Véronique Fournier of Apollo was announced as Personality of the Year by a panel of judges at the IPEM Wealth Awards 2025. Here we learn more about her story to building a wealth platform at one of the industry's largest players.
Véronique joined Apollo Global Management in 2022. As Head of Global Wealth Management Solutions EMEA, she leads the Wealth Distribution team from the Zurich office, bringing extensive capital formation experience to help the firm grow its private wealth business. “What I took with me when I joined Apollo was the idea that there was a fantastic opportunity for wealth investors to access private markets opportunities, which in the past were only available to institutional investors. In 2022, it felt like there was clearly something happening in the industry,” says Veronique.
Prior to joining Apollo, Veronique spent eight years at Barings where she held a number of senior roles to help lead Barings’ sales efforts across EMEA with both institutional and wealth clients.
Early in her career at the turn of the century, banks were first starting to move towards an open architecture model and partner with external fund managers. In 2002, Veronique became one of the founding members of the Global Financial Institutions Group at Schroders. Her focus was on ensuring that Schroders was seen not just as a supplier of products, but as a trusted partner providing tailored solutions to global financial institutions.
I lived through the challenge of what it means to suddenly be distributed on a global bank's platform.
The group was headed up by Jamie Dorrien-Smith who later served as CEO at Schroder Investment Management North America from 1999 to 2013.
“We started signing up all these strategic partnerships. It was extremely exciting, but I also lived through the challenge of what it means to suddenly be distributed on a global bank's platform and the fact that you're dealing with them from a high-net-worth client all the way to a retail client. You have to bring solutions to them; whether that's operational, educational, as well as the underlying product solution. That was a massive learning curve that has helped me at Apollo, who had never really done focused on a dedicated wealth distribution. It’s not just about getting your fund on a platform. It's about making sure you work with your distribution partner(s) to service and educate private clients
Dorrien-Smith became an important mentor as they embarked on meeting the leaders of major global banks. He challenged her when, in her mind, she had diligently prepared the perfect presentation. “There were always things he would change. And every time I would go, ‘That makes total sense’. I learned that feedback is the most amazing tool. It's so empowering. He gave me belief that I could do even more,” reflects Veronique.
The importance of feedback is something that Veronique champions within the Apollo Global Wealth leadership team, especially when building something new.
“One of the reasons I joined Apollo was because I could see there was a huge commitment from the organisation. We went from zero to 150 people in a very short period of time. If you don't give each other feedback about what's working and what's not working, we're not going to improve and remain ahead of the curve. In order to succeed, you need an organisation that is fast paced, innovative, commercially driven and ambitious. And I found that at Apollo. To me that was very satisfying and very empowering,” explains Veronique.
Passion and a desire to work in a fast, dynamic culture are clear to see when hearing Veronique talk about the long-term growth opportunity that Apollo is pursuing. In the next five years, Veronique and the global wealth team have an ambitious, collective ambition: to hit $150 billion.
Joining Apollo was also an opportunity to build something from scratch. Although she had been successfully running a sales team at Barings, it was one that she had effectively inherited over the years.
“This was a chance to take everything I'd learned from the private wealth distribution world, from the private markets world, and bring it all together to create something new for Apollo,” she says.
Veronique brings a deep understanding of the wealth distribution space, having started her career in mutual funds and lived through the operational realities of serving wealth clients - providing daily NAVs, precise reporting, and high service expectations.
This grounding has proved invaluable at Apollo where wealth clients expect the same quality of reporting from their evergreen private market funds. Many of Apollo’s senior leaders share a similar background in traditional asset management, with experience of distributing into wealth.
“This has been critical to building trust,” says Veronique. “The fact is, we’re being entrusted with people’s money and that comes with a responsibility to deliver a certain level of service.”
That sense of responsibility is central to how Veronique builds her team and how she views Apollo’s mission. Integrity, accountability and education are key pillars, especially as more asset managers enter the private wealth space.
“Apollo has real skin in the game. We own a significant portion of the assets that sit in our wealth assets on our own balance sheet. That alignment with our clients matters – we share the same outcome”, she concludes.