Strategic Partnership Officer
We are hiring a Strategic Partnership Officer to work with the Firm’s President on strategic, client-facing, and organizational functions currently performed by the President. The Strategic Partnership Officer will:
- Work with the President to manage all aspects of the Firm’s current and potential limited partner (“Partner”)-facing functions and processes, including Partner relationship-building, acquisition, relationship-management, and due diligence.
- Work with the President to (i) grow the Firm, and (ii) manage all aspects of the Firm’s external communications and stakeholder management.
We are looking for candidates who will view the Strategic Partnership Officer role at Discerene not as a job, but as a calling.
Because Discerene seeks to recruit and grow relationships with philosophically aligned long-term Partners, not acquire customers, the Strategic Partnership Officer must reimagine the role traditionally performed by an investor-relations or business-development professional from first principles. Our goal is to build an integrated, high-performing, high-trust generational investment partnership of like-minded givers (as opposed to takers) who want to travel together on our respective investment journeys. Given those goals — and starting from a blank sheet of paper — we’d like our Strategic Partnership Officer to work, with uncommon passion and perseverance, on answering important questions, including:
- How can Discerene become the Partnership that it aspires to be?
- How should we serve our Partners in the most difference-making way?
- How can we bring our resources, knowledge, experience, and networks to bear to help our Partners succeed?
- How do we create positive feedback loops within the Discerene Partnership, such that additional Discerene Partners create value for all other Partners, not just for Discerene?
- What processes, systems, and norms do we need to establish so that small competitive advantages of the Discerene Partnership cascade and compound over an investing lifetime?
We’re not just interested in answering these questions. The most exciting part of building Discerene is making these answers come alive in tangible, purposeful, and lasting ways.
What we are looking for
- Strong multitasking, organizational, and process-management skills.
- Strong relationship-building and relationship-management skills, and a passion for serving others and helping others be successful.
- Effective written and oral communications skills; in particular, an ability to synthesize large amounts of facts and data in a succinct, thoughtful, coherent, and structured manner.
- Intrinsic grit, perseverance, sense of ownership, drive, and will to win. A willingness to doggedly work at overcoming obstacles to accomplish challenging goals.
- “Doer + Thinker”: A bias towards action and a willingness to roll up your sleeves and get things done, but also take a step back to think strategically about whether we’re doing the right things.
- Ability to creatively and critically solve problems from first principles, without anchoring on conventional wisdom or “how things are done in the industry.”
- Intellectual curiosity and genuine passion for learning, especially about value investing as a craft.
- Teamwork skills: Flexibility and willingness to fit into and contribute to a small team, uphold and build upon its culture and values, and work towards common goals; instinctive and generous sharer of knowledge; empathetic and active listener whom others feel safe opening up to and get motivated speaking with.
- Patience, especially an ability to think and act long term.
Beyond these traits, we look for:
- Sound understanding of business and investing.
- A proven track record of success in previous relationship-building and relationship-management roles.
