Corp Dev Salary Increase?
Ignore title, I moved over to Corp Dev ~18 months ago and just received my first "merit based" salary increase, of 3.0%. I took a pretty significant pay cut for the role coming out of banking and also just received my first bonus since joining the firm (sub-$10,000 after tax in NYC/SF). Plugging in the dates of my employment to the BLS CPI Calculator (linked for reference), inflation seems to have ran at 4.6% for the same period. I know corporate salary progression is way slower than "front office" finance, but it just feels a bit ridiculous to be losing money in real terms. I started at $160,000 with a Manager title, after three years experience in banking (2 year A2A + 1 year Aso), which I thought was pretty decent at the time. I had also received a 15% "target bonus" in my offer letter, which I only recently learned was based purely on a company performance multiplier (which was conveniently pegged to 59.5% for the year) vs individual performance. I didn't qualify for the bonus or merit increase in 2023, since I technically joined the company in Q4, but seriously, an 8.9% pre-tax bonus and 3.0% salary increase after 18 months here seems like a pretty big slap in the face. Is this just par for the course in Corp Dev, or should I start looking elsewhere? For what it's worth, I haven't been too happy with the experience overall, as the company hasn't even seriously pursued an M&A strategy and they've mostly had me working on strategy / project finance stuff. No deals closed since I arrived, zero binding bids submitted, and just a handful of non-binding first round bids.
This is very on par for a corporate job so welcome to the world of trade-offs. Having had quite a few ex-colleagues and friends make exit to Corp Dev, your experience is fairly typical for those who joined large corporates. Salary progression is driven by promotion so salary increases without a bump in title are going to be modest. Target bonuses always have a fairly large component tied to Company performance. Progression is often driven by opportunity (ie. a seat opening up above) rather than pure meritocracy and it will never be as fast as in IB. And few large corporate are serial acquirers, it's kind of doing your diligence 101 to figure out how active the Company has been historically. On the other hand, I'm assuming you now have time to enjoy life, be home by dinnertime and have your weekends. Bankers don't like to hear that, but a huge driver of the outsize comp they receive is driven not by the value they add, but by the fact that they have to be ready to drop everything on a moments notice and be willing to dedicate all of your waking hours and then some to support their clients.
That being said, most of the people I know ended up making the most of the experience and are happy with the change they made because:
Overall, It seems to me that the you haven't properly assessed what you were getting into and haven't adjusted your exceptions accordingly, which is making you unhappy. I would suggest you think hard about what motivates you, what are your career objectives and how are you going to reach those objectives. I think will help you assess whether your current role or Corp Dev in general is the right fit and help you inform what your next steps should be.
$160K after 3 years of IB is pretty decent. Unless you're getting a promotion, raises will almost always be <5%. The real money (it'll never be IB money) starts coming around Director level when you have a higher base but more importantly are getting higher bonus targets as % of that base, RSUs, 401(k) match on that higher base, and maybe an ESPP you can make money off.
Another $10K isn't important at this stage in your career. If you don't like the team and/or you are not getting decent experience/are not building your skillset, I'd look elsewhere.
The two responses above me are correct. You ride or die with the company on compensation. I’ve gotten 0% and 200% of target STIP based on company performance…. That said, I’m taking all my vacation this year and coaching my kids tee ball team.
165k base seems pretty high for corporate with 3 years of experience. The merit increases suck but unfortunately outside of IB/PE/etc this is why people say you need to jump every few years to maximize comp.
I have had a similar experience to you to be honest, though I would say the only thing that has surprised me is the 'speed' of my track. I took a somewhat below market salary to work in my dream industry and was hoping to be promoted within a year to bump up to what I was expected (came in at manager level). Didn't happen. Got a small raise in 2024, so can't fully complain.
My target bonus was a similar amount to yours, though my superior thought I should get above target as we closed a (relatively) large deal in 2023. Didn't get signed off. So, certainly behind where I thought I'd be comp-wise, but as someone mentioned above, it's ~$15k (pre tax) versus $50k so I can sleep at night.
While I'm slightly annoyed at my comp level, it's pretty much the only yellow flag at my job. I have good WLB and like my boss, am happy to be in my industry, and generally have enough to invest and manage my spending. So, my needs are certainly being met and the only 'want' that is not being met is a 10% increase in salary. For me, that's worth it to stay happy. I'm also in a city I want (noticing a lot more Corp Dev / Strategy jobs in my industry are NYC-based and I'd certainly prefer to not have to move if I were to leave for a competitor in this industry) with a great group of friends I can increasingly spend time with now that I'm out of PE / IB.
I guess what I'm saying is, yes, it's a slower progression and like you I've felt the desire to have stayed another year in PE to help hasten it. But, not sure I'd be happier today if I did that than my current path. But, outside of feeling slightly underpaid, being grateful for the other aspects of my job keeps me from second guessing and hopefully by this time next year we have new levels with new salaries. In the long-run, I'd rather be at my current job and slightly underpaid than somewhere else.
Is your long term plan to become a Chief Development Officer?
Still figuring that out -- while I think I'd be happy to be in my boss' role in X years, since my company is PE backed I doubt I'll be there to see that out (i.e., sale / acquisition).
As a few others have pointed out on this thread -- a quicker way to move up would be to move to a similar job, but frankly not interested in it at this stage as I mentioned as I'm comfortable in my role right now and outside of a huge comp I'm not sure what would motivate me to switch.
I'll +1 that this is very typical par for the course at corporate. My non-promo raises have always been low single digits (2.8% to a whopping 4% in a year I "far exceeded" my performance expectations). The real money comes from promos, and often times promos come from hopping to a different company. And, hopping to a different company often times means getting a stub bonus. These are the speed bumps you incur as you hop, skip, and jump up to director level, where the comp jumps a lot, bonuses become much more meaningful, and multi-year equity awards reward you for staying.
How much hopping is "too much" before the director level and what type of comp increases do you think would justify moving?
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