Client Associates
Website:
clientassociates.com
Job details:
Lead - Distribution and Partnerships Risk and Continuity Practice
Reports to: Head, Risk Advisory & Continuity Practice
Role Overview: This role owns origination through two partner channels that feed the Risk Advisory & Continuity Practice without depending on Client Associates' own relationship managers.The first is the professional-referral channel: law firms and consulting houses whose own client work puts them inside the moments that create capital gaps for UHNW families and promoters - a business sale, a buy-sell trigger, a generational handover, an estate or succession settlement. The job is to build standing, credible relationships with the partners at these firms, so that when such a moment surfaces in their client work, the practice is the first call. This is a relationship-capital role. Mandates are signed, not tickets closed.The second is the volume channel: DSA and MFD partners onboarded as referral partners and POSPs under Client Associates' Corporate Agent registration. The job here is to onboard partners, activate them, service them at volume, and manage churn so the channel stays productive.The two channels run on different rhythms. The professional channel is low-volume and high-trust, and revenue lags by design. The volume channel is activation-led and is measured on partners signed, POSPs activated and leads routed. Holding both credibly is the hard part of this role, and the profile below is written with that in mind.
Key Responsibilities
- Professional-referral channel: Identify, approach and build relationships with senior partners at estate and succession law firms, M&A and corporate law firms, tax and succession advisory boutiques, and independent family-office and wealth consultants.
- Structure and formalise professional-referral mandates with each partner firm - cumulative, relationship-based, with no churn.
- Introduce the practice's Two-Gap diagnostic (Event Gap and Transmission Gap) into partner firms' own client conversations, without pitching product directly.
- Route live opportunities and gap conversations to the practice for diagnosis and structuring.
- Represent the practice externally in professional-services circles - conferences, firm briefings and partner events.
- Volume channel: Identify, onboard and sign DSA and MFD partners on lead-supply and referral terms.
- Register and activate POSPs under the Corporate Agent registration, with documentation and compliance in order.
- Service high-volume referral partners - training, lead handling and response times - so that partners stay productive.
- Manage churn: track partner activity monthly and re-engage or exit inactive POSPs.
- Route qualified leads from volume partners to the relationship teams and the practice.
- Work with finance to keep partner payouts accurate and on time.
- Across both channels, own the commercial terms of each partnership within a mandate set by the Head of the practice.
- Maintain relationship governance - a tracked record of partners signed, firms engaged, active mandates and the conversion of referrals into mandates.
- Track the partnership pipeline with stage and value in the CRM and report to the Head monthly.
- What This Role Is Not: Not a case-structuring or product-pitching role - diagnosis, quoting and solution design stay with the practice.
- Not a direct-selling role. Volume partners and POSPs sell; this role builds, activates and services the channel.
Ideal Candidate Profile
Someone with existing standing in the professional-services and UHNW ecosystem, who has also run a partner network with discipline. Likely backgrounds: Business development or intermediary relationships at a private bank or wealth manager.
- Business development or client-relations leadership at a family-office consulting practice, or a boutique M&A or tax advisory firm.
- A law or consulting firm's own business-development lead, with an understanding of how partners think about referring clients externally.
- Head of channel partnerships or alliances at an insurer, broker or insurtech platform, with experience activating and servicing DSA, MFD or POSP networks.
Comfortable operating without a product to pitch in the professional channel, and comfortable with the operating detail of activation, servicing and churn in the volume channel.
Qualifications and Experience: 10 to 15 years in business development, channel partnerships or client-relationship roles within financial services, wealth management or professional services.
- Demonstrated ability to build and sustain senior relationships at partner or principal level over a multi-year, low-volume cycle.
- Hands-on experience onboarding, activating and servicing a partner or POSP network, including its documentation and compliance.
- Working familiarity with the Corporate Agent framework and with the limits of referral-for-a-fee arrangements.
- Working familiarity with UHNW and promoter wealth structures - succession, estate planning, buy-sell arrangements - sufficient to hold a credible conversation. Technical structuring is not this role's responsibility.
- An existing network in legal, consulting or family-office circles is a strong advantage.
Reporting Line and Success Metrics: Reports directly to the Head of the Risk and Continuity Practice, as part of the practice's founding team alongside the General Insurance Lead and the Analyst.
Professional-referral channel. Year one is not measured on revenue, because revenue lags relationship-building by design. Early metrics are: Number of professional-mandate relationships established.
- Number of firms actively engaged in ongoing conversation.
- Number of gap conversations routed to the practice through these relationships.
Volume channel. Early metrics are: Number of DSA and MFD partners signed.
- Number of POSPs registered, and the share that become active.
- Number of qualified leads routed to the practice or the relationship teams.
- Churn held within the plan level.
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