Blackbird is hiring a Head of Investor Relations

Date Published:

August 10, 2021

We’re hiring a Head of Investor Relations to build upon our treasured relationships with institutional and individual LPs.

Blackbird is looking to hire a Head of Investor Relations to build upon our treasured relationships with institutional and individual LPs. Help us transform our firm as we go from being an investor in early stage startups to a generational owner of the best businesses to be born from Australia and New Zealand.

>> This role has now closed <<

About The Role

Blackbird manages in excess of $5B of net asset value for over 250 individual and institutional investors, including some of the largest Australian superannuation funds, the Future Fund and offshore institutions. The business of Blackbird is one of relationships, not transactions and you will bring a hospitality mindset to every investor’s experience with us, regardless of size. You will deepen relationships with our current investors and build them with prospective investors for future funds.

This is Blackbird’s first investor relations hire and you will work closely with Blackbird's founders Rick Baker (myself) and Niki Scevak, our Chief of Staff Sophie Taylor and our Operations team. Over time, we have aspirations to build a dedicated investor relations team, for now though we are seeking a pioneering spirit with a desire to be involved at all levels.

Learn more about this role in an AMA with Blackbird founders Rick Baker and Niki Scevak, Partner and COO Alex Apoifis and Chief of Staff Sophie Taylor on 24 August. Register here

These are three main responsibilities of this role:

Strengthen investor relationships

Build excellent relationships with the people behind our investors, bringing a hospitality mindset to every interaction, small or large.

Tailor the experience of Blackbird to the many different stakeholders within an institutional investor context, going above and beyond the required.

Be the first point of call for the day-to-day communications with investors, including co-investment opportunities and ensuring that each request is handled with speed and clarity.

Communicate the progress of Blackbird

Prepare a calendar of investor communications, from publishing portfolio and financial written updates to coordinating live and online events with Blackbird team members and portfolio founders.

Communicate the culture of Blackbird. Describe our investment philosophy and investment principles through the context of our portfolio companies and our decisions to invest in them.

Benchmark the performance of Blackbird’s funds to our local and global peers and describe fundamental industry trends.

Work closely with our Operations and Investment Teams, especially our Portfolio FP&A Manager, to ensure high quality, tailored, investor metrics and reporting.

Raise future funds

Identify prospective long term partners for Blackbird’s funds, with a view to multiple commitments over many decades and fund cycles

From announcement to close, you’ll manage the formation of new funds, including authoring marketing and fundraising materials, maintaining the fund data room, assisting potential investors with their decision process, and managing any investor due diligence requests.

Work closely with the partners in pitch and due diligence sessions.

Work closely with the Operations Team to ensure each investor’s compliance obligations are met, all their legal feedback has been adequately addressed and maintain a hospitality mindset to onboarding investors in the new funds.

What we are looking for

Your background is less important than your key skills, which include:

Relationships: At the heart of this role is building great relationships. Great relationships are built in drips and lost in buckets. You will be devoted to an investor’s success but also recognise that trust is built by communicating the bad as well as good news.

Clarity of thought: We prize those with an innate ability to communicate complex topics in a clear, simple, and concise way - either through sharp prose or powerful visuals.

Personality: We wear t-shirts. Your content, method of delivery and the presentations themselves should be creative and express the cultural values of Blackbird.

Entrepreneurial: You’ll be pioneering investor relations at Blackbird and will have full autonomy. You need to be biased to action and build things yourself.

Humility, low-ego: We are a small team and no-one is too good to do anything. We all take out the garbage.

Hospitality Mindset: In our dealings with founders and investors, we take a hospitality mindset. We serve our founders, not the other way around. We are about people, not companies. Similarly, we treat our colleagues with generosity and respect. One team, one dream.

This role has now closed

Working at Blackbird

We’re looking for someone who is as passionate as us about building an iconic investment business. You must have a high ownership mentality and the ability to take responsibility for goals and outcomes.

This is a full time role and can be based in our Auckland, Melbourne or Sydney offices.

We believe that building a diverse and inclusive team is critical to Blackbird’s success. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status. We use Applied to ensure every applicant gets an equal chance of success.

Our July 2021 Culture Amp engagement score was 96.

We offer:

Flexible working: Whether it’s working from home or leaving early to pick up the kids from daycare or school.
Generous parental leave: We know family comes first and we are proud to offer generous parental leave — 16 weeks for primary carer and 6 weeks for a secondary carer, subject to a 12 month minimum tenure. This includes a continuation of super payments while on unpaid parental leave and a supportive return-to-work policy.
Learning & Development: Our team is hungry to continuously learn and you’ll receive a budget to spend on whatever you’d like to learn — from coding courses to meditation.
Unplugged weekends: We work hard without letting work get in the way of life. We’ve implemented no Slack or emails on weekends, so you can switch off.
Sharing in Blackbird’s success: We think it is important to share successes with the whole team. All Blackbird employees receive carry in our funds and are the equivalent of owners in the management company.

Blackbird is a Pledge 1% member — we pledge 1% of our time, equity and profits to help not-for-profit causes in our community. The Blackbird Foundation has been set up explicitly to partner with organisations that believe in the potential of young people, and the importance of creativity.

About Blackbird

Blackbird is a venture capital fund based in Australia and New Zealand. We invest in every type of technology from software to space, unified by the biggest of ambitions. We invest in wild hearts with the wildest of ideas, right at the beginning. We invest in wild hearts with the wildest of ideas, right at the beginning. As a result, we have a unique working culture, captured in our Mission & Values and our Operating Principles.

We have more than a billion dollars under management and a portfolio of over 70 companies including some of the most successful Australian and Kiwi startups such as Canva, Zoox, SafetyCulture, Ask Nicely, Halter and Partly.

We’ve written a lot about what we love at Blackbird, so check out our blog if you want some more information about us. In particular, you should read about our mission and values, our master plan, and what we look for in founders.

Learn more about this role in an AMA with Blackbird founders Rick Baker and Niki Scevak, Partner and COO Alex Apoifis and Chief of Staff Sophie Taylor on 24 August. Register here

Good Luck!