Vice President or Senior Vice President - Institutional Sales & Capital Formation (Norwalk)

Company Overview

Zenith Securities LLC is a full-service broker-dealer and capital markets platform affiliated with Hondo Holdings, a diversified financial services and operating company with businesses spanning financial services, specialty lending, infrastructure, energy, and real estate. Hondo Holdings is the holding company and family office founded and led by Shawn Matthews, former CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald.

Zenith provides investors with access to a broad range of investment opportunities, including private funds, direct investments, credit strategies, infrastructure, real estate, and other investment products across public and private markets. The firm works with affiliated and unaffiliated investment managers and operating businesses to structure, market, and distribute investment opportunities to qualified investors and institutions.

The Opportunity

Zenith Securities is seeking an experienced sales professional to join its growing capital formation team. This is a sales and production role, focused primarily on personally raising capital from institutional investors and other sophisticated capital allocators. The successful candidate will bring an established network of institutional investors and capital allocators, along with a documented history of successfully raising capital for private funds, alternative investment managers, or other investment products.

We are specifically seeking an entrepreneurial sales professional who has experience representing independent, emerging, or smaller investment managers and understands how to build institutional relationships for firms that do not have the brand recognition or distribution infrastructure of a large asset manager. This individual will work alongside Zenith’s existing Senior Vice President – Capital Formation and senior leadership, with a particular emphasis on expanding Zenith’s institutional investor relationships and generating new capital commitments.

This is first and foremost a production-oriented institutional sales position, and the successful candidate will be measured primarily by their ability to generate qualified institutional relationships and raise capital. We are not primarily seeking an investor relations professional focused on servicing existing investors, a marketing or product-marketing specialist, an institutional account manager whose primary responsibility has been servicing a large existing book of business, or someone whose success has depended on the brand, distribution infrastructure, or institutional reputation of a large asset manager. We are seeking an entrepreneurial institutional fundraiser who has demonstrated that they can open doors and raise capital for smaller or independent investment managers.

Key Responsibilities

• Institutional Capital Raising: Personally source, develop, and convert institutional investor relationships into capital commitments. This is the primary responsibility of the role.

• Network and Prospecting: Leverage an existing network of institutional investors, family offices, allocators, and other sophisticated capital sources, and identify and pursue new institutional prospects consistent with Zenith’s investment offerings.

• Investor Presentations: Present private funds, alternative investment strategies, credit strategies, real estate, infrastructure, and other investment opportunities to qualified investors through investor meetings, presentations, conference calls, and other business-development activities.

• Fundraising Process: Manage the full institutional fundraising process from initial introduction through diligence, investment committee review, and closing, maintaining consistent follow-up and relationship management throughout.

• Manager Collaboration: Work closely with investment managers and Zenith senior leadership to communicate investment strategies, positioning, and differentiators to prospective investors, and generate recurring capital-raising opportunities across multiple investment strategies.

• Relationship Development: Establish and maintain long-term relationships with institutional investors and capital allocators, including CIOs, portfolio managers, investment committees, and other decision-makers.

• Network Expansion: Expand Zenith’s institutional investor network through direct prospecting, referrals, industry relationships, and professional networks, proactively identifying prospects rather than relying primarily on inbound leads or existing firm relationships.

• Market Intelligence: Identify emerging investment trends and institutional demand that may create opportunities for Zenith and its affiliated investment managers.

• Industry Representation: Represent Zenith and represented funds at conferences, industry events, investor meetings, and other institutional forums.

• Pipeline Ownership: Own a personal institutional sales pipeline and revenue objectives, develop and execute targeted sales strategies for individual investment products and managers, and maintain detailed records of prospect activity, opportunities, meetings, and expected capital commitments.

• Coordination and Reporting: Work collaboratively with Zenith’s existing capital formation professionals to coordinate coverage and maximize investor relationships, and provide senior management with regular updates on pipeline activity, investor feedback, and fundraising progress.

Qualifications

• 7–10+ years of institutional sales, capital formation, or alternative investment distribution experience.

• A demonstrated personal track record of raising capital, with documented results such as approximate capital raised, number of institutional relationships developed, and specific funds or strategies successfully distributed.

• An established, portable network of institutional investors and capital allocators, with existing relationships that can be leveraged immediately upon joining Zenith.

• Experience raising capital for independent, emerging, or smaller private fund managers, including managers with limited institutional brand recognition, strongly preferred.

• Experience selling private funds, private credit, real estate, infrastructure, private equity, venture capital, or other alternative investment strategies.

• Experience raising capital from family offices, endowments, foundations, pensions, insurance companies, institutional RIAs, fund-of-funds, investment consultants, or other institutional allocators.

• Experience taking a new investment strategy or manager into the institutional marketplace is a significant plus.

• Experience in an entrepreneurial broker-dealer, placement agent, private fund, alternative investment, or capital markets environment preferred.

• Demonstrated ability to develop relationships with senior investment decision-makers.

• A history of personally originating business rather than simply servicing accounts.

• Strong presentation, negotiation, and closing skills, with excellent communication and relationship-building abilities.

• An entrepreneurial mindset and willingness to operate in a growing platform.

• Ability to work independently while collaborating with senior leadership and other members of the capital formation team.

• FINRA Series 7 and Series 63 licenses, or the ability to obtain them.

Compensation and Benefits

• Base salary or annual draw, determined based on experience and demonstrated production history

• Commission-based variable compensation consistent with Zenith Securities’ commission schedule and mutually agreed-upon economics, with significant emphasis on capital generation and production

• Enhanced economics available for exceptional candidates with a demonstrated history of institutional fundraising and a meaningful portable network

• Health and wellness benefits

• 401(k) plan

• Paid time off

Why Join Us?

• Build a Franchise: Join and help build a growing institutional capital formation platform, with the opportunity to build a meaningful institutional franchise within a growing broker-dealer and capital markets platform.

• Breadth of Product: Represent a range of private-market and alternative investment strategies, with access to opportunities across multiple sectors and asset classes.

• Direct Access: Work directly with senior leadership and investment professionals in an entrepreneurial environment with experienced financial-services leadership.

• Earning Potential: Significant earning potential tied directly to capital raised.

• Platform Reach: Leverage your existing institutional network while expanding relationships across the Hondo ecosystem.

If you are a proven institutional capital raiser with an established, portable network and a documented history of raising capital for independent or emerging private investment managers, we encourage you to apply.