Senior / Executive Recruiter - Asset Management, PE, Investment Banking and Insurance | Japan

About Prolink Consulting

Prolink Consulting is a boutique executive search firm covering the insurance and wider financial services market, headquartered in Hong Kong with an office in Tokyo. Our desks span life and asset-intensive reinsurance, insurance asset management, private equity, and investment banking and FIG. We work with global life reinsurers, Bermuda-based reinsurance platforms, private-equity-backed insurance carriers, asset managers and investment banks etc.

We are a small senior team. There are no layers between you and the CEO.

Why this seat exists

Asia is where the liabilities are being written, and the capital chasing them is arriving from outside the region. Bermudian and North American platforms are reinsuring Japanese and Asian blocks. Global asset managers are standing up insurance-solutions teams in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore to run the assets that come with those blocks. Investment banks are taking principal positions in life platforms rather than only advising on them.

Every one of those transactions creates seats on the capital side - origination, structuring, portfolio management, ALM, insurance coverage and solutions - and they sit on the same accounts as the actuarial mandates. Most recruiters in this market cover one side or the other. Almost nobody covers both.

This is a new seat, not a backfill. You build the desk.

Your focus: asset management, private equity and investment banking

The Centre Of This Desk Is The Capital Side

• Insurance asset management and insurance solutions - portfolio management, ALM, private credit and structured assets written against insurance balance sheets
• Private equity and PE-backed insurance platforms - deal, portfolio and corporate development seats, and the operating hires that follow a transaction
• Investment banking and FIG - coverage, structuring, and principal and balance-sheet roles at the banks active in life and annuity risk transfer

You keep covering the financial services areas you have covered so far, and you add life insurance and reinsurance on top. They sit on the same accounts, so you build the knowledge as you go and widen your coverage from there. You are not expected to arrive as an actuarial specialist.

Where you can be based

Anywhere in Japan (Can be outside Japan too) . Fully remote. There is no office attendance requirement and no daily check-in. Coverage runs across Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Greater China and Southeast Asia, and you will work alongside a North American colleague on the same accounts.

What You Will Own

• End-to-end search across asset management, private equity, investment banking and FIG, and insurance and reinsurance
• Full account ownership - the client relationship is yours end to end, not a slice handed down from someone else
• APAC clients with direct access to Prolink's North American and Bermudian network - and the reverse, placing Asian talent into platforms outside the region
• Building out the desk over time, including hiring into it

2 ways into this seat

Whichever side you come from, the desk is wider than the one you have now.

If you have covered asset management, private equity, investment banking or FIG, this is where you pick up the liability side. Life insurance and actuarial is the technical end that most financial services recruiters never learn and cannot fake. It is also the part clients cannot get from a generalist, and it is why our conversations start at a different level.

If you have built an insurance or actuarial desk, this is where you learn the capital side. Asset management, private equity and investment banking mandates now sit on the same accounts as the actuarial ones, and increasingly they are the same conversation. Reinsurers are becoming asset managers, and banks are taking principal positions in life platforms. Staying purely actuarial narrows your desk every year.

What We Are Looking For

• 5+ years in agency or executive search, with a demonstrable billing record, 360 recruitment experience.
• Independent - you decide what to work on. Nobody here will hand you a task list
• A whatever-it-takes mindset - you finish what you start, and you do not stop at the first obstacle
• No boundaries- if you want to build a career placing globally rather than defending one city or one desk, this is the right seat. If you want a defined territory, it is not
• Willing to learn the side you do not know yet - we would rather have someone strong who is missing half the map than someone who only wants to run the half they already have
• Comfort in senior stakeholder conversations, up to C-suite
• Totally fluent in English (MUST). Japanese language is advantageous (not MUST)

How We Work

• Remote-first - base yourself anywhere in Japan
• No activity KPIs - no call targets, no dashboards. You are judged on placements and on the strength of your client relationships
• Decisions in hours - direct access to the CEO on fees, terms and candidate calls
• A warm desk - established retained relationships across life reinsurance, insurance asset management and PE-backed platforms
• No territory restriction - where you place is your call
• Collaboration by design - coverage overlaps with your North American and UK's colleagues on purpose, so a candidate you cannot place on your mandate lands on someone else's

Compensation

Base salary of 6-10 mil JPY depending on experience.

Commission is 35% to 50% of what you bill, charged on your total billings. (Draw system)

There is no cap.

We will show you the full structure in numbers at the first conversation. Run it against your current plan.