IB Christian SA in need of advice
Typically lurk around here but incoming NY intern at a BB with 0 really close connections in finance. Saw a similar thread a few months ago, but wanted a bit more clarity.
I'm a practicing Christian (small group Bible study leader at school, attend church every sunday if I can). I want my job to be in line with my values. Has anyone ever felt like they've been asked to do something unethical or contrary to their faith on the job? How did you deal with the situation? Not sure what that would look like but any anecdotes would help.
Furthermore, I'm kind of nervous as my team is known to work on weekends. Are people receptive to being away on Sunday mornings? How should I best communicate that?
Does anyone have any recommendations for meeting Christians in NY? Not from the area so this would also help!
Not meant to incite any hate, just a young Christian trying to reconcile my faith and profession. Thank you all!
Won't speak too much on the job itself since I'm in S&T and not banking, but having talked about this with various friends across the industry, you will never be respected by your team if you allow them to push you around to the point where you can't even get 1 hour off for a Sunday service.
You may have to work around those times, potentially by waking up earlier on Sundays or a little more work on Saturdays but by no means should you be denied 1-2 hours to yourself for church attendance. If you are, not sure if that's the shop I'd want to stay at. Remember that you have to respect yourself and your faith commitments, no work should go above that.
I know there are actually a few Christians in finance groups that exist in NY but I'm not too involved in those, your best bet might be to explore a few different churches for each week until you find a place you feel good about.
It's really great that you're asking this question and I encourage you to explore this more - I find a lot of people in Wall Street to be "closet Christians" and are often scared to voice their faith. However once you make it known, you may even have other Christians unexpectedly approach you. Also I found that speaking with Christian seniors on the team about faith allows them to open up a side to you that they don't often share with many (especially in this industry).
Matthew 6:24 No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Your team will let you go to church… if they don’t, that’s not a team you want to be apart of. Your firm probably gives you a junior mentor, I would just ask them if it’s best to go Saturday night, Sunday morning, or Sunday night (or just ask someone who went to Georgetown/Notre Dame). Then on the first Friday just tell whatever juniors you’re working with that you are going to be offline for church for an hour. I’d say 1/3 of my team has some sort of religious commitment.
Soapbox warning: tons of great Christians work in IB, but it's an exercise in self-delusion to believe that this line of work won't negatively affect your faith. If Jesus were alive today, I'd bet my small 401k He wouldn't work on Wall Street.
No one has ever asked me to do something explicitly unethical (though read a CIM and you'll see plenty of white lies..) and no one has ever asked me to do anything explicitly unchristian. At the same time, and this is just my opinion, this is simply not a Christian job.
- The entire thing is about maximizing wealth for shareholders. No matter how many nice slides you make about ESG and corporate responsibility, your job is 100% about the money, both for your bank and for your fabulously wealthy clients. I can't imagine Jesus spending his career trying to make the rich richer..
- The hours will rob you of your discretionary time. You may choose to allocate this to charitable works, but you simply won't have time to volunteer during the week, and won't have time to consistently volunteer during the weekend. Yup, great to go to church for an hour on Sunday, but if you actually want to LIVE like a Christian outside of church, good luck finding the time. I can't imagine Jesus choosing a career that gave him 45 minutes every other week to visit the sick..
- You'll be forced to make underlings (and yourself!) sacrifice their health and wellness for the job. One of my close mentors told me that the thing that broke him was asking me to skip a special evening I had planned with some long-time friends to satisfy a neurotic MD. (He was there with me and did everything he could to push back.). I can't imagine Jesus would choose a career that would put him in a position to ask others to sacrifice their families for arbitrary deadlines..
- You'll get greedy. It's in the water. You'll do your best, and I'm sure you'll largely avoid it, but it will forever skew your view on wealth. You'll hear talk 20 hours a day about how important private school is, and houses in Aspen, and fancy vacations and cars and homes -- your one hour of church per week will struggle to keep up to ground you back to planet earth.
I'm sure you're going in eyes wide open, but whatever you do, don't delude yourself that this is somehow part of a Christian journey. :)
Op here. Really appreciate this insight, it makes a lot of sense when you frame it that way.
What would be some possible careers post-banking that would be more aligned with those values? Are there any instances where the skills you use in banking could be helpful? (Ie helping with finances at local church)
Thanks for the thoughtful response though
Asset management could feel a little better than investment banking depending on your clients. Plenty of pensions and other institutions that need this done, and I'm sure you can find one that aligns with your morals.
I will say, though, I'm a Catholic and many of my coworkers are too. I'm in private equity and it feels perfectly compatible with my views. Maybe not every Catholic would be happy doing this, but it works fine for how I see things. We make LPs happy and help our portcos succeed. Nothing wrong with that.
Talk to your pastor/priest about this, not some random guy trying to undermine your faith and career.
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
I posted in the other thread on Christians in IB. I never had an issue making it to church due to work. I was also in a Bible study with other analysts at my BB who all happened to realize that we attended the same church.
One thing I would recommend is to spend time with other people of faith. Lots of accommodations are made for Muslim prayers, the Sabbath for devout Jews, various religious holidays across multiple faiths. I had a Sikh guy in my group who didn’t drink but loved staying out late. Another buddy was an Egyptian Coptic Christian…the 3 of us had super interesting religious conversations. My staffer observed the Sabbath, and we also had a lot of cool conversations about faith.
My point is that there is a lot of camaraderie that can be developed with other people of faith, even if you don’t share the same beliefs. That’s important in a place like NYC.
I believe you better understand your own faith by understanding that of others.
That is really good to hear, tbh.
Sounds like those would be some great conversations about faith as well!
Thanks for the thoughtful question. You're certainly right that IB can equip you with skills and resources to help the poor, administer in a church congregation, and do a lot of good. The problem is thinking you can set aside your "active Christian" hat for a couple of years and then put it back on once you've "done your time". You end up as a corp dev guy with lots of money and lots of skills, but you lose track of why you wanted those things in the first place. Or you've drastically shifted your worldview of what you need to be happy (both time and money) so that there ends up being so much less "left over to give” than before you even started..
I need to know where you work, then try my hardest to move to your team.
My group is.. let’s just say.. very un-Christian at the very least. Also very little respect for Christian Holidays.
Well, sadly, this was 20 years ago at Citi in FEG/sponsors coverage. None of those people are there anymore. Michael Klein was our boss though so that was cool. The broader point remains. We had lots of diverse people of faith, and it’s likely less open now but probably achievable to build that culture.
Bro, capitalism is unethical (it’s literally powered by the sin of greed) but American capitalism has co-opted Christianity with this Republican Jesus nonsense. If you are a true believer, there are far better ways to make a living that doesn’t help oppress the poor further and make the rich richer.
this is too much of a blanket statement that provides no value
Christianity is about loving your neighbor and helping the poor, not helping C-suites enrichen themselves and justify the firing of working class employees in the name of “synergies” and “value-creation”.
You would be better off ethically being an IRS agent so that rich people pay their fair share and fund the social safety net. Whoever closes the carried interest loophole is pretty much guaranteed a spot in heaven.
del wrong thread
Also a Christian doing IB in the city this summer. PM me if you wanna chat.
Interested to hear if you can opt out of certain deals because of moral objections? I abhor gambling, can I opt out of working on any deal that involves that?
You certainly can if you have strong objections, but I would make sure not to frame it as coming from a place of moral superiority.
Everything in life is a gamble, where do you draw the line
Don’t sign on to join a group that is in entertainment or gaming…it’s not hard. Focus on pharma or industrials, etc.
Was wondering specifically about industry agnostic product groups (LevFin, DCM, ECM...)
This one interests me, are you against the stock market / active investing as well? We can argue all day about the strategy being used, but then again many professional gamblers use strategies as well.
I certainly would agree that casinos (particularly those targeted at less affluent clients) use some extremely unethical practices including secured lending to keep gambling, or even things such as purposely not having a clock to keep people longer gambling, but it’s a stretch to blanket statement all gambling as sinful or wrong. It’s sinful to exploit those who struggle with the addiction, but the vast majority of people genuinely have fun at casinos and move on with their lives.
It's not that deep, I just have personal reservations against gambling (religious or otherwise) and don't want to be staffed on a deal financing such a company. I didn't say anything about investing/stock market activity.
Although not a Christian, I’m a practicing Muslim (pray 5 times a day, only eat halal, don’t drink alcohol etc). I had similar worries before starting my SA, so hopefully I can provide some advice to help a brother out.
From what I’ve found, it’s important to be clear with your team about religious obligations you have, and the time you’ll need to fulfil those obligations. I was pretty clear about restrictions I have, and when asked something like why I wasn’t eating a certain food, I would courteously let them know that it was because of a religious obligation.
I’m sure your team won’t have an issue with you not working for a couple hours on Sunday morning, particularly if you’ve let them know in advance and they’re aware of how long you’ll be gone for. It won’t work if your team doesn’t know you need time for church and then are wondering why you aren’t responding to them when they’re blowing up your email. Of course some concessions have to be made. Not sure if being gone from 5pm - 10pm on a working day would fly, but a good team won’t have an issue with a few hours on Sunday, and if given a notice, will know to cover at that time if work comes up.
This might sound a little overdone, but I feel it’s important to be pretty confident about your faith. As a rule of thumb don’t bring up religion in conversation unprompted. (It also usually doesn’t even come up anyway.) If it does though, I wouldn’t feel the need to hide being of a certain faith, or pretend you’re something you aren’t.
Good luck, I’m sure you’ll do great!
This is exactly what I meant above about seeking people of faith. We can all support one another, even across religions. There is an old concept that I believe started in Islam (dating back to Muhammad) called people of the Book…anyone interested should research this concept. We have a lot more similarities than differences, and we are all seeking God in our own way.
Let’s elevate that over differences, and try to love one another!
I have thought a lot about this and I am going to make sure i pray, read scripture, and setting aside part of my earnings to give alms to charity or people who ask on the street.
The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing, so it is even possible to be in the presence of God at any point while you are working. He is always with us, and while church is great, the best way of not forgetting that is staying in the Word. Get the Bible app and create a plan where you listen to a little each day in your downtime and pray along.
And on the topic earlier of “not fooling yourself that this is part of the christian journey” - we don’t know if it is. Taking a relatively common job out of college at 21yo for a couple IB years with the goal of setting up for and providing for your future family in a world where beef may eventually be $20/lb could very well be part of the Lords plan. As quoted earlier, one cannot serve two masters. While Jesus called upon tax collectors and rich men like Joseph of Arimethea, one still cannot serve both God and Mammon. Taking this job for 2-3 years as a young college kid looking for work is one thing. Letting it consume you and change where your eyes are set long term is another.
Most importantly, while it is great to get the advice of us on here, ask the Lord for guidance. He knows what is on your heart before you even ask. He will not forsake you in this period of wilderness, and He will make his will apparent. God bless.
Don't get the monkey shit at all for just asking a genuine question about expressing your faith.
First, let’s clear some theology out of the way.
Capitalism isn’t wrong from a biblical standpoint. Many of the disciples were ex-fishermen, Jesus himself grew up as a carpenter. Lydia if you remember was a seller of luxury purple cloth. Priscilla and Aquila were tentmakers, etc.
At the same type the Bible makes it extremely clear that exploitation or cheating in the free markets is wrong and unethical. Many of you have probably heard of the scene when Jesus threw out the money changers in the temple which is the common passage people seem to suggest portrays Jesus against capitalism (this is also the passage AOC herself refers to).
That scene is taken out of context, and most people do not go into why the money changers were there in the first place. The money changers partnered with the high priests to create “acceptable animals” for sacrifice and “acceptable currency” to purchase the animals and tithe and would invalidate animals that were brought or the regular currency people have. Not only does this go against the biblical law surrounding sacrifices but you can easily see that the animals were priced at a premium and the “temple currency” allowed for an even higher premium exploiting the poor people.
In the case of taxes, again Jesus does not speak against taxes. When he was asked this question he specifically said “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” This is a neutrally charged statement but affirmative that you should pay taxes. But here again, Jesus spoke out against cheating. If you remember Zacchaeus, his sin wasn’t that he collected taxes. His sin was that he cheated and collect d higher taxes while pocketing the difference and also neglecting the poor despite his wealth. These are the sins he confessed when he came to Christ, not the act of collecting taxes (and Jesus never told him to stop collecting taxes).
While this background is long-winded, it helps set the stage for the religious challenges you will face in IB.
Its not that IB is a job that deals with money or that IB gives you a good salary. It’s not even that IB services the rich (remember Lydia the seller of fine purple). It’s the net result of those deals on society and how the poor and common people are exploited that is extremely unethical.
For example, modeling in “synergies” to make a deal accretive and go through. Synergies that will lead to mass layoffs for common people and worsened work conditions for those that remain, all while your team gets a handsome deal fee and the C-suite gets millions in bonuses. Rest assured you will answer for that one day. Another would be trying to cheat a company but adjusting or tweaking model assumptions in bad faith to make a company seem more attractive to a potential buyer (work-backward model). This doesn’t have far reaching implications like labor synergies do but it’s still blatant cheating and something that Jesus would not approve of.
There certainly are jobs in finance where you can have a non-negative impact on society and make a good living. But even there, your ethics will be challenged. The temptation of greed is very real in finance and only intensifies as you move up the ladder. A very simple example ks say you work at a pension fund. You have the opportunity to invest in a REIT that you know provides good returns but is exploitative in nature (buys out existing apartment complexes and then jacks up rent and provides inferior quality). Your bonus would increase if you invest in this REIT. Would you do it?
Great answer, thank you for sharing. Pax
Christian VP here, gonna echo what a lot of people have already said, particularly the Muslim dude above
so first practical advice. You can go to church, just let your team know in advance that “hey I’m going to church, will be away from my computer call it 9:30-11:30 Sunday mornings, happy to be available before and after to do stuff”
people aren’t gonna get mad that you’re out of pocket for a few hours Sunday morning they get mad when they didn’t know you were gonna be gone and they don’t know why they can’t a hold of you when they need something done. If they know in advance they can plan around it. This dovetails into a general work principle: you’d rather overcommuncate than under.
second I wouldn’t get too hung up on if this job aligns with your values. I don’t mean to sound callous but 1) every entry level job in corporate America is at the end of the day there to maximum shareholder value in some form and 2) you’re way too low on the totem pole to really be facing any ethical dilemmas. You’re gonna spend the summer aligning logos and other boring mundane tasks. I can’t think of a summer analyst who was ever asked to anything remotely unethical.
pm me if you have other questions
I respect you asking the question, but at the same time can say with 99% conviction that you’re not going to be good to work with
IB suits ‘normal’ people
Hey OP,
I am also a strong Christian who will be an incoming SA this summer as well. I was actually wondering this yesterday and am thrilled to see a thread that actually discussed it. Unfortunately I am doing my summer in SF, but hopefully will end up in NYC full time so will be excited to hear what Christian community you have found by then.
Mods, ban please. It's insane how mods cracked down on swearing and banter on this site cuz of Buzzfeed, but allow crypto scams
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