The financial services industry has evolved significantly over the past decade, marked by technological innovation, regulatory changes, and shifts in global economic power. This sector encompasses a wide range of activities, from wealth management and asset allocation to market analysis and capital raising. The complexity and competitive nature of the industry demands continuous learning and adaptability, as well as the capacity to build and maintain solid client relationships. These elements are essential for achieving long-term success in the financial services sector.
Hillary Su, Director and Head of UK at InvesTAO, exemplifies a successful journey within this industry. With 15 years of experience, she started as a financial analyst in London, specializing in market entry strategies for multinational clients, particularly in the natural gas and renewable energy sectors. Her career progressed through roles in sell-side equity sales and asset management, where she focused on fundraising and capital market strategies. Hillary’s expertise in managing European-Asian funds and working with institutional clients highlights her ability to navigate and thrive in various facets of the financial services world.
InvesTAO, under Hillary’s leadership in the UK, has positioned itself as a key player in the investment field. The firm is committed to supporting its clients through diverse market conditions, emphasizing sustainability and responsible investment. InvesTAO’s focus on long-term relationships and strategic foresight aligns with industry trends, positioning it as a key player in the financial services sector. By continually adapting to market changes and employing cutting-edge technologies, InvesTAO remains at the forefront of financial innovation, exemplifying the dynamic nature of the industry.
Let’s explore Hillary’s journey from financial analyst to capital raiser:
Navigating the Investment World
Hillary began her journey in financial services in London 15 years ago as an analyst at one of the Big 4 consulting firms. She was a specialist in the Emerging Markets team, advising multinational corporate clients on market entry strategies, particularly in the natural gas and renewable energy sectors. She then did a couple of secondments to wealth and asset management firms as a pre-transaction due diligence specialist.
Those experiences gave her early exposure to the investment world. Wanting to carve out a niche for herself, particularly leveraging on her language and country expertise, she left consulting and first moved to sell-side equity sales to build up her capital market knowledge, focusing on Asia. Then, she joined an asset management private office as a fundraising specialist, covering both equities and fixed-income assets.
Her current role focuses on raising capital for European-Asian funds and strategies. She mainly covers UK and Switzerland-based institutional clients, such as private banks, wealth managers, family offices, and other asset owners.
The Art of Decision-Making in Wealth Management
Hillary finds investing enormously interesting and rewarding. She believes, “It allows you to explore and exploit many trends, and you learn to analyze how to turn a vision into a reality through allocating capital. Everything is long-term, so you have to adopt a new mindset and practice patience, which she couldn’t stress enough.”
In her opinion, “Perhaps the most crucial part of wealth and asset management is learning about responsibility and decision-making. You must be extra prudent when assuming financial responsibility on behalf of others. You are investing in the future that is expected to benefit future generations, and you can’t possibly not feel the weight of responsibility on your shoulders. This is a unique job that will really hone your craft in decision-making. You learn to be bold, and sometimes you must fight against the consensus. You need to have an enormous amount of patience and a strong will, especially when the market is going against you.”
She has become so patient—and Zen—over the years. She learned to look at her job and life from a totally different perspective.
Staying Agile in the Financial World
Hillary believes that commitment is the key. She mainly works with institutional clients. In Europe, it is said that “it takes 3 years to shake someone’s hand.” She must prove to her clients that she is going to be around long-term. They often rely on fund managers and advisors who have seen a few market cycles; hence, it is paramount for her to stick around regardless of how the market changes.
She makes her clients aware that she is in this together with them, and she is always prepared to help them. Some of the family office clients she works with are in their fourth or even fifth generations; continuity and reliability are among the key qualities she wants to demonstrate through her work.
Further, she never stops learning; it keeps her at the forefront of a very dynamic industry. She is open to collaborating and partnering with industry peers. Innovations and ideas come from everywhere; she should be agile and adaptive in an ever-changing world.
Understanding and Prioritizing
In her current position, Hillary doesn’t manage money herself. Decision-making for her means understanding and prioritizing clients’ needs. She first analyzes what they’d like to achieve so she can provide them with the best investment advice. For the wealth and asset managers she works with, she has witnessed a tremendous amount of courage and resolve in decision-making, especially when their investments are underperforming.
What she learned from them is that their decision-making comes from steep analysis and strong conviction. There will always be fear in whatever one does, but knowledge will help one understand and eventually conquer that fear.
Contrarian Views and the Future of Investment
From an investment angle, Hillary observes that herd mentality and conformity are increasing. She always likes and values a contrarian view, but she knows it requires a different set of characters to be able to act on contrarian views. However, she believes that too much hegemony in the investment world cannot be afforded.
It would really concern her to see every global portfolio holding the Magnificent 7 stocks despite the valuation and investment narrative. From a product angle, she predicts that passive investment products will continue to grow and dominate more market share. Value investors will feel more pressure from performance, fee structure, and, eventually, fund flow.
This will become a bigger challenge in markets where insufficiency is already established. She hopes to see a diverse range of products and strategies that suit a wide range of fund managers, especially when the industry is going through a wider scale of consolidation and competition intensifies.
When looking long-term, she identifies the unavoidable challenge of AI—how we adapt and apply this unique technology is going to determine so many things in our imminent future. She doesn’t think we have seen how truly powerful AI is. The adaptation and application of AI in investments are still at a nascent stage. It will be interesting to see how the wider investment community reacts to such a powerful tool.
The Future of Finance
In her view, AI remains the disruptor and, fundamentally speaking, a game-changer for wealth and asset management. How stock-picking, portfolio optimization, risk management, and client service are done will all eventually have AI’s fingerprints. Hillary is hopeful that this technology can be deployed to have a have a positive impact, helping to achieve results that benefit all members of society.
Balancing Visibility and Assistance in Client Relationships
Hillary believes that maintaining a good level of visibility is important for client engagement. She respects that every individual and every firm has their own distinctive style. She stays on top of client engagement through hosting events and regular catch-up meetings. She doesn’t believe in overdoing it; just some extent of visibility is needed, and, of course, she is ready to help her clients whenever they need her.
Her firm is rather small, so she is fortunate enough not to have to choose between relationship-building between clients and her own organization. She thinks the key here is understanding that they are working as a team with a shared goal.
The Future of Wealth and Asset Management
In Europe, Hillary observes that sustainable investments will remain a long-term theme. She is also seeing more capital flowing to funds and strategies with a focus on social and impact goals. As Europe further regulates the sustainable investment industry, she hopes there will be less “green washing” so investments can be channeled to the right vehicles where funding is needed to help reach the wider sustainable target.
The Net Zero transition, regardless of one’s stance on it, is a generation-defining investment trend. With a record level of investments landing in critical industries and sectors, such as renewables, automotive, oil and gas, etc., she anticipates a fundamental and structural level change. It will be so profound and, if successful, will truly redefine our socio-economic structure and our relationship with nature and beyond.
It is a transition in every sense of the word. She expects to see unprecedented opportunities and, of course, challenges too. However, she believes that humans are great at being adaptive. She cannot wait to see how we unleash human ingenuity to tackle some of the greatest challenges in our history and make this world a better place.
Keys to Success in Finance
Hillary believes in staying curious and fascinated by the world. An inquiring mind is always appreciated in the investment world.
She encourages reading and maybe listening to different podcasts to learn critical thinking.
Being interesting—or at least trying to be interesting—is important. Eventually, this will be a relationship-driven business. People will need to like you to trust you with their (hopefully large) money. If you can demonstrate you have good judgment and are reliable, well, that will just make many things so much easier for you!
