Q&A: Tech sales, to corporate strategy, to corpdev M&A in <3 years

1. My sales and corporate strategy roles were in the SaaS industry (traditional enterprise software), while my current Strategic Finance/Corporate Development role is in the deeptech/hardtech industry (very R&D and hardware heavy). 

2. I had a mixed experience in my corporate strategy role. I worked with sales leaders, sales-support functions, product managers, and product suite VPs on a wide range of projects; most of which involved gathering, cleaning, structuring, deeply analyzing, and then presenting very large datasets to help key leaders in their decision-making. Some of these projects were interesting and impactful, while others weren't. I found much of the work to be somewhat bureaucratic and some of the projects often felt pointless; like we were "creating work for the sake of creating work" without moving the needle much. 

3. Corporate strategy is very similar to management consulting, except instead of supporting "clients"/"companies" externally, you're supporting "leaders"/"departments" internally. My group did not rely much on any of those business book/MBA-ish frameworks, as our company had developed proprietary frameworks for approaching most projects. If you're interested in getting into a function like this, my advice would be (1) make sure it's in an industry you're genuinely interested in, otherwise you'll get bored fast, (2) opt for a growth stage or early-public company over a fortune 100 giant, and (3) make sure it's supporting a function you find interesting (don't support product if you like sales, don't support sales if you like product, etc). 

4. I prefer corp dev/strategic finance by a long shot - but I'd caveat this with the fact that I also like the company/industry a lot more. On the M&A side; I feel like I am getting to "have my cake and eat it too" in this role; in that I am exposed to the full M&A process (developing an acquisition thesis alongside C suite leadership, sometimes engaging investment bankers and lawyers, screening interesting startups and founders for technical and business fit, building cap tables and M&A models, redlining term sheets, etc) without having to work in what I personally think is an outdated and inefficient banking culture (staying up until 4am re-aligning powerpoint logos 7 days a week, questioning the point of your existence, etc). I work, on average, about 55-60 hours a week, although there are crunch times where it goes up to 80, and lulls where it drops below 50 (though these are rare). Additionally, some other things I enjoy about my current role: I am in the same meetings as the CEO, CFO, and CTO/founder multiple times a week, I am exposed to budget modeling and strategic planning for all of our major department heads, and I am trusted with a great deal of responsibility at a relatively young age. 

Hope this helps! Happy to answer follow up Qs. 

Career mobility. Tech sales pays well but often pigeonholes you in tech sales. If I want to work in VC eventually, or run my own corp dev group, or run my own investment group - I need a broader skillset. 

I'd also add that although commission checks are fat in tech sales, they usually have less stock based comp.

Obviously I'm not getting commission checks right now - but I'm getting some pretty juicy stock based comp. 

Congrats on locking in the role out of UG!

You will pick up the majority of your skills on the job so I wouldn't worry too much. You've already got the role!

But if you want extra practice; I'd suggest using the WallStreetPrep full financial modeling course. I dropped ~300 bucks on it all the way back in 2018 and still occasionally study it to this day! Tons of value and well worth it, in my opinion. I'd also check out WSP's fundamentals of accounting course. Aside from that, I'd really emphasize learning the landscape of the specific industry you're working in. You'll bring a lot of value to the table if you have strong knowledge and opinions of the emerging and key players in your niche, and how your company might be able to play out the next few years. 

definitely don't count out IB - it can fast-track you to a lot of cool buy-side roles. that said, pure finance roles aren't for everyone. getting involved hands on in building cool companies can be much more rewarding for some. for undergrad specifically...

general advice to undergraduate would be to party a lot / develop good social networks and social skills, don't get bad grades but also don't overwork yourself in the classroom. the social element of college/youth in general is very important and should not be overlooked. you need to be able to 'hang'. 

expose yourself to business/startups as much as you can - even during the school year - you'll be glad you did. it can expose you to vc's, entrepreneurs, engineers, etc and other people you should learn about at a young age.

depending on your major/specialty, make sure you're good at your measurable skill/craft of choice (that could mean razor sharp excel/modeling, that could mean writing elegant code, that could mean being really effective at running a sales/marketing lead-to-close funnel, etc). 

ask yourself, what do I want to be doing 3-5 years out of college? then go do something that more or less puts you on that path. you'll probably change your mind (i did), but at least you'll be headed in the right *general* direction (it's never gonna be the perfectly right direction; you're too inexperienced to know yet what you like and don't like in terms of full time year round work). 

also just, like, in general - don't take yourself or life so seriously. be chill. have fun. be a top performer at what ever you do - but don't be that guy whose vibe is 'all work 100% of the time'. that's boring. be an interesting person. have cool hobbies and interests and social circles in addition to being good at your career. 

While I was in sales, I was a top performer, and on top of that built a wide range of data models, dashboards, and various other useful quantitative tools for my managers/VPs that no other salespeople, and no one in management, knew how to do. I developed a reputation internally of being smart and good with numbers/data. I then transparently told my management that I wanted to pivot into strategy, and they gladly supported my internal networking and interviewing efforts that led me a role in corporate strategy; which required me to pass an excel modeling test, and submit work samples. 

I guess the key takeaway here is, as with any career transition, it's generally good to demonstrate you can already do the job you want, before you go try and get it.