Accelerating future leaders with coaching

Investment Firm | Global | 2500+ employees

Core challenges: Leadership development | Resilience & high performance

Investment firms are unique environments that require navigating a competitive and high performance culture.  Winning deals, investing well, and managing effectively are paramount to the success of the organization. 

Our client had grown rapidly in recent years, increasing the assets under management and products offered. Accordingly, their team had grown substantially. There was an increased awareness from leaders around resilience and wellbeing. 

Given the changing environment and increasing pressure, our client was investing in creating impactful development programs for their leaders of the future, and sought Sama’s support in delivering meaningful coaching curated for the investment industry. Ensuring coaches would understand their unique culture and context was paramount.

“We were initially drawn to Sama due to their work with our peers and how easy it was to get started. Investment firms are quite unique in our specific challenges, so Sama having founders with backgrounds in not only L&D, but also private equity, infrastructure, and VC, meant they understood our world.”

Developing future leaders

The firm was building a robust accelerated development program for high potentials. They had existing access to learning platforms, and an internal mentoring program in place, but were looking to add something that was more personal, flexible, and truly tailored to each individual. 

“We wanted to make it simple for our people to succeed. Coaching fills a specific role and niche in a person’s development plan. A manager has a vested interest in developing you, but they’re busy and might not have the time and energy to be as dedicated to the person’s needs.

“A coach gives a non-directive approach and attention that managers can’t. They focus on action and help that person achieve their personal and company goals. This is why coaching is critical to our success.”

Success in a high performance environment

The client wanted to have a team that was resilient but also thrived in a high performance environment. Developing people’s resilience was an objective of the firm, forming part of their wellbeing strategy. In an increasingly fast-paced and intense industry, keeping people consistently healthy and engaged can be challenging. 

“Burnout can be a challenge, and we wanted to ensure our people had the tools to avoid hitting that point. Sama’s coaches really understand how our business works, they’re an impartial resource and sounding board. So they have a huge impact on how our teams overcome challenges and become more resilient.”

Measurable success

In a data driven industry, the ability to measure success was important. This is the only way to be able to justify resources allocated to any given program. The firm had a huge focus on improving data fluency, people analytics, and initiative measurement: 

“We want to move away from reactive stats and reporting to having clear KPIs and metrics.” Through Sama’s dashboard and analytics, they are able to demonstrate engagement and ROI, helping identify risks and addressing them directly. 

“Even from cohort one, we’ve been able to see people’s ability to communicate improve and the overall culture change too.”

Key metrics

95% report feeling more resilient

73% report better working relationships

2 x more promotions over external hires