Conor Hourigan is the founder of Global Wealth Talent. He advises principal investors on the people behind important investment, partnership, and leadership decisions. He works especially with large family offices and family-owned holding companies with active direct-investment programs, as well as the institutional investors they work alongside.

His work is focused on the external market. He helps clients identify people they should know and form an informed view of people they may back, partner with, or hire. This can involve a founder or management team behind an investment, a sponsor or co-investor they may work alongside, or an external leader being considered for an investment firm, family office, or company it owns or backs.

Conor’s career has been spent assessing senior people. He began at Russell Reynolds Associates, became Co-Global Head of Talent Acquisition at UBS Wealth Management in the United States, and later joined Korn Ferry in Europe as a Senior Client Partner, where much of his work involved advising principal and institutional investors on leadership hiring and succession.

His clients have included family offices and holding companies of Forbes-ranked individuals, large and middle-market private equity and growth equity firms, sovereign wealth funds, and major endowments and foundations.

Many of Conor’s client relationships are ongoing rather than tied to a single project. Clients also ask who else they should be meeting in connection with an investment, partnership, or leadership need. When he believes there is a clear reason for two people to know one another, he makes the introduction.

Ahead of an investment, partnership, or critical external appointment, clients may ask Conor for an independent view of the people involved. He speaks confidentially and off the record with people who know the individual or management team well, including former bosses, peers, direct reports, board members, investors, customers, and counterparties.

The objective is to understand how someone actually operates: how they lead and execute, make decisions, handle pressure, and work with investors and boards; where their strengths and limitations lie; and whether people who know them well would back, hire, or work with them again.

Clients work directly with Conor throughout. He conducts every substantive conversation personally, considers the perspective and potential bias of each person, and triangulates what he hears. He provides a clear, concise account of his findings together with his own assessment. Individual sources are not identified.

In independent-referencing work, Conor has no financial interest in the transaction, partnership, or appointment and approaches each assignment without a preferred conclusion.

His background in wealth management and family capital is a particular strength when the work involves family offices, wealth managers, financial services businesses, or the investors behind them. Beyond these areas, his work spans industries and geographies.

Within UHNW wealth management, Conor also handles select searches for senior client advisory roles. He does not provide independent referencing on anyone he is representing in a search.

His work spans the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America.

Born and raised in Ireland, Conor spent more than a decade working in New York and holds both Irish and U.S. citizenship. He holds a BSc in Finance from University College Cork.