Investment Advisor / Portfolio Manager — Business Development, Partner Track

Schwaben Capital Group Limited | Toronto (Etobicoke), hybrid | Succession-driven The short version

I am looking for the person who will eventually run this firm.

I intend to semi-retire in about five years. When I do, I want to hand the business to someone who helped build it — not sell it to a consolidator and watch clients I have known for decades get absorbed into a call centre.

If that idea interests you, I would rather hear from you than not. Everything below is detail.

The firm

Schwaben Capital is Ontario-based, independent, and deliberately small — today, two people. We manage money for established entrepreneurs, senior executives, and high-net-worth families: people who have built something, ask hard questions, and expect to speak directly to the person making the decisions. We invest in public securities with a long-term, value and GARP-oriented philosophy, and we hold positions for years rather than quarters.

Independence is the entire proposition. No house product. No proprietary fund to push. No quarterly sales campaign, no internal referral quota, no shelf we are paid to fill. What we recommend is what we would own — and largely do. That is why clients leave the bank-owned platforms to come to us, and it is a great deal easier to sell than a fund with a competitor’s logo on it.

Why this, rather than a bigger seat or your own shingle

You could stay on a large platform and take the certainty. You could go independent and keep more of your own grid. Both are real options.

What neither gives you is this: an existing book of long-tenured high-net-worth households, a principal who stays engaged through the handover instead of cashing out on day one, and equity in a firm rather than ownership of your own overhead. Here you would be buying into something already built, and paying for it largely with production rather than capital.

What you would actually do

- Originate. Real high-net-worth households — through centres of influence, your own network, and direct outreach. This is the largest part of the role and the part nobody can do for you.
- Own relationships end to end. Discovery, planning, onboarding, review meetings, and the difficult call in year three of a drawdown.
- Build the professional referral network. Accountants, tax and estate lawyers, corporate lawyers, business brokers, insurance specialists. For a boutique this is the most durable channel there is, and it compounds.
- Build the marketing we do not have. Not consume someone else’s — build it.




- Help run the business. Pricing, service standards, technology, compliance, hiring. You are being hired to run this eventually, so you start participating early.

There is also a multi-family office side we are under-built for — coordinating tax, estate, corporate structuring and next-generation planning for families where the portfolio is only one part of the picture. The demand is already here. Growing it is squarely part of the role.

What success looks like

Stated plainly, so that both of us can measure it rather than argue about it later. These are targets to build toward together, not a bar to clear on day one.

- Year 1: registration in place; 8–12 professional referral relationships actively developed; first net-new households funded.
- Year 2: a steady cadence of net-new households; a marketing channel you built producing measurable inbound; full relationship ownership for your clients.
- Year 3: consistent origination without prompting; contributing to firm strategy; first tranche of equity earned and documented.
- Year 5: operating as managing partner in all but name, with a defined path to majority ownership.

What you need

- Registration, or a clear path to it. Ontario registration in a client-facing category — CIRO Registered Representative, or Dealing or Advising Representative under NI 31-103. If you are currently registered, excellent. If your registration lapsed, or you hold the proficiency and have not yet been registered in this category, say so and apply anyway — we can work through it. Registration history is verified through the CSA National Registration Search as a matter of course.
- Roughly three years or more working directly with private clients — or equivalent experience that clearly transfers. Households rather than institutions is the ideal, but I would rather read your CV and decide than have you screen yourself out.
- A genuine appetite to build your own book. You do not need to arrive with one. You do need to want the part of this job that involves picking up the phone, going to the lunch, and asking for the introduction — because that is most of the first two years.

Also helpful, not required:



working fluency in what surrounds high-net-worth money — holding companies and corporate surplus, estate freezes, trusts, insurance as a planning tool, cross-border where relevant. You need not be the technical expert, but knowing when to bring one in matters. CIM or the CFA charter, or a credible path to Advising Representative registration; CFP, TEP or CPA in addition is welcome.

Location: Toronto, hybrid. In a firm this small, presence matters — but we are flexible about how that works week to week.

Compensation and equity

Set out plainly, because vagueness here wastes both our time.

- Draw. A monthly draw against your revenue share, recoverable against production. Enough to live on while you build.
- Variable. A defined share of revenue on assets you originate, paid from the first dollar. No house split, no threshold to clear first.
- Equity. A documented earn-in against a net-new-asset threshold, with a defined path toward majority ownership over roughly five years. Structure, valuation methodology, and what happens if either of us walks away will be in writing before you start — not promised verbally and settled later.

Total compensation for someone who performs should exceed a comparable institutional seat. It will simply arrive later, and it will arrive as ownership.

The exact shape of the arrangement — contract, employment, or partner — depends on where you are in your career and what you need. That is a conversation, not a fixed template.

On succession: I am not disappearing. I intend to semi-retire, remain involved in the investment process, and hand over the running of the firm. If you want me gone entirely on day one of year five, we are probably not a fit — and it is better we find that out early.

How to apply

Send a CV. That is the whole requirement.

If you want to move to the front of the queue, add a short note — half a page is plenty — telling me two things:

- Roughly what you have brought in over the last few years, and how much of it you sourced yourself.
- Where your last two or three clients actually came from. Specifically.

Neither is required to be considered, and rough numbers are fine. But they are the questions I will eventually ask, and answering them early tells me a lot.

Apply through LinkedIn, or write to me directly at [email protected]. Every responsible applicant gets a reply.

Schwaben Capital Group Limited is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates and provide accommodation on request at any stage of the process.

📌 Vice President Business Development / Portfolio Manager / Investment Advisor— Partner Track (Toronto)
🏢 Schwaben Capital Group
📍 Toronto