Director, Portfolio Strategy & Private Markets

CFA Institute; Salt Lake City (UT); Hybrid; USD 126,000 - 252,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercer is seeking a Director, Portfolio Strategy & Private Markets to lead customized investment strategies for sophisticated institutional clients. You will work with senior leaders and the Alternatives team to shape portfolio decisions and integrate private equity across client portfolios.

The role focuses on analytics, recommendations, and coordination across teams to drive decisions and client outcomes in a complex private markets context.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of investment experience with institutional portfolio construction.
• Strong grounding in investment strategy for institutional clients.
• Experience with private equity or broader private markets.
• Understanding of private equity portfolio construction, cash-flow dynamics and diversification.
• Ability to evaluate decisions in a total-portfolio context.
• Experience interacting with investment committees or boards.

Responsibilities

• Partner with senior portfolio management to develop customized investment strategies.
• Analyze questions across asset allocation, liquidity, risk, and benchmarking.
• Assess exposures across public and private markets and identify return sources.
• Develop recommendations on portfolio structure and manager configuration.
• Support private equity portfolios including exposure analysis and pacing.
• Evaluate private equity within client asset allocation and risk tolerance.
• Monitor exposures by strategy, geography, vintage, and manager.
• Analyze capital calls, distributions, NAV evolution, and unfunded commitments.
• Support commitment planning for new private equity investments.
• Translate research into client-specific portfolio recommendations.
• Prepare investment committee materials and client-facing presentations.
• Coordinate with stakeholders to drive implementation and operations.
• Develop repeatable tools and frameworks for portfolio construction.
• Support new business opportunities and client discussions.

Skills

Portfolio Strategy

Private Markets

Investment Analysis

Stakeholder Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree

CFA

CAIA

MBA

Job description

Company: Mercer

Description:

Director, Portfolio Strategy & Private Markets

What can you expect:

This is a fantastic opportunity to join a collaborative investment team where custom portfolio management and private markets expertise come together. Working closely with senior Portfolio Management leaders and the Alternatives Investment Director team, you'll help support sophisticated institutional clients as they navigate complex portfolio decisions and long-term objectives.

You'll play an important role in shaping portfolio strategy, contributing to client recommendations, and strengthening how private equity is integrated across broader institutional portfolios. It's a role for someone who enjoys variety, thinking deeply about investment challenges, and turning analysis into clear, practical ideas that help drive decisions forward.

We will count on you to:

• Partner with senior portfolio management leadership to develop and manage customized investment strategies for sophisticated institutional clients.
• Analyze portfolio questions across asset allocation, liquidity, risk, implementation, benchmarking, and portfolio construction.
• Assess exposures holistically across public and private markets, including concentrations, overlapping economic risks, liquidity requirements, and expected sources of return.
• Develop recommendations on portfolio structure, active versus passive implementation, manager configuration, and strategic portfolio decisions.
• Support the construction and ongoing management of private equity portfolios, including exposure analysis, diversification, pacing, commitments, and portfolio monitoring.
• Evaluate private equity exposure within the context of each client's strategic asset allocation, return objectives, liquidity profile, and risk tolerance.
• Monitor portfolio exposures by strategy, geography, vintage, manager, and underlying company.
• Analyze capital calls, distributions, NAV evolution, unfunded commitments, and expected future cash flows.
• Support commitment planning and recommendations for new private equity investments.
• Translate manager-level research and investment views into client-specific portfolio recommendations.
• Prepare investment committee and board materials that frame decisions and recommendations clearly.
• Coordinate with internal stakeholders across Portfolio Management, Alternatives, operations, managers, custodians, and other teams to drive implementation.
• Help develop repeatable tools, frameworks, and processes to support customized portfolio management and private markets portfolio construction.
• Support new-business opportunities, proposals, finals presentations, and client discussions.

What you need to have:

• Approximately 7+ years of relevant investment experience.
• Strong grounding in institutional portfolio construction and investment strategy.
• Experience with private equity or broader private markets.
• Understanding of private equity portfolio construction, commitment pacing, cash-flow dynamics, performance measurement, and manager diversification.
• Ability to evaluate investment decisions in a total-portfolio context.
• Experience working with sophisticated institutional investors, investment committees, or boards.
• Excellent analytical, written, and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to manage complex workstreams independently and coordinate across investment teams.
• High degree of intellectual curiosity, judgment, initiative, and accountability.
• Bachelor's degree required.

What makes you stand out:

• Direct experience bridging total portfolio strategy and private markets.
• Strong understanding of how private equity affects liquidity, risk, governance, and implementation.
• Ability to take an ambiguous portfolio question and turn it into a clear analytical framework and recommendation.
• Confidence in representing the investment team with sophisticated clients, boards, and committees.
• Experience supporting or leading investment committee materials that focus on decision-making, not just reporting.
• CFA, CAIA, MBA, or another relevant advanced qualification.
• A track record of building strong relationships across investment, operations, and client-facing teams.
• Ability to create leverage for senior leaders by independently owning significant portfolio and strategic workstreams.

Why join our team:

• We help you be your best through professional development opportunities, interesting work and supportive leaders.
• We foster a vibrant and inclusive culture where you can work with talented colleagues to create new solutions and have impact for colleagues, clients and communities.
• Our scale enables us to provide a range of career opportunities, as well as benefits and rewards to enhance your well-being.

Marsh (NYSE: MRSH) is a global leader in risk, reinsurance and capital, people and investments, and management consulting, advising clients in 130 countries. With annual revenue of over $27 billion and more than 95,000 colleagues, Marsh helps build the confidence to thrive through the power of perspective. For more information, visit marsh.com, or follow us on LinkedIn and X.

Marsh is committed to embracing a diverse, inclusive and flexible work environment. We aim to attract and retain the best people and embrace diversity of age background, disability, ethnic origin, family duties, gender orientation or expression, marital status, nationality, parental status, personal or social status, political affiliation, race, religion and beliefs, sex/gender, sexual orientation or expression, skin color, veteran status (including protected veterans), or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. If you have a need that requires accommodation, please let us know by contacting [e-mail].

Marsh is committed to hybrid work, which includes the flexibility of working remotely and the collaboration, connections and professional development benefits of working together in the office. All Marsh colleagues are expected to be in their local office or working onsite with clients at least three days per week. Office-based teams will identify at least one "anchor day" per week on which their full team will be together in person.

The applicable base salary range for this role is $126,000 to $252,000.

The base pay offered will be determined on factors such as experience, skills, training, location, certifications, education, and any applicable minimum wage requirements. Decisions will be determined on a case-by-case basis. In addition to the base salary, this position may be eligible for performance‑based incentives.

We are excited to offer a competitive total rewards package which includes health and welfare benefits, tuition assistance, 401K savings and other retirement programs as well as employee assistance programs.