Sasha Jensen | Founder & CEO | Jensen Partners
About the Firm:
Jensen Partners is a global executive recruiting firm specializing in placing diverse executives into senior positions across the alternative asset management industry. Founded in 2012, the firm has established offices in New York, Miami, London, and Hong Kong, and has been at the forefront of advancing the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) movement in a historically underrepresented industry.
To support clients in developing and growing their DEI talent pipeline, Jensen Partners has developed a proprietary software product called Jensen DiversityMetrics Pipeline Tracker™. This tool measures, tracks, and reports on the diversity of each fund’s front-office representation, allowing clients to gain insights into their hiring practices and identify areas for improvement. With this one-of-a-kind software, Jensen Partners is revolutionizing the industry by mobilizing information to bring accountability and transparency to DEI efforts.
About the Founder:
Sasha Jensen is the founder and CEO of Jensen Partners and Jensen DiversityMetrics™. She leads a team of over 30 senior recruitment specialists and data scientists dedicated exclusively to the sourcing, recruitment, and placement of capital raising and investment professionals for leading alternative investment firms. With over two decades of experience in recruiting, Sasha has been recognized as “the most successful executive recruiter for asset gatherers” by Institutional Investor magazine.
As a former investigative journalist, Sasha understands the power of data to drive change. In 2012, she founded Jensen Partners with a focus on diversity, recognizing that the alternative investment industry had a critical and immediate need to improve diversity and inclusion. To address this need, Sasha launched Jensen DiversityMetrics™, the first enterprise software platform to empower firms to analyze hiring and retention practices, benchmark against competitors, identify biases in workplace culture, and develop diverse talent pipelines.
Sasha’s recruiting expertise extends back more than 20 years. She was previously the Director of Alternative Asset Management Recruiting for The Gerson Group in New York and London. Before joining Gerson Group, Sasha served as the Global Head of Fund Distribution for Kinsey Allen International. Sasha was previously an investigative journalist and worked as Head of Investigations of the Sunday Independent and Saturday Star newspapers in Johannesburg. Sasha graduated with an upper-class double-honours in Philosophy and Literature from University of Warwick.
Distinguishing the firm:
What makes Jensen Partners stand out from other executive recruiting firms is that it provides comprehensive and accurate diversity demographics within the alternative asset management industry.
This initiative began in 2019 as a need-to-have advisory diversity, equity, and inclusion human capital data product to source diverse candidates, ensure their representation in shortlists, and advise on DEI initiatives. Over time, this evolved into Jensen Partners’ value-add product to institutional investors, asset managers, and their portfolio companies. In 2022, the firm launched the Jensen DiversityMetrics™ client portal, which leverages diversity data and technology to provide visibility and insights into the workforce performance, culture, and overall talent strategy. This innovative database includes demographic data on over 25,000 investment professionals and uses both quantitative and qualitative data to generate a comprehensive view of each firm’s DEI progress.
For Sasha, the diversity movement was a call-to-action for companies and individuals in positions of power. In lieu of establishing Jensen DiversityMetrics™, Sasha announced that all human capital searches conducted by Jensen Partners would begin with a candidate pool comprised of at least 51% of candidates who come from underrepresented backgrounds.
Jensen Partners has led the charge in bringing transparency and diversity data to its candidate selection slate to increase the probability of a diverse candidate being selected for a leadership role. As global DEI initiatives become more established, Jensen Partners has become a leading, DEI data-driven voice accelerating industry change. Over 60% of its placements are derived from self-identified diverse backgrounds, including women and people of colour. Our platform tracks over 25,000 diverse professionals and is regularly featured in industry news and reports, advancing our mission to bring accountability and transparency to the financial services industry.
-SASHA JENSEN
Darting through challenges:
As she began career in recruiting, Sasha initially found herself as one of the few women in a male-dominated space. However, by analyzing the financial services landscape, she identified an exclusive chance to specialize in recruiting marketing and distribution experts for the alternative asset management sector, which was still in its early stages at the time. Once Sasha had established her niche, she utilized her background as an investigative journalist and her passion for data to develop innovative ways to track and leverage market intelligence.
Recognizing that tracking data and intelligence on every professional in the market would set her apart in terms of recruiting and advising, Sasha started designing organizational charts for her clients and prospects that detailed the hierarchy at each firm. As time went by, Sasha’s intelligence gathering expanded to include demographic information, career history, and much more. The data and insights Sasha and her team tracked helped identify top candidates and set the firm apart in its ability to fill client recruiting mandates.
Representing the Present Data:
Historically, white males have dominated the asset management industry. In fact, diverse-owned asset managers manage only 1.4% of the $82.24 trillion in assets under management (AUM) at U.S.-based asset managers as of September 2021 (Lerner et al., Diversity of Asset Managers Research Series: Industry, December 7, 2021). This lack of diversity is concerning because asset managers play an important role in the financial markets and are responsible for investing billions of dollars into companies across the globe every year. As such, they must represent their clients’ interests accurately and effectively for them to achieve their desired outcomes.
Sasha states that the asset management industry has been making strides in diversity and inclusion over the last few years, but it’s still not where it needs to be. She firmly believes that Jensen DiversityMetrics™ enables institutional investors to hone quickly on high-value opportunities and high-potential partnerships.
Jensen Partners has led the charge in bringing transparency and diversity data to its candidate selection slate to increase the probability of a diverse candidate being selected for a leadership role. As global DEI initiatives become more established, Jensen Partners has become a leading, DEI data-driven voice accelerating industry change. Over 60% of its placements are derived from self-identified diverse backgrounds, including women and people of colour. Our platform tracks over 25,000 diverse professionals and is regularly featured in industry news and reports, advancing our mission to bring accountability and transparency to the financial services industry.
-SASHA JENSEN
Foreseeing the Future Numerically:
Jensen Partners is committed to helping every firm within the asset management industry make tangible steps toward a more diverse, equitable future.
The firm is making a concerted effort to expand its reach within the alternative asset industry. Recently, they have opened their office in Miami, Florida as part of the firm’s commitment to expanding their client relations and access to talent pools in growing financial hubs around the world. According to Sasha, the new location expands its global reach, enabling them to build deeper relationships and provide its clients with superior long-term human capital solutions.
As for Jensen DiversityMetrics™, they plan to continue refining and improving the platform to better track and measure the hiring and retention rate of diverse employees throughout the industry, as well as identify areas for improvement within their clients’ organizations. Though there is still a long way to go, Sasha believes the path forward is clear. Jensen Partners will continue to operate on the principal that diversity is critical and immediate, acting to encourage proper representation and access for all underrepresented backgrounds throughout the industry.
Ultimately, our goal in the next few years is to solidify ourselves as a leader within the alternative asset industry, known for our commitment to diversity and inclusion, and our ability to connect our clients with the best talent in the market. For this, we need more firms committed to change. We hope our clients will utilize our services to ensure they are hiring teams that exceed their expectations and are representative of the world we live in.
-SASHA JENSEN
