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Instead, Fidelity hired Bianca Salzer, a consultant at Deutsche Asset Management, as its first ever director of consultant relations in Germany.

Klaus Mössle, Fidelity’s German institutional business director, says the fact Salzer was hired before anyone else underlines the importance of the consultant relations role: “Consultants play an increasingly important role in the German market. In the past, liaising with them would have been left to a relationship generalist. Today, consultants have become so important that a special relationship person is necessary.”

Other funds seem to be reaching the same conclusion, and not just in Frankfurt. In the past two months Cominvest, the fund management unit of Germany’s Commerzbank, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, and Pioneer Investments, have all hired consultant relationship specialists to sing the praises of their funds to investment consultants.

Specialist touch

“People are waking up to the fact that consultant relations people are key to building a business,” says Ian Lewis, head of UK institutional sales and marketing at New Star Asset Management, and a former head of consultant relations at UBS. “Unless investment consultants think you’re good you’ll be blocked from receiving any investments.”

Lewis says generic client sales people are ill equipped to communicate a fund’s merits to consultants: “You need someone who understands how consultants think. It’s less of a sales role and more about building a long term relationship. Consultants have got hundreds of other fund management people vying for their attention. They don’t have the time to listen to a sales pitch.”

Mössle says investment consultants are particularly valuable when the sales team is only small: a single good consultant relations specialist can attract considerable funds.

Skills required

What makes a good consultant relations specialist? Unsurprisingly, a background in consulting helps. Lewis began his career as an investment consultant, and others have taken a similar route. For example, Morgan Stanley Investment Management recently hired Peter Brackett, a senior consultant at Watson Wyatt as head of its consultant relations team.

However, not all consultant relations types used to be consultants themselves. Many are client relationship people who have decided to specialise. Whichever route you take, Lewis says you’ll need strong relationship skills, an understanding of how consultants think, and good investment knowledge.

Pay on par

Recruiters say pay for consultant relations specialists is on a par with pay for generic client relations staff. Michelle Turner, a fund management headhunter at Hanson Green, says junior team members can expect a base salary of £60,000 to £70,000, plus a bonus of up to £30,000. She says senior consultant relations specialists with 10-15 years’ experience are on packages up to £150,000.