Do you aspire to join a world leader and build a strong and successful consulting career? Have you got what it takes to deliver solutions that have a real impact on the future of major organisations and individuals every day? Are you ready to be challenged?
Mercer is the place for you. As one of the world’s largest providers of talent, health, retirement and investment services, from day one your role will contribute to the success of our clients as we provide them with expert advice on everything from pension schemes and investments to salaries, rewards and benefits.
The Mercer Sentinel® team is a specialist global group of 40+ full time staff (25 in Europe) within our Investments business, focused on consulting to clients on all aspects of investment operations and their governance. This includes consulting on asset transitions, custody and investment manager operational risk assessments. As an intern joining this team, you will be supporting more experienced analysts and consultants in the Mercer Sentinel Group dealing with custody and investment operations.

Key duties will include:

• Working with asset managers to devise the most suitable transition strategy for a client
• Sending a detailed information request to the legacy and target managers about their investment processes
• Liaising with the legacy and target managers to ascertain the most appropriate transfer method and schedule
• Conducting a cost analysis and examination of out of market exposure implications
• Drafting and agreeing instruction letters with the various parties involved in a transition
• Drafting a transition strategy document for the client which will include costs of the transition
• Implementing and monitoring the transition strategy agreed with the client
• Preparing a post transition report setting out details of the activities undertaken
• Excellent team working, project management and problem solving skills to contributing to intellectual capital
•  Provide in-depth analysis on a range of custody services and costs including custody fees, securities lending and commission recapture.
•  Draft one off and periodic client reports for custody searches, custodian fee benchmarking, securities lending, commission recapture programme reviews and ongoing custodian monitoring.
•  Assist in the global research of custodians including proprietary research, maintenance, updating and extraction of information from Mercer’s global custodian benchmarking database.
•  Support global projects, working closely with other Mercer teams based in the US, Australia and Asia.
•  Liaison with custodians and investment managers to source and extract data and support in the communication with external suppliers of data analysis and benchmarks and manipulation of information provided.
• Responding to general custody enquiries from field consultants.
• Maintaining database of status of existing clients and the pipeline of prospective clients.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 300 UCAS points, minimum 2:1 honours degree expected or obtained ideally in a numerical or semi- numerical degree (equivalent qualifications are accepted)
• An interest in financial markets and pensions
• Willingness to complete relevant professional qualifications
• Self-motivated, eagerness to learn and to keep up to date with the respective industry trends and market conditions
• Ability to work as part of a team and within a collaborative environment
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills
• Relationship building skills and understanding of customer service principles
• Work well under pressure and strong time management skills
• Exceptional attention to detail ensuring quality and delivery in line with deadlines
• Strong numerical, analytical and problem solving skills
• Ability to maintain a good work-life balance

In return, joining Mercer you will access to a number of benefits;

• Exceptional training and development opportunities
• Challenging yet friendly and diverse work environment
• Competitive salary
• Exposure to a wide range of clients ensuring a varied work load