Investment Advisor — Partner Track
Top Benefits
About the role
Schwaben Capital Group | Toronto, 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. That is the job on offer. 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 going independent yourself If you can genuinely originate, you already know you could take your book to one of the independent platforms and keep most of your own grid. That is a real option, and I would rather address it than pretend it does not exist.
What you do not get there 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 with production rather than capital.
What you would actually do • Originate. Real high-net-worth households, sourced by you — through centres of influence, your own network, and direct outreach. This is 60–70% 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. • Year 1: registration current; 8–12 professional referral relationships actively developed; 15 net-new households funded. • Year 2: 25 net-new households funded; 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 Three things are non-negotiable.
- Current Ontario registration in a client-facing category — CIRO Registered Representative, or Dealing / Advising Representative under NI 31-103 — or registered within the last twelve months and immediately re-registerable. Clean registration history; this will be verified on the CSA National Registration Search.
- Five years minimum advising private households directly. Households. Not institutions, not advisors, not dealer head offices, not issuers.
- Self-sourced origination you can evidence. You will be asked for annual net-new-asset figures, household counts, and where each of your last five clients came from. Firm-supplied leads, inbound desks and inherited accounts do not count.
Also expected: working fluency in what surrounds high-net-worth money — holding companies and corporate surplus, estate freezes, trusts, insurance as a planning tool, and cross-border where relevant. You need not be the technical expert, but you must know when to bring one in. The CIM or the CFA charter, or a credible path to Advising Representative registration; CFP, TEP or CPA in addition is welcome. Toronto, hybrid — in a two-person firm, presence matters, and this is not a remote role.
Two honest exclusions. If your production has come from firm-supplied leads, an inbound desk, or inherited accounts, this will not work. And if your background is institutional, wholesale or dealer-facing, the skills do not transfer as cleanly as the résumé suggests.
Compensation and equity Set out plainly, because vagueness here wastes both our time. • Draw. A monthly draw against your revenue share for the first 24 months, 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 beginning after 24 months 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.
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 not a fit — and it is better we find that out now.
How to apply Send a CV and a note of no more than one page answering two questions: 4. Your net new assets and net new households for each of the last three years, and what proportion you sourced yourself. 5. Where your last three clients came from. Specifically — “referrals” is not an answer. Applications without those answers will not be read — it is the first test of the job.
Send to aweller@schwaben.ca. Every serious 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.
About Schwaben Capital Group Limited
Schwaben Capital Group Limited is an investment management and investment banking firm. Our group caters to established entrepreneurs, senior executives and high net worth families. We feel that these individuals demand more attention to the details of their own circumstances. The company has two divisions:
"Schwaben Investment Counsel" is the investment management division and, at this point, the more dominant part of the Schwaben Capital Group that manages conventional investment portfolios invested in public securities. Our investment philosophy is to invest in good businesses for the long term, to pay close attention to the details of our client's circumstances and manage their assets accordingly.
"Schwaben Capital Markets" provides investment banking advise to private companies. In our Capital Markets division we intentionally deal only in private company mandates as we feel this is where we can add value to our own clients businesses and at the same time avoid any conflicts of interest that might arise from managing and advising on public companies.
Schwaben Capital Group Limited is registered as a Portfolio Manager and an Exempt Market Dealer with the Ontario Securities Commission in the Province of Ontario.
"Schwaben Financial Counsel Inc." is a sister company of "Schwaben Capital Group Limited". Schwaben Financial is an Insurance company registered as a Life, Health and Accident & Sickness Insurance company with the FSCO.
Similar Jobs
Investment Advisor — Partner Track
Top Benefits
About the role
Schwaben Capital Group | Toronto, 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. That is the job on offer. 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 going independent yourself If you can genuinely originate, you already know you could take your book to one of the independent platforms and keep most of your own grid. That is a real option, and I would rather address it than pretend it does not exist.
What you do not get there 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 with production rather than capital.
What you would actually do • Originate. Real high-net-worth households, sourced by you — through centres of influence, your own network, and direct outreach. This is 60–70% 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. • Year 1: registration current; 8–12 professional referral relationships actively developed; 15 net-new households funded. • Year 2: 25 net-new households funded; 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 Three things are non-negotiable.
- Current Ontario registration in a client-facing category — CIRO Registered Representative, or Dealing / Advising Representative under NI 31-103 — or registered within the last twelve months and immediately re-registerable. Clean registration history; this will be verified on the CSA National Registration Search.
- Five years minimum advising private households directly. Households. Not institutions, not advisors, not dealer head offices, not issuers.
- Self-sourced origination you can evidence. You will be asked for annual net-new-asset figures, household counts, and where each of your last five clients came from. Firm-supplied leads, inbound desks and inherited accounts do not count.
Also expected: working fluency in what surrounds high-net-worth money — holding companies and corporate surplus, estate freezes, trusts, insurance as a planning tool, and cross-border where relevant. You need not be the technical expert, but you must know when to bring one in. The CIM or the CFA charter, or a credible path to Advising Representative registration; CFP, TEP or CPA in addition is welcome. Toronto, hybrid — in a two-person firm, presence matters, and this is not a remote role.
Two honest exclusions. If your production has come from firm-supplied leads, an inbound desk, or inherited accounts, this will not work. And if your background is institutional, wholesale or dealer-facing, the skills do not transfer as cleanly as the résumé suggests.
Compensation and equity Set out plainly, because vagueness here wastes both our time. • Draw. A monthly draw against your revenue share for the first 24 months, 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 beginning after 24 months 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.
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 not a fit — and it is better we find that out now.
How to apply Send a CV and a note of no more than one page answering two questions: 4. Your net new assets and net new households for each of the last three years, and what proportion you sourced yourself. 5. Where your last three clients came from. Specifically — “referrals” is not an answer. Applications without those answers will not be read — it is the first test of the job.
Send to aweller@schwaben.ca. Every serious 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.
About Schwaben Capital Group Limited
Schwaben Capital Group Limited is an investment management and investment banking firm. Our group caters to established entrepreneurs, senior executives and high net worth families. We feel that these individuals demand more attention to the details of their own circumstances. The company has two divisions:
"Schwaben Investment Counsel" is the investment management division and, at this point, the more dominant part of the Schwaben Capital Group that manages conventional investment portfolios invested in public securities. Our investment philosophy is to invest in good businesses for the long term, to pay close attention to the details of our client's circumstances and manage their assets accordingly.
"Schwaben Capital Markets" provides investment banking advise to private companies. In our Capital Markets division we intentionally deal only in private company mandates as we feel this is where we can add value to our own clients businesses and at the same time avoid any conflicts of interest that might arise from managing and advising on public companies.
Schwaben Capital Group Limited is registered as a Portfolio Manager and an Exempt Market Dealer with the Ontario Securities Commission in the Province of Ontario.
"Schwaben Financial Counsel Inc." is a sister company of "Schwaben Capital Group Limited". Schwaben Financial is an Insurance company registered as a Life, Health and Accident & Sickness Insurance company with the FSCO.