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Cape founder and CEO Alex Vukajlovic on why work culture matters – and the employee pairings that play to individual strengths.
From day one of Cape Capital, the culture of the organisation was imperative to our business model. I have always believed that it is important in how you grow a company and how purposeful you are over time. Of course, at the beginning, in 2002, it was relatively easy because we had fewer employees. Today, we are 40 plus people. We’ve tried to keep a relatively flat structure but inevitably there is departmentalisation and more effort is needed to retain the same spirit of culture.
What I’ve learnt in the last 24 years of managing teams is that one of the biggest problems for a small company is hiring those at the mid-level of their career. These individuals are typically aged 30 to 50 and at the peak of their power and ambition, in a position where they want to maximise their own personal standing, income and CV. Many of them have worked in hierarchical organisations where they must push and be political to get ahead. Acting in this way becomes a muscle memory but it’s incompatible with a company like Cape, which really cares about culture.
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In the Swiss financial industry, historically, the age of 50 has been a tipping point. By then, someone has risen through the ranks. They are earning more money, have a better title, and a number of perks. But often that individual has drifted away from their core competence, moved into managing people and processes, whilst becoming way more expensive. Suddenly senior management realises there is someone younger on the team who can deliver the same role for a fraction of the cost. The 50-year-old is out of a job but doesn’t want to sit around in the South of France or Spain playing chess: they’ve still got more to give.
At Cape, what we offer those selected few is a second career. We might not pay them what they were earning before, but we enable passionate professionals to get back to doing the job they once loved in a stimulating environment, without politics, with no retirement age and flexibility on how many days they work.
At the other end of the ladder are graduates who leave university with high expectations. If they land a job in a large organisation run like a machine, they are often disappointed. For anyone without strong elbows, it can be hard to succeed. They are technically fresh and good with software but lack experience – both in their subject matter and in dealing with people. The environment they start their career in will define their character and working DNA.
For us, the client comes first, the organisation second, and personal interests then follow.
For the last eight years or so, where possible, at Cape we have paired both groups – those just starting out with top level specialists. The younger generation brings an energy and a naivety; the older generation brings expertise. One advantage is that they’re not competing for each other’s jobs. Another factor to consider as one of the reasons clients come to us, is the longevity of the relationship. It’s like going to the doctor when you’ve stripped naked and revealed personal details about yourself: no-one likes to then have to change doctor and repeat the process. Similarly, when someone is sharing information about their finances in confidence, they don’t want their wealth manager to leave. For us, the client comes first, the organisation second, and personal interests then follow. We’re there to understand someone’s issues, create a connection and provide solutions. Those at the senior end of their employment are incredibly loyal for longer than even they anticipate and they are supported by a younger counterpart.
As I was writing this article, I spoke to one such working partnership, William Raynar, our Thematic Research Advisor, and Oscar Puype, an intern, about their impressions of the culture at Cape. “Even before I joined Cape, I saw it as very agile, and since I arrived in 2024, I don’t think I’ve ever had a ‘no’ in terms of resources or ideas,” said William. “The business is always looking for those who think outside the box and where they excel, and therefore as an employee, you feel valued. I’m a lateral, top-down helicopter thinker and Oscar brings my ideas together by looking at the micro details, in a way that makes them consumable by the team and, most importantly, by clients.”
According to Oscar, having the opportunity to work with someone older brings a multitude of benefits. “Being able to have one-on-one time with someone who is as experienced as William is the best thing a new university graduate can ask for. What’s been great is that I have my monthly deliverables, but I can venture out and work on additional projects: now my work with William is around 60 per cent of my workload and I’ve been given so much more responsibility that I’m certain I wouldn’t have been in another organisation,” he told me.
From a social duty perspective, the world of AI has only confirmed in my mind the need for even more of this type of pairing. The younger generation is most vulnerable to the implementation of agents like Claude who can complete tasks quicker – and post-university unemployment numbers are skyrocketing. For instance, in February it was reported by job-matching platform Adzuna that youth employment, age 16-24 in the UK has climbed to 16.1 per cent (in London to 25 per cent) – the highest level in over a decade – while graduate vacancies have fallen by 45 per cent over the past year. The company suggested that these figures were in response, not only to higher payroll taxes and minimum wage rises, but also to the expanding capabilities of AI tools.
Combining a senior brain with the agility and skillset of a young person who is a digital native is the sweet spot.
It’s a paradox because, of course, the younger generation are the savviest when it comes to using computers. Empowering the team is the key in organisational developments; something that has never been easier thanks to AI, as mistakes are cheap and easily corrected. But while the execution cost of intelligence is dropping massively, what matters more is real life experience and the intangible elements of relationships. We are a small organisation but by actively employing the young, we hope to set an example.
We are also in a situation now where graduates are choosing our internship scheme over bigger institutions because they’ve heard about our culture, and the way that we operate. For us, internships are a way of observing someone: their personality, their attention to detail, whether they have what we need to hire them in the future. Where the age partnership comes in is that in operating agents like Claude, it helps to have life experience: you need a chief architect who understands Excel models and systems and the dynamics of data. Combining a senior brain with the agility and skillset of a young person who is a digital native is the sweet spot. As Cape has evolved into a new technological sequence, we’ve seen the impact of these pairings mature incredibly well. Our future at Cape is defined by collaboration and empowerment. Collaboration of experience and curiosity, and one generation empowering another.
Listen to William, Oscar and Alex talk more in depth on this topic in our latest Cape Compass episode here
Alex Vukajlovic
Founder and CEO, Cape Capital