Rachel Minard: how to avoid the kiss of death when trying to raise assets

Rachel Minard built four funds of hedge funds firms and sits on the Investment Sub-Committee for the Westover School Endowment, which allocates to hedge funds. After 20 years raising more than $10bn across 20 countries, she started, in San Francisco, Minard Capital in 2011, the first outsourced hedge fund marketing firm that is not a broker/dealer or third-party marketer. She is the author of two new books coming out next year, The Art of the Institutional Sale, and Speaking in Thumbs: The Handbook of Empathy. She also sits on several industry boards and one of the founders and Executive Committee of the Association of Women in Alternative Investing.

She shares with Opalesque her recommendations to emerging managers, warns about complacency and lack of preparation and explains the institutional investor's perspective. She also talks about her two upcoming books: one about the sell cycle, and the other about empathy, a "personal currency."

Opalesque: What are your recommendations to emerging managers in terms of marketing strategy?

Rachel Minard: Start-up hedge funds need to approach their growth in a pragmatic way.

The first step is to do with a sober holistic assessment, which is to say ‘do I have a strategy that in and of itself is unique enough to secure market share?' The next one would be ‘who is the natural buyer for this type ......................

To view our full article please login

This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.