Road path from ECM to F500 tech (strategy/ ops or product management)?
I'm a first-year ECM analyst at a top 3 BB in London. I enjoy what I'm doing, but I wish to eventually move from investment banking to either a strategy/ops position at a F500 tech firm (long term goal of high management... CIO would be a dream come true, but just a dream for now), or product management (with the goal of attaining a high managerial role in PM). I've always loved tech and programming (can delve into what I know/ am learning if need be), and can see myself having a satisfying career in this. I'm leaning more towards strat/ ops, by the way.
That being said, what can I do to best position myself? Would transferring to TMT during my 3rd year make me more appealing to strat/ops as well as PM? Or should I think more about an MBA (or maybe even an MS Info systems for strat/ops)? What level position in strat/ ops, or PM, can I hope to get hired into after a few years of banking, versus banking and an MBA?
Any thoughts??
Bump....
You can probably jump into a BizOps/Strat role now. Many of the big tech firms hire ex-finance guys every year to staff their Finance or Strategy/Ops teams. You don't need an MS and you don't need an MBA.
The MBA is probably only relevant if you wanted to be a PM at Amazon. Otherwise, for the most part nobody cares. Just simply 'landing' a PM job also doesn't happen. Landing a PM role at a reputable company is very difficult especially if you don't have a CS background, previous PM experience, or a nice portfolio of projects you can point to. A PM role straight out of finance is more attainable at a smaller start up but you need to network your ass off for this opportunity.
Sometimes people in Strat/Ops roles are able to transition over to a PM position as they tend to work with the product folk fairly closely, although this is less true when applied to the goliaths of the industry like FB, MSFT, and Google.
Having said all this, there are a million ex-bankers and ex-consultants like you who are flooding over to these teams in high tech firms to do S&O and PM work because they are 'passionate' about tech. The competition at the legit firms is no joke and connections/networking arguable matter even more than they did breaking into IB.
At your level you would probably qualify for an Associate level position at most tech firms if you pursue the S&O route. I have witnessed some landing in a Manager role right out of 2-3 years of banking but this seems to be less common.
Where am I getting all this? I am like you - an ex-banker who jumped over to strategy/ops in the tech industry (though I did some time doing corp start at a F100 in between), with a goal of working on product at some point in the next few years. No CS major, although I did teach myself how to code somewhat.
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