Manager, Client Service

Manager, Client Service

Westport, CT

About Bridgewater

Bridgewater Associates is a premier asset management firm, focused on delivering unique insight and partnership for the most sophisticated global institutional investors.

Our investment process is driven by a tireless pursuit to understand how the world's markets and economies work using cutting edge technology to validate and execute on timeless and universal investment principles.

Founded in 1975, we are a community of independent thinkers who share a commitment for excellence. By fostering a culture of openness, transparency, and inclusion, we strive to unlock the most complex questions in investment strategy, management, and corporate culture.

Our Culture

Our culture is anchored in excellence, meaning constant improvement, and it is deeply tied to our mission. Because markets are objective, competitive, and getting smarter everyday, we need to keep rapidly improving to have any chance of beating them. Truth is our most essential tool for engaging with the markets and constantly improving because once you know what's true about your problems and opportunities, you can determine how to get better. Valuing truth means being transparent about your decision-making and mistakes, giving and receiving feedback with humility, and fighting for the best answers over hierarchy, ego, or self-interest. Operating this way is hard it's only possible because we build meaning in our work and relationships. This meaning comes from the audacity of the mission, and the joy of working alongside people who make you a better version of yourself. The culture, like Bridgewater itself, is always evolving. In 1997 our founder Ray Dalio wrote down his lessons, starting with a Philosophy Statement which remains our foundation. This later evolved into a set of 300+ Principles. In 2022, when Ray transitioned the company, we re-underwrote several of those principles and evolved others, with a specific focus on Meritocracy. Today the culture sits, alongside our people, as our most important edge. When we get it right, it's the engine that powers everything else.

About the Client Service Department

The goal of Client Service is to build and grow meaningful relationships with the world's largest, most sophisticated investors and help clients achieve their goals through high-quality return streams and tailored insights. To this end, we deeply understand the global pools of capital, develop strategies to effectively develop relationships, and partner with clients on their most difficult investment and portfolio construction problems. We help our clients broaden their understanding of our investment process, strategies and performance as well as deepen their understanding of financial markets more generally.

About the Role

The Management Partner (MP) is a vital role on the Client Service & Marketing's Advisory management team. The Advisory business is at the center of Bridgewater's commercial engine, responsible for building and maintaining relationships with Bridgewater's most sophisticated institutional clients.

The role operates in two main capacities:

1. Operational management the MP will collaborate directly with a Senior Commercial Leader in our Advisory business, internalizing their strategic priorities, cultivating the project plan to deliver it, and supervising the execution to achieve the necessary impact on client relationships and commercial objectives. This includes visualizing the team's roadmap and key milestones, rigorously measuring and reporting against them, diagnosing deviations, and holding others accountable to standards of excellence across commercial outcomes, client coverage quality, and operational health of the book.
2. Talent Management the MP supports the team's senior leaders to develop and drive the team's talent strategy, including the proposal for team design and employee life cycle management, which will take the form of both direct management (team of 3-4 reports at the Associate level) and dotted-line supervision of more senior team members, operating as an extension of the Senior Commercial Leader.

The role requires operating effectively across three dimensions:

1. Managing up to Region Heads, Department Head, Executive Community, and Bridgewater's leadership. This person serves as a trusted voice on the state of their area, contributes meaningfully to where the business is going, brings clarity and a point of view, and surfaces and addresses issues before they become problems.
2. Managing intra-team across all levels (Client Advisors, Client Service Directors and Associates) the MP sets the bar, ensures people get the development they need, holds them accountable and ensures the team is resourced and enabled to do excellent work for clients.
3. Managing across to the full ecosystem of stakeholders and partners the Advisory business depends on: within Client Service pillars, across front office departments such as TPS, AE, AIA as well as cross-functional stakeholders and subject matter expert at all levels. The Management Partner drives alignment and cohesion across these relationships on behalf of their team.

The ideal candidate is a trusted, steady presence who brings good judgment to complex problems, engenders respect across levels, and is genuinely committed to getting things right, for our clients, shareholders and team members.

You will drive the following responsibilities:

• Own the operational outcomes for your book; know the goals and strategy, anticipate risks, and devise the roadmap to ensure client coverage is running at the highest standard.
• Work cross-functionally with partners across the firm to deliver on commercial commitments and advance shared priorities.
• Build and maintain the operational systems and quality controls your team needs to run well; identify and close gaps before they compound.
• Own cross-cutting strategic initiatives - such as the Strategic Partnership program or Client Survey redesign - from framing through execution, driving through to results.
• Drive talent planning, capacity, staffing, and design decisions for your team in partnership with the Head of Advisory and COO.
• Partner with Regional Heads, CAs and peer Management Partners on cyclical processes including commercial business planning, budget planning, performance reviews, and department-wide initiatives.
• Own management of your assigned team; set clear performance expectations, provide ongoing coaching and development, conduct performance assessments, and manage compensation in line with department standards.
• Navigate personnel issues related to performance, risk, and employee support with discretion and good judgment.
• Serve as the escalation owner for your team; identify and resolve issues at the right level, and ensure senior leaders have the right transparency, context and a clear recommendation.
• Contribute to the broader management bench; share perspective, clarify standards, and strengthen the Advisory organization.
• Through time, learn about commercial and client strategy such that you can operate as a thought partner to the Deputy Head of CS and other Management Partners on multiple levels.

Minimum Qualifications:

• 5+ years of management or leadership experience, including direct management of teams, demonstrated track record of developing people and driving accountability.
• Strong program/project management skills with experience driving measurable impact. This includes the ability to run multiple workstreams simultaneously with the highest degrees of organization and dependability.
• Sound, logical judgment, able to independently solve complex organizational problems with decisiveness and clarity.
• Proven ability to manage and collaborate effectively across a wide spectrum of employees at all levels.
• Exceptional communication skills; able to effectively convey complex matters clearly to all audiences, including firm leadership, both verbally and in writing.
• Able to operate effectively in dynamic and ambiguous environments; be flexible when priorities shift and able to pivot with agility based on new information.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, collaborative and organizationally savvy - builds strong relationships and navigates different dynamics well.
• Intellectually curious, with a desire to learn and develop independent conclusions, willing to challenge the status quo.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office, familiarity with AI platforms is a plus.
• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent.

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience in a commercial, client-facing environment, familiarity with institutional investors, asset management, or financial services.

Physical Requirements

This role will follow a hybrid schedule, with an onsite requirement of four days per week at our Westport CT campus.

Wage Range

The wage range for this role is $220,000 - $400,000 inclusive of base salary and discretionary target bonus. The expected base salary for this role is between 70% - 80% of this wage range.

Why Choose Bridgewater?

It takes all types to make Bridgewater great. We seek a diverse group of innovative thinkers and push them to engage in rigorous and thoughtful inquiry. We develop people through an honest examination of their abilities and performance, enabling personal growth and professional development. We strive to provide you opportunities that will challenge you and unlock your potential.

One of our core priorities at Bridgewater is to enable our employees to build a great life and