How Viking Global Thinks About Talent

Ning Jin is the latest senior employee to resign, with the CIO leaving the company at the end of this month after 17 years.

But Viking’s talent pipeline is as strong as ever, thanks in part to changes it made to its hiring and development practices four years ago, the company told investors at the end of the first quarter.

A person close to the firm told Business Insider that the firm has decided to be “proactive rather than reactive” in recruiting analysts for its investment team. Some of the hires are earlier in their careers as the buy side has started to hire more junior staff, the person said. Viking has traditionally hired analysts after two years in banking and two years in private equity.

The firm told investors that five of its 10 current portfolio managers were promoted from senior analyst positions in the past four years. For example, Matt Sharp joined Viking in 2022 as a senior analyst from Suvretta Capital and was promoted in the first quarter. And new CIO Justin Walsh interned at Viking before graduating from business school and returning to the firm as a senior analyst.

“Our multi-year efforts to broaden our investment footprint, including strengthening our hiring practices and amending our compensation structure to foster talent development, are paying off,” the company said in its first-quarter letter.

Viking PMs, who are paid partly based on the performance of their positions in the portfolio, are now also compensated for idea generation and career development for the analysts who work under them, said a person close to the firm. The compensation change encourages portfolio managers to think beyond returns, the person added.

The number of analysts a PM has varies by sector, but the average PM has five analysts reporting to them. Under Walsh, portfolio manager Previn Mankody has been promoted to deputy CIO, while Scott Ginover and Hani Sabbagh have both been promoted to senior portfolio managers, according to a person close to the firm.

Viking doesn’t plan to increase the total number of PMs, which is currently around 10, but adding analysts under each PM will give them more “horsepower” and enable them to cover a broader range of what Viking calls its “investment target space,” a person close to the company said.

According to the letter, publicly listed companies that meet this criteria have a market capitalization of at least $2 billion and daily trading volume of more than $50 million (excluding China A-shares). The firm said there are about 1,400 companies that meet this criteria, and the manager is not limiting itself to U.S.-based companies. Outside the U.S., the firm has investments in 15 other countries, including India, France and South Korea, the letter said.

The fund is up 8.1% through July after falling 0.1% last month, and is forecasting a 13.9% return in 2023.