Difficulty of getting MD role?

To all members of this community, I was wondering how difficult is it for someone to make it from A1 (Analyst 1) to MD?

Outside of the long working hours and time sacrifice, which has been touched upon a lot on WSO, what other factors make it difficult?

• Office politics? • Cyclical/recessionary factors? (e.g. layoffs) • Deal flow?

MDs on WSO, people who have MDs as friends, analysts, associates, and everyone with experience in the industry, what is your take?

Wishing you all the best.

4 Comments
 

Making it to MD is pretty straight forwards… especially if you were an analyst, banks are dying for A2As, from there just don’t be hated and you’ll get the promo to Director, after that you’re competing with a bunch of internationals/MBAs to win business so should be easy given you’ll have friends on buyside and can speak english. Hard part is consistently winning business, so you go spend those early MD years at a BB and use that prestige for the rest of your life. Enjoy

 
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