Leadership vs. Work Experience

Solid work experience, in my experience, is valued more so than quality leadership. At the end of the day, you aren't leading anything but your fingers to the keyboard as an analyst but you're right in saying that having both is preferable.

Internships (preferably brand name ones)

Finance and Consulting are two of the professions that perhaps cares most about brand names. In the world of business in general, the perception of your abilities are probably more important than your actual abilities.

It might be vain - but think about if you were a client of an M&A firm. Unless you have a strong relationship with a corporate bank, you're going to hire GS/MS/JPM to do your business for you. Why? Because they have the reputation of being a strong bank - due to their brand name.

Also, if you say, I was President of Such&Such Club. What does that mean exactly?... They might have to read the description to get a better idea - and they won't, because they don't care enough to. On the other hand, "Summer analyst at XYZ boutique Investment Bank". Oh, okay, clearly this kid knows something about the profession and has had some experience. Let's call him in.

Internships win every time. Coolness factor (clubs, extracurriculars, unrelated businesses, etc.) help, but they won't get you in the door quite like an internship will.

What if you've made significant accomplishment within the club? For example, increasing membership by X%, budgeting and executing activities, etc. Surprisingly, there's a lot of effort that goes into what I do, and it would seem like a waste if it didn't mean anything.

Doesn't matter. Despite your efforts, you will ultimately be given very little credit by things such as budgeting and executing activities. Think of it this way: In a legitimate IBD internship, you could be doing 100 hour weeks for about eight weeks. That's 800 hours of work experience over the course of the summer. No matter how much recruiting, budgeting, and executing you've done, I promise you that it amounts to a fraction of the amount of experience gained from an internship.

I should clarify that internships with regards to part-time internships throughout the year. I understand the importance of summer internships, but how do part-time internships stack up with leadership experience? Maybe that would change things. Thanks.

are you talking about FT recruitment or SA recruitment? do prospective SAs really need brand names to get interviews for SA? (i.e. brand names in sophomore year or even freshman year)

The only "leadership" that is weighted as better than an in session internship is a popular D1 sport of the president of a fraternity that your interviewer was also in.

To add to my previous comment, 99% of the time work experience is more desired than leadership experience, the only exception I can see to this rule is if you founded a new organization on campus ....I mean a real organization that has been around for several semesters and actually does things, not one of those we meet once a week for 30 minutes and do absolutely nothing clubs.