IB to Corporate Finance
Signed return offer for IB starting next year. Not interested in staying long term in IB or moving into PE afterwards. I think the better work/life balance and work in the corporate side would be my preferred exit, but im not really familiar with what the process is like. If I do 2 years in IB, is the common thing to do is enter into corporate finance in the industry group I was in? What "position" would I hold and what would the salary and progression be? Would love to hear esp from those that have gone down a similar path.
Interested as well
Exact same position! Interned at a BB (GS/MS/JPM) and looking to explore all possible options post-analyst years
In the same boat!! I was in TMT and would love to exit into a corporate CFO path for an upcoming app or something exciting like that where the financial situation is still growing. Wondering if that’s what exiting into VC is for?
Just a student so take this with a grain of salt. Interned at a F50 last summer. Most of the corp dev team left banking as post mba associates or vps. Associates mostly came in as managers. Vps mostly came in as directors. There was only a couple of people who had banking experience without having an mba and they came in at an associate (senior analyst) level. A lot of the team had a connection to someone on the team. A VP got hired as a director, then an associate from the same bank under him applied, then another etc. Most of the team had experience within the companies sector.
Salaries in corporations are based off of bands, so the senior analyst in corp dev, earns a similar amount to a senior analyst in fp&a, roughly at least. So this is only a guess based on what I know of other positions but I would guess around 80k base, 90 total comp. Inside the band their is a range, and you can negotiate your salary within that range.
Progression for corp dev was a bit rough. There are only so many director seats and even fewer vp seats. In order for anyone to get promoted, someone has to leave. Then they have to decide to promote you from within corp dev rather than an external hire or promote someone from another group. There were more people with no banking experience in corp dev than I expected, especially at the director and vp levels. The best way to get promoted seemed to be to leave corp dev for another finance function. Most bankers didn't do this however. They would rather stay a manager in corp dev rather than get experience somewhere else. This can bite you though, because many of the directors realized they would never make it to VP because by that point, no other group wants someone with only corp dev experience.
Thats interesting, so it was those that joined IB after their MBA and then left after being an associate or vp to join the corporate side? I thought post-MBA associates were more likely to think of banking as a longer term career. Definitely need to learn more about the IB out of undergrad to corporate finance path though.
That was definitely the majority. Most of the people who came as associates realized they wanted a better work life balance to raise a family. The VPs were that but also those who realized they didn't want to be an MD or wouldn't make it to MD so they made the switch. This is also just within corp dev. The company I worked at has an FLDP for undergrads but not for MBAs. My guess is a company with a MBA FLDP, you will see a lot more people in corporate finance with a background in IB.
Investment banking grows a company, while corporate finance manages a company. A corporate finance professional deals with day-to-day financial operations and handles short- and long-term business goals, while an investment banker focuses on raising capital.
I made a transition into corporate development after about 3 years in IB straight out of undergrad. I was exiting as an associate at a boutique and entering corporate finance as a senior analyst. I would say it's a pretty common career path and if you wanted to, making the transition after 2 years in IB to senior analyst is totally doable at many places, depending on their group dynamics. Also, having that IB experiences carries a lot of weight and at the lower corporate finance levels 1) you can switch outside your industry easily and 2) you can command higher pay against your other other non IB peers in corporate finance (e.g., I was making 20%+ more than other senior analysts who had the same number of years of work experience).
From my experience though salary and progression in corporate finance is such a crap shoot. Most groups don't have the 3+ years then promotion timeline that IB, consulting, and other professional services career path do. I've seen other peers from my graduating class hit director in 2 years after IB at smaller firms while some people started as an analyst in corporate finance after IB and just recently made senior analyst. For me, as much as I wanted and my manager wanted me to be promoted after a year, the VP of Finance and CFO (who I never really even interacted with) had the ultimate say. They had a track record of delaying / shutting down promotions and we were both 90% sure it was going to get shot down. It really just depends.
In terms of compensation after 2-3 years of IB experience most opportunities I was looking at (Southeast) were offering $90-$100k base plus 10-15% bonus for senior analyst roles. Eventually, after ~1 year of corporate finance experience I started looking elsewhere at manager roles and was often quoted $110-$120k base plus 20-25% bonus. Ultimately, I chose to go into corporate development for various reasons, but that's another topic altogether.
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