Corporate Development - Really 40 Hours?
Am thinking about moving from consulting to corporate development, with better WLB being a key reason behind the move. I'm curious to hear from those who've made the jump (or know people who have) whether you truly work 40h per week. This would be specifically for roles such as commercial / business development, licensing or in-house deal making. Is 40h really the norm? I imagine that when there are live deals hours may be stretched a bit. Does that mean from 40 to 45-50?
Keen to hear any insights.
Based on the most helpful WSO content, corporate development roles generally offer better work-life balance compared to consulting or investment banking. However, the idea of a strict 40-hour workweek is not always realistic. Here's what you can expect:
Typical Hours: Many corporate development professionals report working around 50-60 hours per week on average. This can vary depending on the company, the team, and the deal flow.
Live Deals: When working on live deals, hours can stretch significantly. Some professionals mention working up to 70-80 hours during peak deal activity, though this is not the norm and happens only occasionally.
Flexibility: Outside of deal-heavy periods, the schedule can be more manageable, with hours closer to 9am-7pm and minimal weekend work. Some even report periods of lighter workloads, depending on the company's deal pipeline and culture.
Role-Specific Variations: Roles like licensing or business development may have slightly different demands, but the general trend of better work-life balance compared to consulting holds true.
For a deeper dive into hours and experiences, check out this thread:
url: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/corporate/the-other-road-corporat…
Sources: 60+ Hours/Week: Outlier or a New Normal?, Corporate Development: My Experiences and Background, Corporate Strategy vs Corporate Development, The logic behind going into a Corp Dev/Strat for work-life balance?, What is corporate banking?
As someone who has worked at multiple public companies on their corp dev teams, at least in my experience, our work is pretty consistently 40-45 hours a week. Depending on deal flow that can inch up to ~60 hours in a week, but those types of hours are much more one-offs because we are at the very end and are putting the final dots on the i's and the final crosses of the t's.
This will also be very dependent on how exactly the company uses their corp dev team (do they do more strategy work or M&A work), how the team is structured, and the larger corporate objectives (ie - is M&A a key growth driver or an ancillary function).
Thanks for clarifying. For context, the company is mainly focused on inorganic growth, making M&A a pretty important part of their growth strategy (they are also PE-backed). Do those hour still stand in this context?
At a high level, yes. Although I would say you are definitely likely to get more of the 60-80 hours a week push than if it is a more strategy/organic growth type role.
When you make the jump from an intense role (IB/MBB) to a corporate role, the big driver of the change in hours is the culture of the company. For example, at my current role, I was in the office at ~6 pm once finishing things up, the office was 80% empty... a business unit leader on his way out remarked "long day today, huh?"
So ironic because I literally left MBB 2 months before then, where logging off at 6 pm was a sign that you need to get staffed on a project (Or that you hit the jackpot and found an easy case).
Quite eye opening to see how 'normal' people operate outside of the bubble we all live in
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