For most of the last century, the geography of US hedge fund and financial services activity followed a familiar script: New York, Connecticut’s Gold Coast, and Chicago for derivatives. The decade preceding the pandemic introduced some cosmetic diversification — a handful of family offices in Florida, pockets of venture capital in Austin — but the center of gravity of US finance remained firmly within commuting range of Midtown Manhattan, a pattern that had held structurally for half a century.
By the close of 2022, that structure had meaningfully shifted. Not collapsed, not inverted — New York continued to dominate the US financial services industry by nearly every metric. But the roughly 9 percentage points of AUM concentration that had migrated away from the New York-Connecticut-Illinois corridor between 2019 and 2022 represented hundreds of billions in managed assets and, more critically for the talent market, thousands of senior finance professionals who were no longer tethered to those traditional hubs.
What actually moved and why
The geographic redistribution of US finance unfolded through three distinct channels worth separating, because each carries different implications for senior talent markets.
Tax-residency migration without operational migration. The first wave, which gained momentum after the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act capped SALT deductions, centered on establishing Florida or Texas domicile for tax purposes while keeping substantive professional operations in New York. A hedge fund manager spending 190 days per year in Miami and 175 in New York has technically relocated, but their professional network, deal flow, and core relationships remain New York-anchored. This category generated real geographic mobility on paper but produced minimal change in the talent market dynamics of any particular city.
Operational center-of-gravity shifts. The second wave, accelerated by COVID-era remote-work normalization, involved genuine relocation of operational centers of gravity. When Citadel relocated its headquarters from Chicago to Miami in 2022, it meant the investment committee, portfolio management function, and day-to-day operations were physically moving — not merely the tax residency of founding partners. This is the category that truly reshapes talent markets, because it demands building or tapping into deep local talent pools rather than simply adjusting a tax filing.
New firm formation in new geographies. The third wave is less conspicuous but arguably the most consequential over the long term: new financial services firms established from scratch in non-New York locations. A Series A fintech launched in Austin in 2021 carries no New York legacy, recruits locally, builds its network locally, and steadily adds to the density of senior finance talent in Austin independent of any migration narrative. This category accumulates slowly but compounds meaningfully over time.
The Florida dynamic in 2022
By the close of 2022, Florida represented the most visible chapter in the geographic reshaping of US finance. The state had gone from hosting roughly 24 notable investment management firms in 2019 to a cluster of more than 76 by late 2022. The AUM associated with those firms had expanded from an estimated $57 billion to over $380 billion in a three-year span — driven primarily by hedge fund and family office relocations rather than new firm formation.
The compensation picture in Florida at the end of 2022: meaningfully below New York equivalents in gross terms (typically a 14% to 24% gap for comparable VP-level finance roles) but frequently superior in net disposable income for professionals in the highest income brackets, once state income tax differentials and housing costs are properly factored in. We covered the detailed arithmetic in our Miami piece.
The talent pool challenge was already apparent: Miami had absorbed a substantial wave of senior finance migration but had not yet cultivated a deep local talent pool for the most specialized roles. The majority of searches we conducted for Miami-based hedge fund positions in 2022 required national candidate pools. This dynamic persisted through 2023 and 2024.
Texas in 2022
Texas in 2022 presented a more understated finance narrative than Florida, largely because the Citadel announcement was a Chicago-to-Miami relocation rather than a New York-to-Texas move. The Texas financial services story in 2022 was driven chiefly by the Dallas-Fort Worth market, where Goldman Sachs had announced its major campus and Charles Schwab had completed its relocation from San Francisco. The AUM figures were smaller than Florida’s, but the corporate-finance and wealth-management infrastructure was arguably already more mature.
We placed 13 senior finance professionals in Texas in 2022, up from 6 in 2021 and essentially zero in 2019. The roles were almost entirely in Dallas-Fort Worth, almost entirely at companies with deep New York or California roots, and almost entirely involved candidates who had previously worked in those markets and were choosing Texas primarily for quality-of-life and tax considerations rather than because the professional opportunity surpassed what they could find elsewhere.
What this meant for senior talent
For senior finance professionals, the geographic diversification of the industry opened specific opportunities. The most sought-after candidates in 2022 were those combining strong New York institutional finance credentials with genuine willingness to work from non-New York locations. Companies building out Miami or Dallas operations needed proven talent but could not always attract it from New York given the compensation discount. Candidates who bridged this gap — possessing both the institutional credentials and the geographic flexibility — frequently negotiated unusually strong packages that included enhanced equity, larger sign-on bonuses, and more senior titles specifically to offset the perceived career risk of relocating to a thinner market.
Looking ahead
The 2022 dynamics established the trajectory that unfolded through 2023, 2024, and into 2025. Florida continued its expansion, Texas continued to develop, and the “finance anywhere” norm continued to gain ground. The current state of compensation and talent markets in each of these geographies is detailed in our Texas market piece and Miami piece, both drawing on our 2025-2026 placement data.
The competitive dynamics for talent
The geographic diversification of US finance produced specific competitive dynamics that played out in revealing ways for senior talent. Companies establishing new operations in Miami, Austin, or Dallas in 2022 confronted the challenge of competing for talent against both incumbent institutions in those markets and the New York and Chicago firms simultaneously trying to retain the same individuals.
The most effective approach, based on our placement experience, was straightforward: present an explicit, concrete total compensation picture encompassing tax advantages, housing differentials, and lifestyle factors, rather than expecting candidates to run the numbers independently. Companies that prepared detailed total-compensation analyses comparing net-of-tax, net-of-housing disposable income between their market and the candidate’s current market were consistently more successful at closing candidates than those that offered vague lifestyle appeals alongside a salary figure 14% below NYC.
The sign-on bonus also assumed unusual importance in this market transition: companies needed to compensate candidates for the unvested equity and near-term bonuses they were forfeiting at New York and Chicago firms, plus the transaction costs of relocation (real estate commissions, closing costs on a new purchase, moving expenses). Sign-on packages for VP-level geographic relocations to Miami and Dallas in 2022 were, in our data, running 38% to 67% above the sign-ons for purely local non-relocation hires at comparable levels.
Institutional dynamics: which firms moved operations vs. just people
Not all “migrations” in 2022 represented equivalent commitments to the new markets. Distinguishing between categories is essential for senior professionals evaluating which geographic opportunities merit serious consideration.
The most durable opportunities originated from firms that relocated genuine operational infrastructure, not merely office addresses. When Citadel moved its headquarters to Miami, it transferred investment committee decision-making, technology infrastructure, and the operational resources necessary to run a global asset management firm from a new location. When Goldman Sachs committed to a major Dallas campus, it planned to house thousands of employees there with operational functions that would anchor the presence even through leadership transitions.
The least durable opportunities came from “flag-planting” expansions: a small satellite office with a senior partner who spent two months per year there, lacking operational infrastructure, local recruiting, or any genuine intention of shifting the center of gravity away from New York. These offices frequently shuttered within two years, leaving the senior professionals who had made geographic decisions based on them in precarious positions.
For the current state of the Miami and Texas markets that evolved from this 2022 foundation, see our detailed analyses in Miami’s rise as a finance hub and the Texas hiring market.