The majority of Paloma’s returns come from active management, not passive holding. The Associate Director owns the business plan and the performance narrative for each asset. A wrong hire would slow execution and weaken the culture of ownership the platform runs on.

The Associate Director owns the business plan for each asset, so the role needs two things that rarely sit in the same person: the experience to report at board level, and the commercial instinct to stand on a site and get the right outcome from a contractor, an agent or a partner.

Culture matters at Paloma, and it shows: churn is low and the team is loyal. Everyone co-invests in the funds and holds carried interest, so a genuine long-term fit counted just as much as the technical track record.

Following a comprehsive performance briefing, and every stakeholder was aligned to what success was, 124 candidates were mapped across UK value-add real estate platforms, PE-backed investment managers, and asset management teams inside REITs and specialist funds.

Rockbourne screened candidates against the brief, and once candidates had been qualified, we shared a Paloma-branded microsite built around an audio Q&A recorded by a senior Director. Hearing someone talk about the culture, the deals and the alignment model provided a different experience from reading a job spec. By the time candidates came to interview, they already understood what they were walking into and could jump into a nuance conversation.

As a second screening stage, genuinely interested candidates were assessed against a bespoke set of functional questions on multi-let asset execution and commercial decision-making with incomplete information, alongside behavioural questions testing the ownership mentality the platform requires. Only candidates who had cleared the functional and behavioural bar at screening stage entered the process.

Three stages followed: a first-round conversation with two members of the investment and asset management team, a written case study assessed by two Senior Directors, and a final founder meeting focused on long-term alignment and cultural fit.