Open Position
Job Title: Director of Research
Location: San Mateo, CA (Chicago, IL and Austin, TX will be considered)
Firm Overview
Amity Search Partners is an executive search firm dedicated to serving the global recruiting needs of industry-leading private equity, hedge fund, and asset management firms. With offices in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Palm Beach, and Chicago, Amity partners with world-class investment firms and top-performing professionals at every career stage. Our culture emphasizes client service, professionalism, teamwork, and excellence.
Position Summary
Amity has created the Director of Research role to design, lead, and scale our research function. This role goes beyond traditional research by integrating data strategy, technology adoption, and market intelligence into the firm’s core competitive advantage. This is a unique opportunity to build a capability central to the firm’s long-term growth.
Importantly, this role has been envisioned as a highly hands-on execution-oriented role, where candidate research, market intelligence, and data stewardship will be critical. To support the initial build the Director of Research will have access to third party resources and staffing. This external support can help the Director of Research lay the foundation for a broader research strategy team over time.
The role requires both strategic vision and operational execution: partnering closely with Partners to accelerate placements, improve technology adoption, and arm the firm with insights that enhance client delivery and business development.
Key Responsibilities
Research & Sourcing
- Drive name generation, talent mapping, and proactive pipeline development across private equity, hedge funds, private credit, and family offices.
- Execute high-quality candidate research while directing and overseeing outsourced research support.
- Leverage advanced tools (LinkedIn Recruiter, ENCORE/CRM), data analytics, and competitive intelligence tools to identify and track candidates.
- Identify, assess and recommend new research platforms, data feeds and intelligence as needed.
Knowledge Management & Data Leadership
- Own Amity’s knowledge infrastructure, ensuring data integrity, taxonomy, and best practices across systems.
- Act as “super-user” of core recruitment technologies, introducing innovations that improve speed and quality of delivery.
- Monitor and analyze market trends, organizational moves, and talent flows to arm the firm with competitive insights within the financial services and investment landscape.
- Innovate and explore new capabilities across the intersection of knowledge, data, analytics, AI & NLP.
- Ensure compliance with confidentiality, data privacy, and client requirements.
Strategic Partnership & Business Development
- Collaborate closely with Partners, Managing Directors and other leaders on search strategy, ensuring high-quality research deliverables and reporting.
- Support client development by producing market intelligence, competitor analyses, and candidate insights for pitches.
- Develop research that advances the company’s business development interests as it enters new geographies and new markets.
- Anticipate market shifts and help the firm “see around corners” in pursuit of new opportunities.
Qualifications
- 7–10 years of experience in executive search research, talent intelligence, consulting, market intelligence firms (PitchBook, Preqin, etc.), or senior recruitment within financial services, asset management, or private equity.
- Proven ability to both execute research directly and manage outsourced resources effectively.
- Strong understanding of investment management structures, private markets, and financial services talent pools.
- Exceptional analytical, problem-solving, and organizational skills with keen attention to detail.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to distill complex information into actionable insights.
- Fluency with research tools, databases, and CRM systems (e.g., LinkedIn Recruiter, PitchBook, Capital IQ, Invenias/Clockwork/Encore).
- Entrepreneurial mindset: excited to build a function from the ground up while being hands-on in delivery.
To Apply
Please send your resume and cover letter to with the subject line “Director of Research Applicant.”