Shareholder Activism Investment Banking -->> Activist Hedge Fund

I know that it's really rare and difficult to go from a shareholder activism/defense group in any investment bank to private equity, and almost always you have to transfer to a coverage group to get modeling and other experience that PE firms need/look for.

However, is the path from shareholder activism investment banker to activist hedge fund possible or feasible? In my mind, as the banker, you have a deep understanding of the strategy, techniques, and intuition of activist investing, so would hedge funds like Elliot, Starboard, etc. value that, or would they still need you to get coverage or PE experience?

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Probably makes you less competitive - my understanding is a lot of these firms today have dedicated engagement teams that sit alongside the investment team whose role is to specifically plan out all the things you highlighted when they go activist

You can probably try and go into that role but being in the investment team will probably need more typical business underwriting / technical experience is my guess 

 
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That makes sense. What does the difficulty in transferring between groups look like? For example, is it harder to transfer from a product/coverage in a mid-tier MM bank to a EB/BB bank, or is it harder to transfer from a Activism group role in a T1/T2 bank into a product/coverage group of the same bank?

 
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