Coffee chats with extremely senior people
How does one approach coffee chats with super senior people (i.e. founders, chairmen, etc.) that are likely to not be involved in everyday operations of the bank?
Have one coming up and am honestly starstruck by the person I'll be talking to and am not sure how to approach. Cookie cutter "typical day/deal team structure/culture" questions will not cut it. Thinking of asking super high level questions about the firm, where he sees it heading in the next few years, etc. but besides that I am kind of stuck with framing the conversation.
I assume not a lot of people have been in the setting above, but insights/thoughts are nonetheless appreciated.
Is this dude a founder or someone high up at your bank? I’ve met people that have founded firms or are extremely high up, but none in a formal setting. Several informal chats from say an uncle of mine going “hey this is my nephew chicken rice he studies/works in finance”, and all the “successful” conversations were either about nothing related to business at all, or were 99% about the rich dude’s path to how he became who he was.
People love to talk about themselves. People love to talk about their successes.
How did you set up / get this meeting?
He is a founder and extremely high profile - specifying further will make it difficult to not give away the name which I'd like to keep private for obvious reasons.Met him through a mutual connection that knew a member of his family who then furthered the introduction to him
From what I've noticed, super senior IB MDs tend to have an extremely high EQ and can sustain most topics in any conversation (after all, their social skill is paramount to landing deals), so it's never been a problem to find something to talk about, but I do like to just ignore the "day/team/culture" questions and instead get them to talk about themselves or something we have in common non-finance related, with me asking good questions based on what they say. People like talking about themselves.
Haven't spoken to super seniors outside IB, but I'd assume the above still largely would works.
is your experience talking to super senior IB MDs on the phone or in person chats
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