Investment Associate

Position

As a member of MIO’s investment team, the Associate role is ideal for those pursuing a long-term career in investment management with a focus on research and market analysis. The position offers the opportunity to develop deep content expertise, support portfolio strategy, and contribute to proprietary insights used across the firm. This is a long-term, early-career opportunity (3–5-year commitment preferred). It is not suited for candidates seeking short-term roles or those uninterested in data-driven analysis of financial markets.

Primary responsibilities 

The Associate will be responsible for supporting tasks related to creating new research and maintaining existing research. Their principal duties will include:

• Understanding the quantitative research topic agenda, quickly gaining familiarity, and starting to develop content-area expertise
• Working with a Portfolio Manager and/or Associate Portfolio Manager in setting the conceptual and technical approaches, finding, and selecting raw data inputs, and producing the research outputs (for example, an ongoing dashboard monitoring a relationship or a one-time white paper determining the nature of a relationship), and documenting the research methodology
• Ownership over existing body of research, thoroughly understanding the content, making substantial content improvements (i.e., insights, usability, visual quality), managing and improving the processes for keeping our research output updated (e.g., automating and systematizing the production of ongoing research). Wherever possible, integrate research so that insights from one research can be used to improve other research or combined to produce new insights.
• Actively assist in systematizing MIO’s quantitative research, including standardizing research production and developing/managing a portion of MIO’s quantitative research database (including metadata maintenance and streamlining), at times working closely with the Investment IT team. Optimizing macroeconomic and financial data sourcing across the organization.
• Potentially supporting Portfolio Managers and/or Associate Portfolio Managers in implementing and monitoring trades to provide perspective on and validation of their strategies and hypotheses

Desired background

The most important qualities for an Investment Associate are their strong analytical thinking abilities and their tangible skills, such as programming and data analytics. However, their desire to produce high-quality output, openness to new ideas, and their affinity for a values-oriented (rather than profit-driven) environment, in which the best interests of our investors are placed above personal objectives, are also paramount to success in the position.

The Associate will need to be comfortable manipulating large datasets and then drawing intuitive conclusions from them. They must be able to present findings graphically and intuitively to a non-technical audience. Strong communication skills are critical. A focus on drawing practical conclusions will be more important than theoretical rigor.

Prior knowledge and experience with financial markets and/or macroeconomic concepts, terminology, and data would be helpful in enabling the candidate to quickly learn our existing research and be more immediately productive in creating new research.

Ideal qualifications include:

• 0-2.5 years of professional work experience strongly preferred, not required
• Undergraduate degree with a record of outstanding academic achievement (required)
• Coursework in financial engineering, business, and economics is highly desirable (and may be required for certain roles)
• Comfortable and proficient with a programming language (e.g., Python, C++); highly proficient in Excel and VBA; proficiency in MATLAB, R, and/or Tableau (or any other data visualization packages) is helpful although not required
• Working knowledge of Bloomberg; knowledge of other industry-standard macroeconomic and financial market data sources (e.g., IHS Global Insights, Markit, Haver, Thomson Reuters DataStream, S&P Capital IQ, Moody’s Economy.com)

Key Competencies & Attributes:

• Attention to detail; a strong dedication to producing error-free work
• Strong, naturally curious problem-solver (e.g., issue identification, structuring)
• Strong mathematical, analytical, and quantitative skills
• Excellent communication skills: ability to communicate complex concepts in simple terms and to link quantitative insight with business logic and intuition
• Team player who places the best interests of the firm above personal objectives
• Integrity; strong personal values; work ethic; maturity
• Desire to work in a values-oriented environment rather than a profit-driven environment