Meet James Dalton, Business Development Manager for Ireland. James’ recent move from BBH’s Depositary team in Dublin, into the European business development team has enabled him to bring his broad industry perspective and expertise to clients and prospects in a new way. Always ready to jump into new opportunities, learn how James embraces change and leans into the power of being comfortable with the uncomfortable.

What do you enjoy most about your role and supporting clients achieve their goals?

I’m a people person so business development really suits my personality! I enjoy discussing the different ways we can help our clients and prospects achieve their goals – and it’s great to see how excited they are about the impact we can make.

Coming from an operations background, I’ve been able to bring that perspective and experience to those conversations. It’s a given that I have the product and industry knowledge, but it’s the hands on, practical experience I’ve gained that enables me to understand where the client is coming from and map out how we can help them. That insight is invaluable and gives me a very level-headed approach in terms of expectations, and as a team we make every effort to over deliver.

What are clients most interested in at the moment?

ESG and active versus passive remain front of mind for asset managers and they need to have strong stories around both. But what we’re seeing is that asset managers really want to talk to us about gaining access to private wealth markets and they want to know how we can help them. Democratization of private assets will become increasingly important in the next 12-18 months as managers seek to access additional pools of capital and assets.

What’s been the key to your success so far?

I’ve always been keen to try my hand at different things, or maybe it’s that I have trouble saying no! But whether it’s a charitable activity, or responding to a request to engage with a client or the Central Bank of Ireland urgently, I’ve always been ready to jump in. I’ve led the Irish chapter of BBH’s Young Persons Network since 2016, which has opened-up some great opportunities. Interestingly, in early 2020 we wrote a paper on the future of work which looked at flexible working – little did we know that two weeks later that would come to fruition as we all went into lockdown!

Ultimately though, it’s saying yes to opportunities that has led me to where I am today. I’m most comfortable when I’m uncomfortable because that’s when you’re learning. It’s always about taking that next step.