Rainmaker

What is ‘Rainmaker’

A broker or financial advisor who brings a large number of wealthy clients to the firm he or she works for. Rainmakers are skilled at expanding their client base and increasing their assets under management. As such, they are typically highly compensated. Also, because of their proven ability to generate revenue for one firm, they may be heavily recruited by competing firms and offered significant financial incentives to make the switch.

Explaining ‘Rainmaker’

If a rainmaker leaves a firm and takes his or her clients, the firm can suffer a significant loss of future revenue, as well as the loss of reputation that comes with losing a well known broker/advisor. Rainmakers often have teams of brokers or advisers who work under them, and these teams may be part of a package deal when a rainmaker changes firms, which adds to their former firm’s losses.

Further Reading

  • The bonus-driven" rainmaker" financial firm: How these firms enrich top employees, destroy shareholder value and create system financial instability – www.econstor.eu [PDF]
  • Rainmakers: The most successful criminal justice scholars and departments in research grant acquisition – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • Income dynamics, economic rents, and the financialization of the US economy – journals.sagepub.com [PDF]
  • Tax increment financing, economic development professionals and the financialization of urban politics – academic.oup.com [PDF]
  • The Rainmaker's Mistake: An Extract – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • Rainmakers for the Harvest of Technology – heinonline.org [PDF]
  • Financial markets: a tool for social responsibility? – link.springer.com [PDF]