Corp Dev/Biz Dev Question
Alright everyone, I want to get some advice on what are my potential career options (call it exit opportunities/career trajectory, etc.) if I take a Corp Dev/Biz Dev role at a services O&G company doing a lot of deal financing and modeling, underwriting, portfolio management, segment reporting, M&A and divestiture opportunities as a senior analyst. The role would focus on organic growth of the company through asset level acquisitions and is intended to assist in everything related to infrastructure roll-out/acquisition analysis.
My current background is in Muni Finance (tenure is ~16 months/first job out of college). I am concerned if I do take this role, if I would be pigeon-holed into this sector and I could say goodbye to my chances of ever making it to the buyside (thinking it would be PC/PE at a LMM firm) since I never have done anything M&A/LevFin/Capital Advisory related roles at an IB shop. It also feels like I massive decision considering that its my 2nd job out college, and I believe it would really marry me to the city where this role is (TX).
It is not that I have a burning passion to make it to the buyside, but more so that I want to keep my options open since I am still very early in my career and think a more generalist sort of role could be better for me.
To be completely honest, I don’t think staying in a Public Finance, specifically Munis, would help much with preventing the pigeon-hole aspect you’re concerned about. Yes, the asset-heavy and unique nature of O&G definitely differs greatly from traditional corporate advisory/financing experience. But from what it seems like (correct me if I’m wrong), if your goal is traditional PE rather than an infrastructure fund of some kind, neither your current career nor this buyside opportunity would really be providing a leg up over the other in terms of significantly helping with getting you to traditional PE/PC.
Sounds to me the Corp Dev opportunity would provide you with many more opportunities to work through various financial products, especially buyside M&A reps at a place that values organic growth, which could definitely translate well into traditional PE. You’re early in your career so don’t worry too much about getting pigeon-holed yet, but definitely start thinking about if O&G and infrastructure more broadly are where you see yourself long term because it is much different than traditional corporate.
I mean sure - makes sense why you are looking at it that way. I guess I just worry that if I leave and take this Corp Dev role that would mean the optionality of lateraling to another bank in another product/coverage group would be severely slimmer and multiple doors would close on me (as opposed to riding the rest of the year out and finding something else). But I also really enjoy the CorpDev strategic nature of these roles, i just sort of feel like I am going in reverse if I were to do this CorpDev role and then consider joining the advisory space for more $$/transaction experience. It all feels like I am too young to make this sort of career committment lol
I do think generally speaking a corp dev role (biz devs different skill set) is going to offer you a lot more options and enhance your basic corporate finance skills vs the role you have today. While sensitive to the view that it may pigeonhole you both from an industry and geographic perspective the counter argument is your current seat is not strategic / modeling / broadly corporate finance focused and that is ok if focused on a longer term path in muni’s but as someone suggested and I agree, you are already focusing on a space and product. You sound young and you have a long career path ahead of you. Would encourage you to take a longer term perspective on things and figure out what you want then map to that. Maybe this isn’t the perfect corp dev role but could lead to other corp dev roles in different industries and think about longer-term career mapping eg buyside O&G, buyside generalist etc. There is also a markets, networking, timing and luck component to this longer-term and in hotter hiring markets there is more flexibility on backgrounds for those being hired presuming they have the right core skillset so may suggest thinking more broadly vs just role.
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