As we make our way through Q2, two themes have dominated investment industry headlines: the accelerating role of AI inside investment firms and the relentless pace of consolidation across alternative asset management. Both are influencing how firms hire, structure teams, and retain talent; both topics are at the center of this issue of Odyssey’s newsletter.

On the AI front, the narrative in our industry continues to fixate on the impacts AI will have on talent supply and demand. A consequential shift is also happening inside firms: LPs are asking about AI strategy in their diligence questionnaires, Anthropic just announced a $1.5 billion joint venture with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs to embed AI agents into portfolio companies, and a new hybrid role for AI-fluent investment professionals is emerging as one of the in-demand positions we’re engaged on. Read on to see our view on implications for hiring across investment and IR roles.

Consolidation within finance has generated significant downstream activity across the buyside. But our work with clients post-acquisition has reinforced a consistent theme: the integrations that retain talent are the ones where acquirers resist the urge to homogenize, and instead protect the investment processes, identity, and autonomy that made the target worth buying in the first place. As we’ve seen with the recent Audemars Piguet x Swatch collaboration, it takes careful planning for two different names to merge! As M&A in alternative asset management is only expected to increase, proper execution has never mattered more. We dig into the playbook in this issue.

We hope you’re having a great spring, and we look forward to staying in touch.

The Odyssey Search Partners Team