ESG policy education and asset manager feedback

With 16 manager searches over the last year and an inflow of new clients among endowments and foundations, smaller asset managers and family offices, the Danish investment consultancy Jentzen & Partners is having a busy time. Today, the company consists of five partners and has also recently begun hiring some part-time associates. “It has been an interesting journey,” says its founder Mads Jensen, who started his career in the investment advisory services and private banking business for the Danske Bank group. During this period, he was also chairman of a number of the of the various fund companies in the banking group. When he stopped working at the bank, he initially planned to make a career out of serving on fund company boards but one thing led to another and over time, it led to the launch of an investment consultancy business. His former colleague from Danske Bank, Allan Lorentzen, also ended up joining the business.

“I think it was in 2016 when we got our first real, what I would call, investment consulting assignment. We were approached by an institution that asked us to help work out their investment strategy and their investment policy. What started as a report helping them define their investment policy developed over time and eventually we did an asset allocation study and produced a paper for them where we explained all the ups and downs of manager selection and how they should go about doing it. Basically the cookbook for how to do manager selection. But they then wanted us