be in our industry and see how they might fit in. I would like to see more diversity, in every area of financial services, and in order to achieve this we need far more education for those already working in the sector, and an easier route in for joiners.
When you have free time, what do you like to do?
I love being outdoors, so anything from hiking to playing football with our local Mums team who play in the county premiership – that’s great fun. I go to church too and value the perspective it puts on my day; it reminds me to worry less and live more.
