Job Description

Head of Research

San Mateo, CA | Full-Time

About Sankhara

Sankhara is a groundbreaking private equity fund dedicated to collecting, protecting and preserving the human experience through extraordinary physical assets. Rare books, maps, religious artifacts, classic cars, cultural landmarks, iconic sports memorabilia, and more - each with a unique story that shapes history. With a 100-year vision, our mission is to democratize ownership of history, making it accessible to the masses and protected by us, the philosopher-builders fostering a shared world.

The Role

Sankhara is hiring a Head of Research - a disciplined, highly capable, and deeply curious research leader who will be responsible for building, leading, and executing the research backbone of the firm.

This is not an academic role. This is not theoretical. This is a role for someone who has done serious institutional-grade research before - ideally on rare physical assets. Someone who understands how world-class analysis is constructed, how credibility is earned, and how research must stand up to auditors, LP diligence, skeptics, and historians alike. Someone who can think with commercial judgment and cultural reverence, while maintaining uncompromising standards of truth, rigor, provenance, and documentation.

You will work directly with the President and CEO. You will be deeply hands-on, producing research personally while building the frameworks, governance, agentic AI systems, and eventually a research function that scales. You will leverage your own expertise while building a trusted network of cultural, historical, technical, academic, and category experts - knowing when to utilize outside specialists.

If you want to help ensure that Sankhara not only acquires treasures, but understands them with depth, integrity, and authority - this is that opportunity.

What You Will Do

Asset-Level Research and Diligence

• Lead research supporting potential acquisitions across all Sankhara verticals.
• Develop, maintain, and continuously elevate the firm’s research methodology and standards.
• Conduct primary and secondary research on provenance, authenticity, cultural importance, historical relevance, and risk considerations.
• Produce structured, defensible research briefs to support investment decisions.
• Where necessary, engage, manage, and coordinate subject matter experts, researchers, historians, scientists, and technical authorities.
• Ensure research supports responsible decision-making, not storytelling bias.

Institutional Credibility and Governance

• Design and maintain research frameworks that withstand institutional scrutiny.
• Ensure research is audit-ready, organized, documented, and verifiable.
• Support LP diligence needs through clear, high-quality research outputs.
• Partner with legal, finance, and operations to ensure alignment between research, compliance, and governance expectations.
• Contribute to clear standards around provenance management and authenticity validation.
• Build trust and confidence with internal stakeholders by being the steady, disciplined truth source.

Thought Leadership and Scholarly Rigor

• Help establish Sankhara as a serious, credible, intellectually grounded institution.
• Produce high-quality materials as needed for Board review, executive decision-making, and strategic thinking.
• Support the development of internal knowledge infrastructure across categories and themes.
• Identify emerging cultural and thematic research areas relevant to future acquisitions.
• Where appropriate, support external-facing thought leadership, while always anchoring in substance over hype.

Execution, Leadership, and Enablement

• Build and lead the Research function over time.
• Build out and maintain agentic AI systems for the Research function.
• Be highly hands-on in the near term, personally doing a meaningful portion of research work.
• Create documentation systems, workflow tools, and research architecture that scale.
• Know when to leverage outside experts and when to execute directly.
• Where useful, thoughtfully introduce process improvements, technology, tooling, or automation (including AI where appropriate) to enhance speed and rigor - without compromising standards.
• Operate with urgency, but never at the expense of quality or integrity.

Who We’re Looking For

Required

• 3–5+ years of formal research experience in environments such as Gartner, Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Bonhams, leading consulting research organizations, major museums, or equivalent.
• Proven track record producing serious, structured, and defensible research.
• Experience working in environments that require accuracy, auditability, and institutional credibility.
• Ability to synthesize complex cultural, historical, financial, and contextual information into structured research outputs.
• Hands-on, execution-first mentality while capable of building toward a broader function.

Preferred

• Experience across cultural assets, rare collectibles, historical objects, museums, or heritage fields.
• Experience in research supporting investment, diligence, or risk frameworks.
• Exposure to working with CEOs, Boards, or executive leadership.
• Comfort operating in a fast-moving, ambitious environment without sacrificing rigor.

What Success Looks Like

• Sankhara develops an institutional-grade research backbone that is highly respected internally and externally.
• Research materially strengthens investment decisions and institutional confidence.
• LPs, auditors, advisors, and partners trust Sankhara’s depth, seriousness, and documentation.
• The firm’s narrative becomes stronger because its foundation is unassailably true.
• The executive team sleeps better knowing research is disciplined, responsible, and world-class.

Compensation

Competitive base compensation, performance-based bonus opportunity, and long-term upside participation potential (including equity, carry, and/or token-linked economics depending on structure).

Why This Role Matters

Sankhara is building something designed to last centuries. This role ensures that what we collect, protect, and share with the world is deeply understood, properly honored, defensible, and documented - preserving not only treasures themselves, but the truth and meaning behind them.

If that excites you - we’d love to meet you.

How to Apply

Interested candidates should apply through LinkedIn and/or submit their resume and a cover letter detailing their qualifications and experience to blake@sankhara.com.

Join us at Sankhara and help us on this incredible journey!

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