Spotlight: Jacob Watkins on taking the financial services reins at Charles Aris

Jacob Watkins joined Charles Aris as an associate recruiter shortly after earning a psychology degree from Guilford College, and he knew early in his career that he wanted to pursue a leadership role at the firm. What he didn’t know was that this opportunity would be fast-tracked in a unique way to the firm when his mentor entrusted him to lead the Financial Services Practice during her extended nine-month maternity leave.

Like many associates at Charles Aris, Jacob began his career as a generalist recruiter working across practices. After spending a meaningful amount of time recruiting across different industries and functional practice areas, he officially joined the financial services strategy vertical.

This alignment allowed Jacob to narrow his focus area to one goal: Attracting and landing current and former management consultants from the top-tier consulting firms into a variety of functional roles for financial services clients.

Jacob partnered with and apprenticed under Ashlee Wagner, a vice president and practice leader at Charles Aris who launched the financial services strategy vertical in 2017. The associate recruiter soon worked his way up the ladder to associate practice leader, helping Ashlee complete searches as well as developing client relationships to help grow the practice.

Ashlee spent over five years building the financial services strategy vertical, and she had established successful relationships with many of the most prestigious firms across banking, insurance, FinTech, payments, credit cards and wealth/asset management. After working to bring Jacob into the practice and continue developing these relationships, Ashlee was scheduled to head out on maternity leave in 2022.

While it’s not the status quo for associate practice leaders to manage an entire practice for months at a time, Ashlee says she had no doubt Jacob was perfectly suited to lead the charge during her absence.

Jacob essentially took over Ashlee’s duties as practice leader, ensuring that open searches stayed on track and working with new and existing clients to continue adding top strategy talent to their teams in addition to establishing relationships with new firms in the space. Ashlee, while maintaining a healthy distance from work to be with her family, still checked in now and again. According to her, clients raved about Jacob and were thoroughly impressed with his ability to lead the practice and drive searches to successful completion.

During Ashlee’s absence in 2022, Charles Aris experienced some minor reorganization. The changes included new practice areas being introduced and deeper alignment between recruiters and practice leaders. One of Ashlee’s stated career goals has always been to help develop new practices, and given Jacob’s competence in leading financial services, she officially handed him the reins at the same time he earned his promotion to senior associate practice leader.

Now, Jacob is focused on the continuous development of the financial services strategy vertical. His practice is eager to deepen its expertise with new clients in the FinTech and banking subsectors, and Jacob is excited to continue pairing new clients with top-tier strategy consultants from top-tier firms, including the Big Three consulting firms. Ashlee is still assisting in this initiative, but she’s also heading the Charles Aris Private Equity Fund Level Practice, which focuses on placing strategy consultants into investing and portfolio operations roles with private equity firms.

Jacob grew up in North Carolina and earned his bachelor’s degree from Guilford College, a small Quaker school in Greensboro. He played varsity baseball in college and is currently earning his private pilot’s license. Outside of Charles Aris, Jacob is also a board member for the Kellin Foundation, a mental health advocacy group and nonprofit.

To learn more about our recruiting capabilities in strategy, financial services or private equity, contact Jacob Watkins at (336) 217-9151 / jacob.watkins@charlesaris.com or Ashlee Wagner at (336) 217-9142 / ashlee.wagner@charlesaris.com.