About the study

Beyond IQ — Private Capital Performance Study is a doctoral (PhD) research project carried out at Hochschule Schaffhausen AG (HSSH) in Switzerland by Jan Veder, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Markus Riekeberg.

Research focus

The study investigates what distinguishes top-performing investment professionals in the private capital industry — private equity, venture capital, private debt and related roles. It is one of the first large-scale efforts to apply psychometric methods to this field, examining how cognitive ability, personality, emotional intelligence and career patterns relate to sustained performance.

Method

The questionnaire combines reasoning tasks measuring cognitive ability (ICAR-16), validated self-assessment items on personality and emotional intelligence, and questions about your career and performance. It takes about 23 minutes. Responses are analysed only in aggregate; no individual participant is identified in any output.

Participation

Taking part is voluntary and can be paused and resumed from the same browser. At the end you receive your personal score on a validated cognitive assessment, and you may optionally request a confidential benchmark, a 1:1 debrief, or a copy of the final study ahead of publication. You can begin here: open the survey.

Data protection

The study is structurally anonymous and run under the GDPR and the Swiss revDSG. No IP address is stored with your response. See the privacy policy for full details.