Where to go after Corp Dev / Corp Strat?
Been in a hybrid Corp Strat / Dev role for 1.5 years now, and am thinking about my next moves.
I'm currently at a $20B+ revenue/year company (top firm in my industry), and really like my seat so far. Lots of really cool organic growth projects with C-Suite exposure, and also have had a bunch of deal exposure right now, and feel like I'm quite well positioned as someone with a very top-down view of the whole enterprise.
However, given the team is quite high performing and with a culture that promotes internal mobility, I'm currently at a crossroads of where I should go next.
People from my team have gone on to be head of strategy for various product lines, or going on to chief of staff of someone in the C-Suite, and so there's certainly a huge opportunity in looking elsewhere.
I think, my comp is pretty decent (200k+) for an associate in Corp Strat/Dev, but curious what the pay ladder looks like for a company in say, the Fortune 50 in Corp Strat/Dev (HCOL).
Alternatively, I could try to start engineering a move to a specific business, but I do really enjoy the enterprise-wide viewpoint that I do have and have absolutely no idea what comp progression looks like when you move into a specific business.
Also, curious if there are other exit options, (ie. CVC, independent VC for tech firms that focus on my industry) that I should be considering.
Fortune 50 Corp Dev here (we work pretty closely with strat so similar structure).
The exists I've seen are pretty consistent with yours (large sample size, 100+ group):
Might be missing a few, throw some questions out there and I'll see if I can share a data point
Edit: If you're an associate with ~5 YoE cracking past $200k you're on the upper end of the comp spectrum. Might be niche tech companies that pay more due to equity, but most spots with a base + bonus structure are under that. From the comparisons I've made, my group pays quite well with senior associates breaking into low 200s and managers starting around mid 200s and scaling from there.
Thanks! That mostly seems in-line with the exits I'm seeing from my group as well.
If I had to ask a question here, it would be: what is keeping you in your current role? Lots of these exits seem like great opportunities (again, I don't know what the comp range/ceiling looks like for a bunch of these roles).
My biggest things are:
A.) I like the corporate/enterprise-wide nature of the work I'm doing
and B.) I don't have a particular business that I'm all that passionate about yet.
Curious, since you seem to have similar exit opps as me so I'm keen to know what you're thinking of next, and what would drive you to pick your next role
I've been trying to answer that myself for a bit now haha. In short, I've had an amazing experience and been blessed to work with people that have turned into true friends and mentors and that's resulted in 3 promotions in 3 years.
The flip side of that coin is while I love being a deal maker, I don't know if the industry I'm currently in is a long term fit for me. This space is totally different across Financial Services, Tech, FinTech, Entertainment, etc.
With each passing day I get 1) more curious about greener pastures and 2) incrementally bored by my industry. I can't help but feel that eventually it'll be enough to offset the joy I get from my current team. Can't tell how soon that'll be, especially in light of a tightening labor market and the fact that I think I'm pretty high in comp across the industry already.
I think I may try to tap some contacts to see if the PE space has any opportunity for me. It's the one where I think I would end up taking a demotion to associate and so I'd like to do that sooner than later. I feel that exiting to any of the other popular areas is possible even if I stay another year or two into the "lower middle management" tier of the corporate ladder.
Other than that I'm open to recruiter outreach but would need a very cool opportunity to leave. Don't really care about marginal 10-20% in comp. Not really "running" from my role, but also not really "looking".
PE Portco roles or companies looking to sell to PE soon with more flavor of strategy / operational work?
Highly advise not going into just 'finance' roles at PE backed portcos. From my experience at a Portco, the business development / strategy guys had a lot more 'respect' amongst their peers than the burnt out high finance guys in the corp finance team (BD team bought in deal flow and the corp fin/dev team was there to support tuck-in acquisitions / deals that the company handled on their own w/o IB advisors).
Running a BU unit can lead to plentiful of opportunities IMO too. I wouldn't write that off if I was you. Seen P&L superstars amongst Portcos get great job offers from growing companies (my department head who was VP at the time is now COO at a rollup).
Following. In quite a similar position - curious to see where folks who have strict organic BD experience transition to other than corp fin.
"The grave" as I like to joke about with most corp dev people. In some organizations you seem to find a lot of lifers that just stay at the manager/director level and are content there which hampers people below them in terms of development.
It really depends where you want to go with your career and what you want to do:
What type of comp and carry have you seen at PE portcos?
The carry piece widely varies because it depends on the size of deals/firm, I think it mirrors typical PE in relation to your experience/title. Not all port cos are giving their high level corp dev people carry, I just have personally seen it an option/know few people who receive it. On the higher side, compensation wise I've seen 220-300k for director level positions personally, bonus targets/structure can widely vary but usually 20-30%. Most corporate, corp dev positions range from 150-200k.
Go to head up m&a at PE-backed portcos doing M&A roll ups like I did. You get really lucrative MIPS package on avg in the $1-$3m range with cash comp $300k range
What's been your experience post-sale? Does the PE firm bring you with them into the next rollup venture, do you stay with the company and advise for the new owners, or are you sent out on your a$$? I jumped from roll up back to traditional out of uncertainty about prospects post-sale.
I haven’t been at any long enough to get to an exit.
But to answer your question, it’s dependent on a few factors. Generally at exit, your MIPS would monetize and after doing this role for 5 years you’re more likely going to leave to do something else as roll ups are a lot of rinse and repeat as opposed to being strategically transformative.
If the portco is selling to a strategic then it makes sense you may not go with the business as the buyer would likely have its own CD team.
if it’s being traded to another sponsor then during the negotiations will be some discussion about your role continuing on post sale. Your intent to stay or leave will likely need to be determined pre-sale. Depending on the dynamic, the current sponsor may or may not hire you for another CD role also depending on if they have an opening, which is probabilistically not likely as these transaction events likely wouldn’t happen simultaneously where the sponsor is ramping up one m&a strategy as it’s exiting another. The timing would have to be by chance.
in any event, the likely outcome is that after 5 years you’ll look to move on.
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