Am I doing myself a disservice by not doing IB?

Most of my friends in my school's finance club went into IB at MM's and a few at BB's. I graduated early and went the corporate route. Went into an FLDP and left to be a senior FP&A analyst. The FLDP was rigorous but not as rigorous as IB. My career goal is to be a VP/CFO. It would hard to give up the comp and stability of my FP&A role as it is in a very stable industry. TC is $100k in a relatively low cost of living. I want to expedite paying for a house so I can start a family. 

The job is not hard at all. Busy seasons aren't bad at all - I only worked two weekends over the past 4 months and had one 16 hour day. 

6 Comments
 

Why didn't your friend do PE or Corp Dev if you don't mind me asking? Also, how do you think management will view the person who did IB vs an FLDP in 6-10 years? Does it even out eventually if you know? Or am I just overthinking this? 

Also how would you recommend I get the skills like your friend has? Or does it not really matter that much since it is on the job training and experience?

 

ignore title... did 2 years at a BB in NYC and eventually exited to a corp dev/strategy role at a midcap company, which I have been at for the last 7ish years. I think it simply comes down to a couple of factors (family/money to hours worked ratio/interest in work), with family being most important for me. 

based on your other comments, there is no right recipe for being a CFO/VP, just scroll through your own company and other F500 CFO's and you will see my point. Ultimately comes down to hard work, having good managers, having a clear path to promotion, being likeable, and finally...unfortunately... luck.

 
Most Helpful

Easiest way to become a C level is to start your own company. After that people actively recruit you, assuming it went well. I left IB to start a company. I built it to $40M in ARR and then left to take a break as I was burnt out after a decade, COVID, some family deaths, managing too many employees, etc. I kept running it for a year after I resigned to the board. It's still a great company, profitable and growing, but I was spent. I took some time off, but when I started re-engaging, all of the HH's wanted me to take a CEO role again, which I didn't really want. I then started as an operating partner in PE and then quickly ended up back as a CEO for one of the struggling portcos. Not sure what any of this means, but I found that roles will often seek you out once you have a track record. 

 

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