In a year dominated by the impact of the pandemic, other trends have tended to be somewhat overlooked in many reports. Yet Armel Leslie, Partner at Peaks Strategies, winner of this year’s Best PR and Communications award, is tracking an underlying shift in some areas.
ESG and sustainable investing continues to be a major factor, both in how clients are managing portfolios and positioning for allocations from target investors.
“We are doing a lot more work for donor advised funds (DAFs) and other specialist alternative managers in this regard, and we now have a good track-record and client base in that niche, as well as staff and consultants that are passionate about this space and knowledgeable about the media landscape,” Leslie says.
He further notes the trend towards digital assets, either via investing in crypto, investing in tokenised securities or the growing applications around DeFi. “Many investment managers are now allocating or exploring this space, so that’s an exciting new asset class that we have luckily been entrenched in quite early on,” Leslie comments.
Peaks Strategies is also seeing interest and representing clients from the service provider side of the digital asset house, as it look to reach the buy-side with its offerings.
Over the next 12-18 months, Leslie believes that signs are pointing to continued AuM growth for the industry, and investors (both institutional and retail) need the diversification that alternatives provide.
“While the large, established players will continue to gain market-share, there are always opportunities for niche players to emerge and succeed, and we enjoy working with some of the more off-the-run managers (alternative) that are introducing new strategies into the market and innovating and finding new ways to capture alpha,” Leslie says.
Overcoming challenges
To meet current and ongoing challenges, Peaks Strategies is seeing a large pick-up in client demand for content creation, ranging from short-form social media posts through to long-form white papers, and everything in between.
However, Leslie says: “Earned media is still our bread and butter and pound for pound still the most impactful and cost-effective form of marketing communications. So, media relations is vital and helping promote news, subject matter expertise, and thought leadership via these channels is a major part of what we do.”
Leslie feels that Peaks Strategies has navigated the pandemic era well and its business has grown substantially in the past 18 months. “We are well set-up to be both remote and have a central office space to be used as needed,” he says.
“In addition, we have assembled a core of best-in-class advisors and consultants who we can turn to to meet specialised client needs and PR tasks, including digital strategies, content creation, and media training,” he adds.
On winning this award, Leslie feels that it is “our dedication to senior level service, predicated by our boutique model and our unrivaled knowledge and experience in this space” that differentiates Peaks Strategies in a crowded and competitive field.
“We are fortunate to have clients and industry colleagues that have supported us for many years, as we build and foster long-term relationships, and it’s an honour to accept this award again,” he concludes. 
Armel LesliePartner, Peaks Strategies
Armel Leslie is a Partner at Peaks Strategies, delivering integrated brand-building campaigns for clients across the capital markets ecosystem with a strong reputation and expertise across alternative investment management. Leslie began his career at Walek & Associates in 1999 where he rose to a Partner by the time of its sale to integrated PR agency Peppercomm in 2013, where Leslie was Senior Director of Capital Markets. Following his time at Peppercomm, Leslie was a Senior Vice President at Sloane & Company, where he oversaw some of the firm’s leading financial services clients.
