Vanguard, the asset management giant with over $12 trillion under its belt, has solidified its growing interest in crypto with its latest move. This week, the Philadelphia-headquartered company started looking to expand its team with its first ever Head of Digital Assets. The development would essentially give Vanguard a chance to catch-up with its competing asset managers like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton who have been hiring talent to oversee their strategies related to virtual digital assets (VDAs).
The role will fall under Vanguard’s Personal Wealth division — that offers personalized and holistic wealth management solutions to the company clients. The asset manager is looking for somebody with ten years of related work experience and a deep understanding of digital assets.
The selected individual would be responsible for chalking out Vanguard’s digital asset strategy going from risk evaluations to launching new products, and implement its own digital assets initiatives.
Vanguard is seemingly looking to prepare a scalable VDA strategy which will bring elaborate product and technology operations to the table. The company has seen a rise in customer demands seeking deep digital assets services which has nudged it to hire a dedicated senior-level executive to deal with client segments related to these VDAs.
The hired individual will be tasked with connecting with industry participants and regulators as well to keep the company at par with market standards and the evolving digital assets ecosystem.
Under “Responsibilities”, Vanguard said the hired individual would advise senior company leaders on market developments, regulatory changes, competitor strategies while also leading fresher talent with expertise across digital assets.
“At Vanguard, we’re on a mission to work for the long-term financial wellbeing of our clients,” the job posting said.
For this role, the openings have been made live for the locations of Dallas, Scottsdale, Charlotte, and Malvern.
However, the company is prioritizing hiring talent from within the U.S. as it is not offering a visa sponsorship for this position.
Source: Vanguardjobs.com
Up until a few years ago, Vanguard had positioned itself among Wall Street’s most vocal crypto holdout. Back in January 2024, the asset manager had imposed a ban on its brokerage clients from purchasing the newly approved spot Bitcoin ETFs. At the time, the company had said that crypto lacked any real economic value which is what keeps it unqualified to be included on balanced portfolios.
The company’s outlook around crypto, however, started to change after former BlackRock official Salim Ramji was appointed as Vanguard’s CEO. At BlackRock, Ramji had launched the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) — a pro-crypto perspective that he brought to Vanguard as well.
In December last year, Vanguard officially lifted its ban on crypto ETFs and allowed its U.S. brokerage platform to open access to buy and sell third-party crypto-focused ETFs and mutual funds to its 50 million clients. The company now lets its clients access assets including BTC, ETH, XRP, and Solana funds.
The company, as of now, has not revealed any plans to launch any proprietary crypto products of its own.
Meanwhile, over the last few years, several asset managers have forayed into crypto-related services. In the process, they have hired seasoned crypto experts onto their teams.
BlackRock, for instance, maintains an active hiring pipeline for its Digital Assets and Corporate Strategy teams. It frequently keeps scouting for Directors of Digital Assets, Digital Assets Legal Counsel, and Financial Crime/Compliance Associates. Individuals on this role are tasked with activities like handling tokenization structures and handling cash funds.
Fidelity Investments and Franklin Templeton have also been hiring for roles like Digital Asset Product Managers, quantative traders, blockchain engineers, smart contract developers, and digital asset analysts among others.
The annual salaries for these roles usually range within $100,000 to over $200,000. Just a few weeks ago, cards giant American Express posted a job opening for a senior-level crypto executive role. The company had offered an annual salary of upto $282,000 at its Amex Digital Labs unit.
