Fixed Income Portfolio Manager (Managing Director/Head of Trading)

The Opportunity

Mesirow Financial is an independent, employee-owned firm founded in 1937. As specialists in investment, risk management and advisory services, we are committed to helping our institutional, corporate, and individual clients achieve their objectives. We are proud of Mesirow’s culture of fostering team member engagement, entrepreneurship, and empowerment. Our positive culture, volunteerism, and opportunity for advancement makes Mesirow one of the few employers to be included in both Chicago Tribune’s Top Places to Work and Crain’s Best Places to Work in Chicago.

The Fixed Income Portfolio Manager (Managing Director) is a key senior level hire into the group. As part of the Senior Leadership Investment team this individual will play a strategic role in the continued success of the business and deployment of new strategies to augment our existing capabilities. We have a highly seasoned and experienced investment team, along with a talented group of analysts, portfolio administrators and client services specialists.

This individual will also lead our team’s trading duties.  This person will take on multiple responsibilities, including trading, trading strategy implementation, cost-analysis and execution optimization. The successful candidate is ambitious and enthusiastic about implementing new ideas and possesses the ability to work both individually and in a team setting. The Trader will also work with credit analysts and portfolio management teams to help with market analysis and work to build and enhance pricing and analytic tools.  To learn more about the Fixed Income team, please click here.

Responsibilities

• Ability to manage total return fixed income portfolios across several mandates and strategies including oversight of portfolio construction and trade implementation
• Serve as sector specialist within the fixed income team on assigned sectors and lead in establishing investment opinions and sector recommendations
• Collaborate with analysts and other portfolio managers on positioning, sector allocations, and performance reviews
• Meet with clients to review investment strategy, objectives and performance
• Manage portfolio characteristics including risk, performance and attribution, to ensure adherence to strategy and client guidelines and achievement of desired results
• Successfully negotiate over-the-counter transactions on behalf of Mesirow’s fixed income clients with an emphasis on best execution
• Consistently strive to maintain good relations with the broker dealer community in order to maximize best execution
• Formulate trade/investment ideas and communicate those to the group
• Consider new technologies to further best execution

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree required, MBA/CFA preferred
• Minimum of 7-10 years fixed income portfolio management experience, preferably with a broad range of clientele.
• Broad understanding of fixed income asset classes and instruments
• External client facing experience including board reporting and new business presentations
• Familiarization with fixed income systems such as Bloomberg and BondEdge (a plus)
• Knowledge of investment needs of insurance companies or credit skills preferred
• Strong interpersonal, communication and presentation skills
• Strong work ethic
• Ability to work effectively within small company environment and in cross-functional collaborations
• Keen attention to detail and maintains a high level of accuracy
• Team player with a positive attitude and strong interpersonal skills
• Ability to work independently; manage multiple project-oriented tasks in an effective and timely manner