alchelyst
Jack McRae speaks to Joan Kehoe, founder and CEO of alchelyst, about her life, career, and her dreams of leading the field
Joan Kehoe grew up on a farm in south-east Ireland as the eldest of eight siblings and did not know what she wanted to do with her life. When she turned 18 and finished school in 1984, she could not know which direction her life was going to take her. But, she says, “I got lucky.”
Kehoe has just landed back in Dublin after a business trip to New York as she looks to continue to build her fund administration company, alchelyst. She launched the business in early 2023, and was licensed by the Central Bank of Ireland at the back end of that year, and has already established a presence in Ireland, India, and Luxembourg with a view to breaking into the US markets in the future. Her path had never been set in stone, but Kehoe has carved an impressive one out. When she started her career at the Investment Bank of Ireland, she just assumed, “I was going into a bank. I liked the subjects but did I have any aspirations? Not particularly. What 18 year old has a clue what they want to do?”
Unbeknownst to her, that first job would plunge her into the emerging financial services industry and at the forefront of fund administration.
“I actually got lucky, which is a bit of a theme throughout my career,” Kehoe laughs. “It was very much at the start of what is now the financial services sector and the IFSC in Dublin one of the early players in the fund administration space.”
Kehoe spent six years at the Bank of Ireland, before joining Paul McNaughton’s Morgan Grenfell operation in Dublin where she was head of shareholder servicing. As she continued to build her experience and skills, Kehoe was eventually headhunted by PFPC to help establish their business in Ireland, where she would rise to the position of CEO.
“I stayed there until 2006 and then decided to leave to set up Quintillion — a privately owned hedge fund administration business made up by a group of us that came out of PFPC,” Kehoe explains.
“We grew that business over the next 10 years and sold it to US Bancorp in 2014.”
Kehoe stayed with the business to oversee the transition before departing to join J.P. Morgan as global head of alternative investment services. After over five years there, Kehoe was ready to build again and chance her luck.
Catalyst to alchelyst
“I’ve been involved in the startup, the growth, or the rebuild phase [of firms] throughout my whole career, which is kind of interesting,” Kehoe reflects on a career which has spanned close to four decades in the financial services industry.
Is there a reason why Kehoe keeps turning to new projects that require building from the ground up, beyond the fascination?
“I enjoy the build but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t difficult Jack. Opportunities have come up to do things that I was really interested in doing and I have been incredibly fortunate with the people I’ve worked with,” Kehoe responds.
“I guess I talked about being lucky. It’s about being in the right place, at the right time, and being around the right people. That’s hugely important.”
She explains how she has been fortunate to work with many of the same people throughout her career so far. “For a bunch of people at alchelyst, it is our fourth time working together having been together at PFPC, Quintilian, J.P. Morgan, and now alchelyst.”
Kehoe refutes the suggestion that they have followed her specifically into each business and humbly points to the fact that “culture is really important and I think the collective of people should take the credit for that.”
Alchelyst has grown into three different jurisdictions, with a view for further expansion. “We’re licensed in Dublin and we’ve got an office in Bangalore with a team of about 12 people down there and we’ve got our head of Luxembourg hired. She’s helping us with the application process and lined up a number of people to come and join us there. Then the plan would be to go to the States.”
In order to get there, however, some key hurdles have to be cleared first.
Being nimble
“The biggest challenge is getting that first bunch of clients on board. The first hurdle is always about hitting that break even number, which for us, we think it’s about 10 or 11 clients,” Kehoe explains. Having established her own business previously, Kehoe is keen to take lessons from that first experience with Quintillian.
“At Quintillian, I don’t think we were ready for how long it took us to get that credibility and build up. That was something I definitely learned from.”
Given the fund administration place is highly competitive and dominated by a number of huge banks, alchelyst will have to convince people to take a chance on the smaller firm.
“The challenge is always going to be coming up against the big guys. It’s like saying, ‘You’re not going to get fired for buying Microsoft, right?’”
Kehoe laughs as she recalls Microsoft’s global IT outage that morning. “Kind of a funny day to be having that conversation but joking aside, it’s getting those clients in.”
She continues more seriously: “It’s getting managers comfortable using a smaller player, because it’s easy to pick a big one. Getting the market to see the advantages of working with a smaller and more nimble one is a challenge but it’s not an insurmountable hurdle.”
So, how will they get ahead?
“What I see in this business is an opportunity. We’ve come in with a greenfield site and we can use the best, the smartest technology. We can build something from scratch and that’s what I think is attractive,” Kehoe begins.
“We want to be nimble. That is the key thing and it is much easier for a firm like ours to be nimble. It is not without its difficulties and finding that dozen clients doesn’t come easy. You’ve got to get out banging on doors and really graft at this stage.”
“You live and die in the strength of your building process. There are loads of opportunities in this space and it’s going to continue to grow. Competition doesn’t scare me and it’s not something I’d be afraid of.”
Kehoe acknowledges that the process to build up the business to that break-even number can be thrilling, albeit difficult, and puts a lot of pressure on herself.
She says: “Once the first clients come to you and you’ve got a track record and you’ve got referenceable clients, I definitely think it becomes easier. It’s a hugely exciting phase and I love it, but it is absolutely terrifying.
“Private investors have put equity into this business with us and are massively supportive. They understand it’s a build and it takes time, but I certainly feel a huge responsibility to them and the team here who have left very senior jobs to come and join this.”
As someone who has prided herself on luck, is Kehoe prepared for a moment in which the luck runs out?
“Oh, that’s a mean question!” She chuckles, feigning offence, before again turning the conversation away from her own accomplishments, and to her team’s.
“This is not about me. While definitely, I’ve had luck in meeting the right people and being in the right place, but that’s also down to the saying ‘the harder you work, the luckier you get’.”
Looking back
Forty years ago, Kehoe would have been in her final year of school, blissfully unaware of the industry and journey she was set to embark on. She has worked at some of the biggest players in the field and established two of her own businesses successfully, but is it with any regret?
Kehoe is completely matter of fact as she dismisses the idea. She explains solemnly: “I’m not a great believer in regrets. I don’t tend to look backwards very often, other than to learn from the past. But I’m not somebody who sits here and goes, ‘Oh, God, Why’d I do that?’ I think it’s a waste of really good energy but you can learn from it.”
Kehoe has shaped her own path throughout the industry and in a way that her 18-year-old version would not have been able to envision. Curious how a conversation between her now and then would turn out, I want to know how a younger Joan would have reacted.
“Oh, Jesus, I hate these questions!” Kehoe bemoans humorously before taking a thoughtful moment to consider the question.
“What would she say to me?” Kehoe repeats the question quietly before answering, “I think she would say what an incredible career, incredible journey and I’ve met some incredible people. I’ve travelled the world with this business and I think she would think ‘Wow, really?’”
It is possible to sense Kehoe’s pride at her incredible career, even if her humility turns a simple hypothetical question into a tortuous ordeal. Although she is not able to talk to herself from the past, Kehoe does speak to other young women looking to her for mentorship and the lessons she has bestowed on others, she would offer to herself.
Kehoe speaks benignly as she tells how she would tell her 18-year-old self to, “just go for it. Don’t be afraid. At different times in your career you will have insecurities about where you’re going or what you want to be.”
She continues: “I do a fair bit of mentoring and I always say don’t look back, everybody makes mistakes. In the early part of my career, I absolutely was that person who would make a stupid mistake and go home and be thinking about it for the whole night.
“The other thing I would say is, don’t be afraid to take those risks if it is something that you really want to do. People have all kinds of different paths and different roles, just go for it.”
The key message Kehoe wants to send to her younger self, and other young women beginning their careers in the financial services industry, is clear.
In the midst of a four decade career and the start of her latest path with alchelyst, Kehoe knows more than anyone, as she ends with encouragement: “Don’t sweat the small stuff, there’s a big career out there.”
