Damn the competition, Omgeo’s CEO is on a mission to hire the best and the brightest.

Marianne C. Brown, the president and CEO of Omgeo, is looking to hire rock stars and has made it her mission despite the fierce competition for them.

By rock star, of course, Brown means “somebody who gets it”—someone who has a hard-to-define dynamic quality and is of the moment. Brown, who has been at the helm for four-and-a-half years, is also looking for innate attributes such as principles, work ethic and style. Expertise in technology is important but so is flexibility. “Once you have a grip on technology, I think that competency is relatively portable,” she says.

So, for Omgeo, somebody “who doesn’t sit around, waiting for somebody else to engage them” is a prime candidate, Brown says. “As a leader, I would much prefer reining in somebody than constantly feeling that I have to push them out.” Other attributes include creative perseverance, initiative, engaging well with others and the capability to “achieve an end by a very constructive, sustainable means. …That’s a rock star in my mind,” Brown says.

Résumés tell Brown what candidates have accomplished but what she really wants to know is how they achieved their goals. “That tells me about the essence of the person,” she says. “The end really does not justify the means.”

Brown is not alone in her quest and she acknowledges that Omgeo does not have the rapid ebb and flow in personnel that others have. Even so, earlier this year Omgeo named Randy Guy, the former chief technology officer at Linedata, as its new managing director of technology. Guy will be taking over for Dave Cutright, who will remain part of the technology team until his retirement in July 2011. Also, late last year Omgeo lost Tim Lind, the former managing director for strategic planning to Thomson Reuters.

“We don’t follow the market participants directly either in compensation or necessarily in hiring practices,” she says. “Yes, it’s a buyers’ market if you look at the absolute numbers. But top talent is always going to be on demand so as an employer you have to make sure you’re always on you’re ‘A’ game to continue to engage the top talent.”

Having talent on staff at the crest of a recovery is also a good idea.

By many accounts, there is a recovery underway. A quick Google scan reveals possibilities for mezzanine financing positions for the private equity realm, wealth management openings, a persistent demand for those with compliance and risk management experience, hedge fund hirings, and IT jobs for those with expertise in market data, trading, risk and advanced technologies.

“I’d say it’s the beginning of the recovery,” says John Scarpino, managing director at executive search firm CCX, based in Nyack, N.Y. “Once the switch comes back to the candidates—where they’re in the driver’s seat—now you’re going to get a recovery. … Now the candidates are getting picky. They’re looking at multiple opportunities, weighing them and people are getting hired.”

Picky rock stars would be a switch from the Great Recession when nearly 90,000 foot soldiers on Wall Street got the ax. Still, the top talent does not want to be caught in another storm, Scarpino says.

“I have seen a lot of people … taking counter-offers,” Scarpino says. “People that are good are in hot demand right now. They don’t want to make a move … A lot of them have taken pay cuts over the last three or four years and now they can say, ‘I’m worth more and you better pay me.’ So people are taking counter-offers.”

The stigma of taking a counter-offer has apparently evaporated because of the recession.

“There used to be a time 15 or 16 years ago that if you took a counter-offer your company was planning on getting rid of you in six months and looking for your replacement,” Scarpino says. “But because so many people left the business to do other things, they know it’s a smaller pool of talent. It could take six months to two years to find someone to fill that spot.”

At the same time, securities firms have cut bonuses and salaries so they may have some leeway in spending to keep talented staff.

“Another $20,000 or another $30,000 on their base plus a bonus?” Scarpino says. “It might be worth it to avoid having to pay a recruiting fee and going through the rigmarole of trying to meet another 20 people to fill this person’s role. … Before, if you took the counter-offer, you were looking over your shoulder every time you went to work. Nowadays, it’s more common.”

The resurgence of counter-offers may make Brown’s mission a little harder. After a few minutes with her, though, you can sense how Brown could possibly fill some of these rock star posts with clones of herself.

“As a leader, I would much prefer reining in somebody than constantly feeling that I have to push them out.”

—     Marianne C. Brown, the President and CEO of Omgeo

 

She has served in many roles during her 33 years in financial services, coming a long way from her initial post at Automatic Data Processing, Brokerage Services Group (later Broadridge Financial Services). During her 26-year tenure there, she worked her way up to general manager of the brokerage processing services business. She’s had stints in sales, relationship management, data center support, operations and technology, and business and product development. She’s never been a CFO, a lawyer or worked as the head of HR although she must have given these posts some thought over the years.

“I’ve kind of had the job of every one of my senior team members—much to their chagrin some days,” Brown says.

Like all market participants, hiring the right talent is critical for Omgeo, which Brown describes as primarily a service company created to mitigate operational and counterparty risk via post-trade processes. Over the past decade, the wholly owned, global joint venture between the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) and Thomson Reuters has been offering its Oasys, Omgeo Central Trade Manager and other solutions for fixed-income transactions, equities, derivatives, repurchase agreements and managed accounts. Omgeo’s 600-plus employees serve more than 6,000 financial services firms in 46 countries.

To further its mission, Omgeo is hiring for technologies ranging from cutting-edge to mainframe systems—a reflection of the diversity at clients’ sites. The utility is also looking to fill positions, particularly content relationship managers, across the globe, with London, continental Europe and Asia being particularly hot for hiring, Brown says. In continental Europe, the push for shorter settlement cycles—from T+3 to T+2—will be a major opportunity for Omgeo, she adds.

The reforms to come from the US regulators via Dodd-Frank could help Omgeo because much of what will be regulated has to be measured, mitigated and processed—key services that Omgeo provides.

“People that are good are in hot demand right now. They don’t want to make a move … A lot of them have taken pay cuts over the last three or four years and now they can say, ‘I’m worth more and you better pay me.’ So people are taking counter-offers.”

—     John Scarpino, managing director at executive search firm CCX

 

Brown grew up with the markets she now serves. She watched as firms have succeeded with one asset and then added another such as an equities shop taking on bonds. “Traditionally, the way a market participant would do that is to hire a fixed-income trader,” Brown says. “The trader would yell over his shoulder, and say ‘Hey, back office, guess what? I just did a trade. Go settle it.’ It meant the market really grew up in asset-class silos.”

In the 21st Century, firms have to find ways around the silos to better orchestrate their post-trade processes.

“The market is saying, ‘Wait a minute, not only do I not want those silos per asset class but I can’t have them because if I’ve got equities and fixed income here, and OTC derivatives there, I can’t quickly and succinctly figure how much counterparty risk I have because I’ve got segregated processes,’ ” Brown says. “That becomes a challenge. That becomes an opportunity for Omgeo.”

While the reforms may create opportunities for Omgeo, the regulators are competing against Omgeo for rock stars.

“The regulatory community has now engaged more in the forefront of the types of talent that they need, which … I’m thrilled with,” Brown says. “It certainly increases the competitiveness in the marketplace for talent. But, if somebody is competent and really understands the working of the market and has an inquisitive, collaborative, productive style, if I lose to them to a regulator, quite honestly that’s a win-win.”

Brown cites the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a case in point because it will need staff members who understand “the workings of the market and know how to engage with market participants for the most effective means to that end.” Ultimately, the SEC needs rules that are going to be workable. A spokesperson for the SEC acknowledges that the regulator has “definitely stepped up” its recruitment efforts in the securities industry over the past two years.

But is Brown disappointed if a key employee leaves for a regulator?

“I get disappointed if I lose a key employee to anybody,” she says. “We have to up our game and we have to be consistent with Omgeo’s value proposition and the thing we have that’s different from the regulators is the entrepreneurial part.”

Playing up their strengths is exactly what firms should do, but only after they’ve done an honest assessment of their work environments, Scarpino says. “You have to look at your own company and ask, ‘Is my company an attractive place for people? If it’s not, what do I need to do to make it attractive?’ If they get ahead of the wave and they hire the right people now, they’ll just be competitively that much more up the curve.”

Of course, there are situations where even rock stars can get hoodwinked.

A friend of Scarpino’s took a position with a firm on the East Side of Manhattan and had a surprise on her first day of work. An executive at the firm “walked in and let go of 35 people,” he said. “I had a friend who took an offer from that company and the day she started 35 people walked out the door. Would I want to work for a company that could whack me like that?”

Sudden layoffs are not new to Wall Street. Much could still go wrong with the current recovery and the markets could lapse into another recession. But Brown is signaling that she will stay focused on talent regardless of any turmoil.

“I travel all over the world to keep in touch with our clients and other important constituents, and I am always keeping an eye out for good talent,” she says. “When I am in New York, I also keep in touch regularly with friends and mentors who might refer people to me.”

Brown also exploits social media sites such as her LinkedIn account but she keeps it within bounds.

“I think these things are enablers and I think these things can be distractors,” she says, citing those who tweet too often via Twitter. She freely describes herself as a driven CEO. “I am aware of the lure of being distracted, so I’m careful about it.”

It will take that kind of focus to land rock stars in this market.

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