Description

The City of Austin Employees’ Retirement System (COAERS) mission is to provide our members with their promised benefits. We are driven to be best-in-class, passionate about service excellence, and committed to creating a welcoming environment where everyone can excel by leveraging our skillset, experiences, and backgrounds. COAERS serves nearly 12,000 active members and over 8,000 retirees and surviving beneficiaries who receive monthly benefits. The System assets are approximately $4 billion.

Your Opportunity 

Reporting to the Chief Investment Officer (CIO), the Director of Private Equity (PE) performs advanced private equity investment work and serves as a senior member of the investment team. You will be responsible for sourcing and evaluating private equity investment opportunities, conducting due diligence and financial analyses, and managing the private equity portfolio – along with other tasks as assigned. As a seasoned investment professional, you will lead projects and initiatives, requiring a high degree of critical thinking and superb communication and negotiation skills. You will work closely with COAERS’ leadership team, and will collaborate with internal teams, external consultants, and other interest holders.  

Your Main Responsibilities

• Develop investment strategy, managing new private equity commitments, sourcing opportunities, conducting due diligence, and providing recommendations to the CIO.
• Source, evaluate, and oversee private equity investments to achieve longterm performance objectives within established risk parameters.
• Define, negotiate, and monitor investment management partnerships, including making recommendations on manager selection and divestitures.
• Conduct comprehensive due diligence of private equity funds, including analysis of performance, strategy, team structure, valuation, and related factors, and engage directly with general partners and investment managers. 
• Perform due diligence of investment manager organizations including conducting reference checks and evaluating the organization’s process, portfolio exposures, risk management, terms, operations, transparency, and past performance. 
• Communicate analysis of investment opportunities, results, and recommendations with senior staff via verbal and written reports and presentations, including preparing qualitative and quantitative reports, memoranda, and spreadsheets. 
• Manage assigned portfolios and individual investments with the objective of outperforming benchmarks while adhering to investment constraints and policies. 
• Monitor all cash flows within assigned portfolio(s), including capital calls and distributions. 
• Lead discussion of assigned asset classes or portfolios during regular investment team meetings.  
• Prepare written materials for Board meetings and deliver oral presentations as requested.
• Oversee and monitor public market proxies and other portfolios as assigned.
• Develop and maintain industry relationships to support investment sourcing and market intelligence.
• Lead the implementation of best operational and risk management practices in private equity.
• Represent COAERS at conferences and industry events and gather insights relevant to the Fund’s investment strategy. 
• Utilize COAERS portfolio management systems for analysis, monitoring, and reporting.
• Collaborate with the private markets’ consultant on investment sourcing and diligence. 
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Requirements

Your Capabilities and Credentials

• Knowledge of private equity structure and advanced financial modeling, valuation, metrics, and markets.
• Mastery of investment concepts, terminology, styles, models, strategies, and fundamental investment factors.
• Experience with institutional private equity portfolio management and external private equity relationships.
• Skilled negotiator of partnership agreements. 
• Highly effective at establishing and maintaining working relationships with leadership, staff, external partners, coworkers, and the general public.
• Advanced written and verbal communication skills.
• Superb organizational skills.
• Experience with sourcing and underwriting private equity funds is preferred.
• Experience in pension funds, endowments, or other institutional LP environments is a plus.
• Must be able to travel domestically and internationally.

Education and/or Experience 

Bachelor’s degree from an accredited four-year college or university in business administration, finance, accounting, economics, operations research, mathematics, or a closely related field. Master of Business Administration (MBA) or master’s degree related to finance is preferred. Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) or Chartered Alternative Investments Analyst (CAIA) designation, or progress toward obtaining such designation is preferred.

Three to five years of full-time directly related, progressively responsible experience in institutional private equity, investment management experience or other relevant transactional experience in a corporate development, investment banking, or similar background. Any equivalent combination of education and experience that provides the required knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the main responsibilities of the position.

Compensation and Benefits

We offer a competitive salary aligned with your experience level and credentials within the parameters of public sector compensation. An excellent benefits package is available, including medical, dental, vision, sick and vacation leave as well as a defined benefit retirement plan, which guarantees an income for life once vested. Parking is provided.

Work Location

COAERS offers a hybrid work schedule meaning this position will work in an office environment with opportunities to work remotely. During the initial training period (usually 3 months) the location of the work Monday through Friday is in-person at 4700 Mueller Blvd, Austin TX. After the training period is successfully completed, work is hybrid with three days in-person at 4700 Mueller Blvd, Austin TX and two days per week remote. Work location is subject to change at the supervisor's discretion.  

How to Apply

Apply online via CFA or submit your resume and cover letter by email to recruiting@coaers.org. The subject line should be formatted as follows: Private Equity Director – First Name Last Name.

COAERS is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of any characteristic protected by federal law. We are committed to a recruitment process that is accessible. If you require reasonable accommodation during the recruitment process, please indicate this in your application.