If you want respect, INTECH Investment Management is a good place to be.
“It's just a true respect for everyone. There's a real sense of pride for all of us working together,” said Nancy N. Holden, a senior managing director in client and consultant relations.
Employee responses to Pensions & Investments' Best Places to Work in Money Management survey praised the firm's culture, with one saying that employees “treat each other with respect and dignity.” Another applauded INTECH's “emphasis on respect at all levels.”
Such enthusiastic responses have helped place INTECH on P&I's list for three consecutive years.
Although INTECH is geographically spread across offices in Princeton, N.J.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; and London, Adrian Banner, CEO and chief investment officer, sees the same team spirit in all three locations. “Call it a collegial atmosphere that pervades all of the offices, a core of folks that are used to working with each other,” he said.
One employee referred to “brilliant colleagues whom I admire and have a high degree of confidence in.” Many respondents noted the support and interest staff receives from INTECH's leadership team. “Senior management is aware of the professional lives and development of employees. As a company, INTECH also takes an interest in the personal lives of employees,” one employee said.
Senior compliance manager Eric Hansen, agreed, saying, “The top management will stop by our desks to see how we're doing. Adrian took four of us out to dinner, just to find out how things are going.”
Mr. Hansen said the leadership team solicits input from the entire staff and regularly holds town hall meetings that encourage employees to share their ideas.
“There's intellectual curiosity across the firm. When we look to hire people, that's something we look for,” said Ms. Holden.
Mr. Banner sees the quantitative equity manager's roots in academia as a driving force behind INTECH's inquisitive, collaborative spirit.
“We are really driven by a desire to understand what's going on. What is statistically true? What's really true? That's a really unusual and wonderful aspect, that connection to academia. I think that's actually a very important part of our DNA,” he said.
The intellectually curious employees at INTECH are united by their professional interest in the mathematics that underlie their business, but they also spend time together outside the office. In addition to an annual picnic and holiday party, employees gather to raise money for charity, to serve meals to families in need and, sometimes, to listen to Mr. Banner play piano. An accomplished musician, Mr. Banner collects donations from employees for requests and then donates the collection to charity.
“A lot of people are passionate here. Not just about math,” Mr. Hansen said.
