Hedge Fund US Emerging Managers Summit 2023

This event is aimed at management firms and funds in their early stages of development, as well as managers and funds operated by women and leaders from diverse backgrounds.

Our sincere mission is to create a series of conversations that will enable your new firm or fund to be set for growth, success, and security. Dealing with issues spanning operations, strategy and compliance this event is designed for decision makers from across the emerging managers suite.

For any new fund manager, getting the planning right at the pre-launch and post-launch phases can potentially make the difference between success or costly failure. Through a series of in-depth panel discussions, presentations and breakout sessions, this event will lay out the main considerations for an engaged audience.

The Hedge Fund US Emerging Managers Summit, hosted by Hedgeweek, is your bridge to a new understanding of each of the critical steps involved to successfully bring a hedge fund to market.

During this carefully curated series of panels and roundtables, there will be time for networking and informal conversations with close peers and colleagues.

Team building – how to work well with your colleagues and maintain good and creative working relations during periods of growth and attrition
Getting tactics right – messaging the benefits of your strategy to the market
Competition crunch: Competing with the ‘catch-all’ multi-strats and fighting for allocator ‘airtime’ with other established players
Avoiding a marketing vacuum – who does your marketing internally and what does best practice look like?
Consolidation: If your launch is successful, do you adhere to the original game plan or look at other launches and new strategies?

At a high level, how do you go about building culture within your organization?
How do you communicate that culture to team members and follow through on delivering those values/principles?
Diversity is proven to build stronger teams. What steps do you need to take to ensure your team members have a diverse set of backgrounds, skill sets, and points of view?
How do you then bring this all together into a company culture which applies to all?
How do you provide opportunities to employees to influence the culture of the firm, from a bottom-up perspective as opposed to just communicating core tenets top down?

What does it mean for a hedge fund management firm to have an ESG strategy? How can smaller managers achieve this without a full-time resource?
How to set appropriate and achievable ESG goals for your firm and its funds?
How to incorporate funds and investments as part of the ESG strategy?
How can you accurately track and report on a concept that is so huge and malleable?
Does ESG fatigue and more challenging and distracting market conditions risk diluting the concept?
How to navigate the ESG needs of stakeholders, including internal teams, allocators, and regulators? Are there too many competing and conflicting expectations?
As the drive towards Net Zero continues to be fuelled by regulation, disruption, and consumer attitudes, where do digital assets fit into the journey to decarbonisation? What role does this play in opportunity and growth in the industry?

As a smaller manager, how can you achieve operational excellence, from a low-cost base? Is this even possible?
Partnership or problem: the evolving relationship with service providers
Outsourcing, now a strategic imperative for the hedge fund back-office – what are the current drivers and trends?
Valuations and compliance outsourcing are currently the most outsourced functions after fund administration – examining the scope, challenges, models, and strategies adopted in each
Pushing the boundaries of outsourcing to other higher value activities – where to next? Are you even examining the ‘fraction-lisation’ of once key staff – e.g. CTO…and even the COO/CFO?
What are the benefits and the risks here? What other areas of your ops could be outsourced?
Extension of outsourcing to the front office – be it trading or research
Promise of technology adoption for the hedge funds back-office (e.g. cognitive investment data management, standardization of templates)
Investor reporting – reporting challenges and the lure of automation
What disruptors and new developments are we seeing in outsourcing?

Does best practice really exist in marketing and asset raising – if so, what does it look like?
Vocalizing your strategy’s benefits and making sure allocators understand how it fits into, de-risks and enhances their wider portfolio
Staying patient and playing the long game with allocators
Getting found – using database listings, prime brokers, and other new and emerging services. Or is old-fashioned ‘shoe leather’ and personal outreach the best way to get noticed?
Distribution – at home and abroad: should you be flexible with structures (like SMAs) and can you do this without costs spiraling?
Getting on the radar of consultants
‘Retailisation’ opportunities in the hedge fund space – do they really exist and how to access a new network of RIAs or HNWIs
Regulation – what are your obligations under the SEC’s Amended Marketing Rule and what steps should you take to ensure you meet your obligations