Jensen Partners Acquires Baier Associates
October 31, 2025 – Jensen Partners, a women-owned executive search and corporate advisory firm that enables data-driven talent solutions for the asset management industry, has acquired global executive search and consulting firm Baier Associates (UK). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Joining Jensen Partners will be Nishika Samaratunga, the firm’s co-founder and CEO, who spent that last half-decade building Baier Associates into a specialist in alternative investment executive search.
“The addition of Nishika and the Baier (UK) team represents a major step forward in our EMEA expansion,” said Sasha Jensen, founder and CEO of Jensen Partners. “Their track record and relationships across private and liquid markets complement our global platform and deepen our ability to deliver integrated executive search, market intelligence, and strategic advisory services; and we’re excited to have her on the Jensen team.”
Baier Associates provides executive search for the alternative investment sector. The firm’s reach spans Europe, North America, and Asia, and it serves as a strategic partner to private market and hedge fund clients across front-office, capital formation, and senior leadership mandates. Ms. Samaratunga now brings her expertise and global client relationships to Jensen Partners, where she is helping to strengthen the firm’s capabilities across EMEA in capital formation, investments, and board-level executive search and strategic advisory as managing director & co-head of EMEA at Jensen Partners.
Ms. Samaratunga brings a track record advising at the intersection of investor relations, capital raising, investments, portfolio company leadership, and board appointments across private equity, private credit, real assets, infrastructure, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, wealth management platforms, and family offices. She also led the firm’s global expansion and helped build Baier Associates into a recognized alternative-investment recruitment brand.
“I’m delighted to be joining the Jensen Partners team to help grow the EMEA business and unlock more ways for the firm and clients to succeed,” said Ms. Samaratunga. “I look forward to leveraging my network, expertise, and Jensen’s unique data capabilities to deliver differentiated insights designed to help firms identify and hire the best talent for expanding and enhancing their businesses.”
Jensen Partners is a women-owned executive search and corporate advisory firm that enables data-driven talent solutions for the asset management industry. It serves as a global advisory, corporate development, and executive search firm that leverages its relationships in the investor and alternative asset management community to source and recruit capital-raising candidates. The firm takes a data-driven approach, combining quantitative and qualitative insights to source and place the ideal human capital. In addition to executive search, Jensen Partners offers LP/GP referencing, proprietary 360-degree investor referencing methodology, and compensation benchmarking and analysis.
Jensen Partners leverages its investor relationships as well as its proprietary big data recruitment and competitor intelligence market mapping model to source and place capital raising professionals. This model is based on the firm’s global database of more than 22,000 global alternative capital raisers, which includes professionals from private equity firms, private credit firms, real estate investment firms, real asset investors, infrastructure investors, and hedge funds.
Recent Deals
Hunt Scanlon Ventures has facilitated a number of M&A transactions across the executive search space in recent months. Here is a look at a few:
Talento Human Capital has acquired R2 Global, a highly respected technology recruitment and staffing firm known for its niche expertise across cloud & data, business systems, and e-commerce. This strategic move will expand TalentoHC’s existing footprint in the technology sector and launch, as well as strengthen, its technology search & staffing service lines. “The combination of TalentoHC’s talent acquisition expertise with R2’s deep technical focus marks an exciting new chapter for both organizations,” said Juan Gaitan, CEO of TalentoHC, based in Coral Gables, FL. “R2’s agile approach to technology staffing and recruiting aligns perfectly with our mission to deliver tailored recruitment solutions. Together, as R2 Powered by Talento, we are positioned to become a premier go-to partner for IT talent and innovation,” he added. “TalentoHC and R2 Global customers will benefit tremendously from the portfolio of human capital offerings that the combined organizations now provide,” said Scott A. Scanlon, CEO and co-founder of Hunt Scanlon Ventures.
Global talent advisory firm ZRG has acquired Aspen Leadership Group, a search firm focused on placing and supporting top fundraising leaders and executive talent in educational institutions and the broader non-profit sector. “The addition of Aspen Leadership Group is nothing short of transformative,” said Larry Hartmann, CEO of ZRG. “Their expertise in development and advancement is the perfect complement to our growing education practice, and as we roll into 2025 we are unlocking the collective power of these exceptional niche businesses under the unified banner of ZRG’s education practice, creating unmatched solutions for academic and non-profit leadership.” Aspen Leadership Group, established in 2013, conducts a wide range of searches across the fundraising, education and non-profit sector and is widely considered the eminent leader in its field. Its clients include Brown University, PBS, Robin Hood, the Humane Society of the United States, the Leakey Foundation, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Denver Zoological Foundation, among others.
Talento Human Capital (TalentoHC) has acquired The PeterSan Group and PeterSan Legal Staffing. The merger brings expertise in legal recruiting to TalentoHC’s customer experience model and comprehensive human capital services, including retained executive search, professional and management recruiting, RPO, staff augmentation, and human capital consulting. Managing partners Peter Gosule, Peter Goldfeder, and Sandy Friedman of The PeterSan Group will lead the TalentoLegal business unit from New York City, where the firm has been rooted for three decades. “The PeterSan transaction fits in well with our platform strategy as we build onto our customer-centric model and expand our industry and functional vertical focus,” said Juan Gaitan, CEO of TalentoHC, based in Coral Gables, FL. “The intersection of these two approaches will create opportunities for continued growth and value for our customers, candidates, associates and shareholders.”
ZRG acquired Jamesbeck, a New York City-based recruitment firm specializing in senior-level talent for the broad investment management community across private market and traditional firms. “This strategic move aims to establish ZRG’s presence in asset management and will support the firm’s existing private markets clients by adding a new channel for senior roles at the management company level across investments, product, and fundraising,” said ZRG. “Jamesbeck has been at the forefront of decisive changes that have impacted asset management leadership for more than two decades,” said Scott A. Scanlon, CEO of Hunt Scanlon Ventures. “The firm’s acquisition by ZRG will be beneficial to clients across the global investment management space who have come to rely on its network, judgment and guidance around senior-level leadership talent,” he noted. Jamesbeck specializes in the investment management industry across public and private markets. The firm recruits senior-level talent across investing, distribution, product and C-suite positions on behalf of a range of clients from boutiques to the largest multi-product organizations. Jamesbeck’s Melissa Norris, managing partner, and Beth Rustin, founding partner, will become the co-heads of asset management search at ZRG.
Related: How Search Firms are Winning Through M&A and Unlocking Value
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
