Robert here, writing from Hong Kong. The past week has been very busy, thus it has taken a couple of weeks to put up another post.
The number of US associate openings continues to increase in Asia, especially in Hong Kong and Greater China, and especially in now-busy capital markets groups. Two particularly special and urgent openings are for M&A 4th to 7th year associates for Shanghai and Hong Kong. The Shanghai opening, a private equity-focused position, does not require Mandarin fluency, but the Hong Kong opening, a more general M&A spot, does. I consider these openings very special opportunities for a number of reasons, including firm, supervising partner, and the realistic partnership track available in both of them. I am not going to go into great detail here, but suffice to say that I believe these are A+ positions and arguably among the best private equity/M&A spots in all of Asia. They are both extremely selective openings, will be filled soon, and the new hires will likely come from a top 10 US firm, most likely from NYC. We know both supervising partners very well and of course we are happy to fill you in on the details. I am cutting this Asia trip shorter than planned for some business in NYC next week, so can also meet in person with qualified and interested persons.
Last week, we made another placement of a US associate in Hong Kong (continuing a nice placement run of the last few months in Hong Kong and Greater China) and moved very close to placements (offers in hand) of a US partner, a US counsel and two more US associates in Hong Kong. Those successes were all expected, as they have been in the works for some time.
Robert and I spent most of last week together in Hong Kong meeting with partner-level candidates and clients. Many of these meetings were set up by our US and Asia-based recruiting back office. This week the focus is more on associate and firm client meetings. It is truly a team effort of our Asia group that allows us to have the privilege of representing so many very impressive senior attorneys, and remarkable people, in Asia. The meetings happen from three sources: a) already established personal relationships (past career consulting or recruiting for partner’s firm); b) referrals; and c) our impressive back office team of recruiters based in the US and Asia.
Which brings me to the central point of the title of this post: you need teamwork to be effective in any market, but especially in working transcontinental markets. Our teamwork is proving very effective. To be sure, our willingness and ability to travel far and wide when necessary helps me to be a very effective recruiter and agent for US associates in Asia. By traveling I am able to meet with and relate to the dozens of US associates I may be advising at any given time on a near, medium or long-term prospective move to Asia. But it’s also critical for our success that we have our Asia-based team. When Robert or I or another member of our US-based team can’t be in Hong Kong or some other place in Asia, others often can. But having a large part of our focus be on Asia from the US also assists us because decisions that affect firms in Asia come both from US-based and Asia-based management. Among many other things, we have to be aware of a firm’s global strengths and focus, its commitment to Asia expansion, the partnership’s views of Asia-related investment even apart from management’s views (which two views can differ from each other a lot), and the synergy between a particular partner candidate with a firm globally, not just locally.
Robert and I are also involved in helping US firms not yet on the ground in Asia develop the right strategy for doing so effectively, even though late in the game. This type of consulting and recruiting work obviously is done in large part from the US, due to relations needed with such firm clients.
One small recent example of how our Asia strategy can work to the advantage of candidates and clients: Last week, Robert and I happened to meet with a US firm’s head partner for Asia in Hong Kong, in itself of course not a big deal, as we have such meetings frequently. As expected we discussed associate and partner needs. There was one particularly urgent but also unique and hard-to-fill partner need. As it turns out, our next stop after that meeting was to have lunch with an impressive US partner with whom one member of our US-based recruiting team had been trying to arrange an informational meeting for months. This person is not at all looking to move but agreed to meet Robert and me to discuss the market and his career in general. But he turned out to be a perfect fit for the position just described to us at the previous meeting. What started as an informational meeting turned out to be an interview process within just a few hours. Robert knows the firm’s US management very well and has made partner placements there. Both Robert and I know the firm’s key partners in Asia well and I am very familiar with the relevant practice area in Asia. Our teammates in the US helped us make the match.
Whether the placement happens or not, we were able to deliver a potentially career changing and significantly enhancing opportunity to an impressive senior attorney we just met only because our colleagues had been helping along the way for several months. Further, we may have provided the candidate to fill an urgent new partner need for one of our firm clients in Hong Kong less than an hour after being told about the need.
It is 9.30pm in Hong Kong now and I have to get on the phone with my colleague, Yuliya, who just arrived back in Russia (she splits time between US and Russia). She was just referred a very impressive counsel level project finance / energy attorney from Moscow who has an urgent need to move to Shanghai. Afterwards, I have two calls scheduled with New York-based associates who are moving to Hong Kong, one of whose spouses I placed a couple of weeks ago in Hong Kong. At 8am, I have a breakfast scheduled with a hiring partner of an important firm client, followed by a number of associate and law firm client meetings, through late dinner and drinks, then more client calls to US….a typical 24 hours on these trips… Robert just arrived back in the US yesterday and he is working with US side firm client management on three different partner placements, two that will be Asia-based (including the one in example described above).
As always, write us with your questions to asia@kinneyrecruiting.com. We can’t work with everyone formally, but we try to help as many people as we can in whatever ways we can.
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