If you are running a small or mid sized US real estate GP and you are looking to hire a senior person to raise equity, here is a question worth answering before you write the job specification. Are you marketing the role with a seat on the investment committee?
It is not a question most GPs think to ask themselves. It is one that changes the shape of the candidate pool.
You are not going to win on cash alone
Start with the honest constraint. If you are a boutique competing against a large platform for a senior capital raiser, you are unlikely to win on compensation.
PERE’s 2026 compensation study with Sousou Partners found that median compensation across private real estate roles rose about 4 percent as fundraising conditions improved, with capital raising roles up 4.25 percent at the median. Managing directors in capital raising had a median total compensation of 950,000 dollars, with the top of the range reaching 2.3 million dollars. Those numbers are set by firms with balance sheets and fund families that a boutique does not have.
So if cash is not the lever, what is?
Influence is one of the main reasons people leave big platforms
In my conversations with senior capital raising professionals, influence comes up again and again as a reason for leaving a large firm. Not money. Not title. Influence.
It is worth being precise about what they mean, because it is easily misread. They are not asking to take over the investment process. They are not trying to become the CIO. What they are describing is the frustration of being the person who hears exactly what allocators think about the product, and then having no route to do anything about it.
They sit in front of LPs every week. They hear which fee structures are getting rejected. They hear which markets an allocator will not touch this cycle. They hear why the last three consultants passed. In a large platform that feedback often disappears into a process. In a smaller firm it can go straight into the room where decisions are made.
That is the offer. A voting or non voting seat is a way of saying that the commercial reality of the raise will shape the product, rather than being handed the product and asked to sell it.
What that influence actually changes
Three areas come up most often.
Fee structure. Preqin’s real estate report for 2026 found that the median management fee for 2025 vintage funds fell to 1.00 percent, a record low, against 1.50 percent for the period from 2005 to 2023. Terms are being negotiated harder than at any point in recent memory. Someone who is in front of LPs constantly is the best early warning system you have on where your terms sit against the market.
Strategy and market selection. The same report showed the concentration risk facing everyone below the mega funds. The ten largest funds took 53 percent of all capital raised in the first three quarters of 2025, up from 33 percent in 2024. If you are not one of those ten, your differentiation has to be sharper, and the person who hears LP objections first is well placed to help you sharpen it.
Pacing and sequencing. When to launch, when to hold, what to bring to market next. A capital raiser with visibility of the allocation calendar across 40 LPs has a view on that which is genuinely additive.
Voting or non voting
Both work. What matters is that the expectation is clear.
A non voting seat is often the right starting point. It gives the capital raiser visibility, a voice and a route to feed LP intelligence into the process, without changing your governance or creating awkwardness with the investment team. It can be reviewed after twelve months.
A voting seat is a bigger statement, and it should come with matching accountability. If someone votes on deals, they own part of the outcome.
Either way, the mistake is vagueness. “You will have a seat at the table” means nothing. “You will attend investment committee, you will not vote in year one, and you are expected to bring the LP view on terms, sector and market to every deal discussion” means something.
Be clear at the start of the process
If this is something you are open to, say so at the start of the interview process, not at offer stage.
Be specific about the impact you want. Helping drive investment decisions by addressing points on fee structure. Flagging markets or sectors that LPs in your target channel will not go near. Bringing a view on how a deal will be received before you are committed to it.
Doing this early has two effects. It widens the pool of people who will take the call, because it changes what the role is. And it filters for the right kind of senior person, because the candidates who engage seriously with that responsibility are the ones who think like partners rather than salespeople.
Practical takeaways
For GPs:
- Decide before you go to market whether an investment committee seat is on the table, and whether it is voting or non voting.
- Write down the three specific inputs you want from that seat. Fee structure, market selection and LP objection patterns are a good starting set.
- Put a review point at twelve months so the arrangement can evolve rather than being permanent from day one.
- Recognise that this is a compensating differential. If you cannot match platform cash, you need to be able to describe what you offer instead.
For senior capital raisers:
- If you are asked what would make you move, be specific about influence rather than describing it in general terms.
- Ask how investment decisions actually get made today, and who is in the room.
- Ask what happened the last time the capital raising view conflicted with the investment view.
The firms that get this right tend to end up with a wider pool to choose from and a genuinely different perspective in the room. Both are worth more than they cost.
Francis King works inch wide and mile deep on real estate capital raising and investor relations search across the US, which means we spend a lot of time on exactly this question of what a smaller GP can offer a platform hire. If you are structuring a senior mandate and want to talk it through, drop me a private message.