Senior Research Analyst, Institutional Intelligence
crain · New York ·
- Work mode
- Remote
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Contract
- Experience
- 5+ years
- Salary
- USD 120,000 – 130,000 / year
Build AI-assisted workflows to track institutional investment mandates and produce data-driven financial research products for a leading institutional media brand.
Description
Pensions & Investments is the leading media and information company serving institutional investors and asset managers worldwide. We are expanding our research and data capabilities to match the ambitions of our editorial strategy — and this role is at the center of that effort.
The Senior Research Analyst, Institutional Intelligence will work alongside our existing research team to strengthen and expand P&I's proprietary databases, including our flagship institutional mandate coverage and our annual survey program. While data management is required, this is primarily an intelligence and product role.
Today, capturing institutional investment mandates requires monitoring a fragmented landscape of primary sources — pension board meeting recordings, public filings, RFP postings, and regulatory disclosures. You will use AI tools to build and refine workflows that make this process faster, more comprehensive, and more analytically rigorous, while also developing new data products and insight outputs that the team has not had the capacity to build until now.
You will sit at the intersection of financial research, editorial judgment, and data technology. Reporting to the Director of Research & Analytics, you will collaborate directly with P&I's editorial leadership and our corporate technology team to expand a research function that is growing in strategic importance across the organization.
This is a role for someone who has spent time in the institutional investment world, understands how allocators and managers think, and wants to apply that knowledge in a new way.
What You Will Do:
New Data Products & Insight Production
This is the growth function that this role is specifically designed to help build. Working with the Director of Research & Analytics and the editorial team, you will help develop new intelligence outputs — monthly mandate trend summaries, data-driven story leads, analytical briefs — that connect the dots across P&I's proprietary data. The goal is not just to maintain existing databases but to build new products from them: summaries, reports, and data feeds that serve subscribers, sponsors, and the newsroom in ways that do not yet exist.
Institutional Mandate Intelligence (Searches & Hires)
You will work with our research team to expand P&I's institutional mandate database — one of the most widely used proprietary data assets in institutional financial media. Mandates are not job listings. They are investment decisions: a pension fund seeking an ESG manager, an endowment restructuring its private equity allocation, a sovereign wealth fund issuing an RFP for a new fixed income mandate. These signals tell asset managers where capital is moving before anyone else knows.
The challenge — and the opportunity — is that these signals come from dozens of disparate sources: board meeting minutes and audio recordings, public filings, RFP portals, and regulatory disclosures. You will work with our technology team to build and refine AI-assisted workflows that monitor these sources systematically, flag relevant mandates, and ensure verified data enters the database with the analytical judgment that automated tools alone cannot provide. You will also identify patterns across the data — trend signals that become the basis for new intelligence products and editorial story leads.
Survey Program Support
You will support P&I's annual survey program — approximately a dozen surveys per year covering the top money managers, asset owners, and investment consultants in the industry. This includes building and distributing surveys, managing participant relationships, reviewing submissions for accuracy and completeness, and producing clean, publication-ready datasets. You will surface trends within the data proactively and bring them to the editorial and commercial teams before they ask.
What We Are Looking For:
Required
• 5+ years of experience in financial research, data analysis, or a related role at an institutional investment firm, financial data company, or investment consultancy
• Deep familiarity with the institutional investment landscape — how pension funds, endowments, foundations, and asset managers operate, make decisions, and communicate publicly
• Demonstrated comfort using AI tools (large language models, automated research workflows, or similar) to improve research quality and efficiency
• Comfort working with unstructured data sources: board meeting audio and minutes, public filings, regulatory disclosures, and RFP documents
• Strong analytical and writing skills — you must be able to synthesize complex data into clear, accurate, concise summaries suitable for a sophisticated financial audience
• Experience managing large, complex datasets with a high standard of accuracy
• Bachelor's degree in finance, economics, or a related field
Preferred
• CFA charterholder, CFA candidate, CAIA charter, or Master's degree in finance, data science, or a related field
• Experience building or improving data collection and AI-assisted research workflows
• Familiarity with media or publishing environments
• Experience working directly with pension fund, endowment, or asset manager clients
Why This Role
P&I's proprietary data — our mandate database, our survey program, our rankings — is one of the most strategically important assets in institutional financial media. We are investing in the people and technology to build on that foundation and develop new products from it. The person who takes this role will have a direct line to editorial and research leadership, will help shape how we expand our data capabilities, and will see their work influence how the institutional investment industry understands itself.
If you have spent years in the institutional investment world and want to apply that knowledge to building something new — rather than maintaining something old — this role is worth your attention.
Pensions & Investments is a division of Crain Communications. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team.
Pay Transparency Disclosure:
The estimated salary range for this position is $120,000 to $130,000.
The final salary offering will take into account a wide range of factors, including experience, accomplishments and location. The salary range provided should not be considered as a salary limit or cap. In addition to base salary, Crain also offers competitive benefits including retirement plan savings contributions and bonus opportunities based on individual and company performance.
This position is exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act and is not eligible for overtime pay.
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Brand Overview:
Pensions & Investments delivers critical financial news, data, and analysis to executives responsible for the investment of large institutional assets such as pension funds, endowments and foundations. It reaches top global executives at corporations, governments, pension and retirement fund executives, investment advisers, consultants, and financial institutions. It is the world’s leading media brand for institutional investing.
@pensionsnews
About Crain Communications:
Crain Communications is a leading business news and information company with a portfolio of 24 media brands that provide indispensable coverage and data for professionals globally and across sectors, including advertising, automotive, finance, healthcare, staffing, and workforce solutions. Many of Crain’s brands are the most influential media properties in the industries and communities they serve, including Ad Age, Automotive News, Pensions & Investments, Modern Healthcare, Staffing Industry Analysts, as well as Crain’s regional business brands. For more than a century, our dedication to deep sector expertise and journalistic integrity has enabled us to provide trusted insights across all our platforms, empowering today’s business leaders to make industry-shaping decisions. To learn more about Crain Communications, visit crain.com.
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