NEPC’s Krissy Pelletier was recently featured in Pensions & Investments as one of the “Influential Women in Institutional Investing“. View excerpts from her interview below or read the full article on the Pensions & Investments site here.
To find the next generation of talent specifically, “you have to look in non-obvious places,” Krissy Pelletier said. At the $1.7 billion consulting firm NEPC, she serves as partner and head of endowments and foundations.
Rather than just finding prospective candidates at conferences or networking events, recruiters and hiring managers need to be “engaged with different colleges and universities,” she said, adding that they should reach out to their network and say, “I’m looking for people with these types of qualities” as opposed to what specific role they want to fill.
“There’s a lot of training we can do in this industry, but there are some really important qualities that we should all be looking for, whether that’s intellectual curiosity, productivity or excitement — people just wanting to make a difference,” Pelletier said.
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For NEPC’s Pelletier, she had the benefit of having flexibility as she was studying in the Executive MBA program at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. From 2012 to 2014 — a time “before hybrid was a thing” — she travelled from her home in Boston to Charlottesville once a month for two days, and attended online classes two times per week.
During this “really difficult, but such a rewarding experience,” the consulting firm allowed her to maintain her full-time job by compressing her work week from four days to two days. In addition to her then-partner and now-husband’s support, Pelletier said that NEPC “really invested in me” and “set a tone for my success.”
This happened before Pelletier became a working parent in the industry, which is a subject “we should talk more and more about, and encourage people to share their stories,” she said.
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At any job, Pelletier said it helps to know that there’s a person who “you can call for all manner of advice, and the person you can call to say, ‘I’m struggling with this,’ ‘I need your help,’ (or) ‘I need your advice.’” This person could also be someone to call when in need to vent about something, or in need of feedback on some work — just someone “you can count on and rely on” to figure out “how to do that advocacy work,” she added.
“Having somebody that’s really going to be truthful with you on your side and developing that one core relationship — at least one — is another way to be on the successful path,” Pelletier said. “For me, it was really important to have that — a woman that I really respected and looked up to.”
Click here to read the full article on the Pensions & Investments site.