I am at a boutique and am in a good position to lateral to a Baird/WB/HW/Jeff etc. I'd like to stay within the vertical I currently work in. There is a very well respected MD that is moving to a bank (think Truist/Stifel/Raymond James/ Lincoln) and they are building out there team. This guy is worshipped at the current boutique I work at. Would it be smarter to lateral to a Baird/WB or a Truist/Stiefel/Raymond James/Lincoln and work for a known rainmaker that is an expert in the space? and why?
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Don’t lateral to anywhere that you wouldn’t want to work at in the event that you don’t work under a rainmaker. For all you know, they can move you under a different sector, maybe you don’t produce the results that said MD expects, or maybe they just don’t give you an offer because they’d rather give it to someone else who just wants to work at the bank.
Same thing as with any other level in IB, high turnover = rainmaker MD leaves for another bank on your first day. Can’t predict these things but this is how I viewed it when I lateraled early in 2022.
All fantastic points. Thank you very much. How was your experience lateraling?
I am at one of Baird/WB/HL/JEF - personally would take this group over the other. I work with ~6 different MDs regularly, 1-2 of whom are probably considered a rainmaker in their space and the rest are not. I would personally always choose the established platform - any one of these MDs could leave/get fired/die/retire tomorrow and my life wouldn’t be impacted at all because there’s other strong MDs to support me/the bank. I’d always be skeptical of attaching your horse to any one individual md because who knows how long they’ll last, if they’ll fit into this new bank, etc
It’s better to work on a winning team and a rain making MD is spear heading the deal team and wins a lot. You’ll also be learning from the best.
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