Message to VPs — Focus on Revenue
One of the things about this job that makes me despise the work environment is the toxic waste of time spent on things that the client did not ask for, will not need / read, and is taking up time that could be better spent on generating fees. So many VPs have hit the point where they need to start becoming relationship people but they simply cannot let go of the focus on deliverables. I get it, it’s important to deliver high quality work to the client, but if your deck is simply a bunch of BS fluff with terms like “tech-enabled” or “vertically integrated” then you are not truly advising them. Sorry for the rant, just got finished building a deck that’s not going to be used because the client is on a trip and forgot their laptop.
Hang in there, my brother / sister.
You’re mad at your VP bc your client ultimately forgot their laptop and doesn’t care anymore?
weird things happen but this is on your dummy client more than your VP
Weird your getting shit because you are objectively right. I get the OP's point but in the scenario they provided your comment is spot on.
Imagine how much more money groups would earn and how much more productive everyone would be if VPs actually focused on building their client books instead of wasting everyone’s time reviewing pitchbooks. Nobody even cares about your opinion.
I get the frustration, but it's the VP's job to spend their time reviewing pitch materials so the MD doesn't have to allocate as much of their time on it. The trick of this business is to make the job / life easier of the person(s) above you. Have been in the position and have complained myself (particularly as an analyst / associate), but as you move up, your perspective you had when younger / move junior evolves. That being said, a lot of time is still wasted and efficiency is highly group and team dependent - fully agree with that.
Note: I'm currently working through the PowerPoint of pitch materials then sending to the rest of our senior team.
Yep. The VP's job is whatever the people above you think it is. For some, that means no reviewing decks and getting out and meeting new potential clients in order to source revenue. For others, that means being a glorified associate
The switch to relationship generating from VP is a hard move. It’s a different skill set. As poster mentioned above though, creating content, ideas, and reviewing decks is literally the job of a VP. It sounds like you are just working with a bad VP who might not be that smart. I was an analyst too and your perspective definitely changes as you realize why people are a certain way.
No point generating revenue too early. MDs take the credit
I think part of the frustration is a disconnect between how VPs are seen internally and by clients. As a client I frankly don’t see a VP as a senior counterpart from the bank’s side. If there are problems with the deck/work the VP is my first and most junior go-to for complaining and I’d expect them to catch these things before the materials get distributed to us. I see VPs as the head of your working group while internally they’re seen as having graduated the working team. I will eat my shoe if someone at my funds engages a bank based on the VP
Agreed with this perspective as well as someone from the buy-side. I get annoyed when the most senior person from a deal team engaging with me is the associate...usually go above them and ask to speak to the VP.
You must have a sad life
What grinds my gears is VPs sending FORMATTING comments to a quick calc the MD asked for. Oh the MD who just wants to see revenue back 3 years can't read it without spacer columns and you want the row heights to be taller? Gtfo dude
Or on an CIM last week after turns and turns here we are with a middle of the night set of comments: adding "among others" to the end of a list, changing "massive" opportunity to "extensive" opportunity, etc. All of these these thing happened this week in a turn after 3am. Did that make you feel really smart VP? Really good use of a turn that late to add an extra 30 mins on these brilliant ideas of yours?It's actually hilarious how much work they create for themselves and others with ZERO value add
I'm not saying these are bad / you have bad experiences, but there is another side to it, specifically the formatting comment to quick calcs. A good presentation, even of BOE math, gives the MD confidence that the team is on their shit. Some scratch notes may give them some uncertainty
VP here. I get those same comments from my MD, the VP was anticipating the MDs comments, which is their job. I agree that there is a lot of zero value add work in our industry and I do my best to push back when my MD asks for nonsense that I know will never see the light of day for the sake of my deal team but the VPs job is to make the MDs life easier, not yours.
Your PornHub search terms don't belong in MPs.
I swear some formatting tasks take less time to complete than it does to type out and send the email asking someone else to do it
I've had the same thought throughout my career from Analyst through VP. The reality is it might take less time for me as a VP to do certain tasks myself instead of sending a note for the An/As to make the change but the Analyst and/or Associate won't learn to not make the same mistake again or learn MD language/format preferences if they don't actively complete the task themselves.
Believe me, I want to. I want nothing to do with looking at models, ticking and tying slides and shit like that. Ideally I want to do nothing more than check to see content is consistent with what we are delivering, deck has everything MD asked for and polishing language.
I can do this with one of the associates, work is fucking exemplary. Most of the time, I'd rather get out of their way and not be a gatekeeper to the MD. Associate gets to be better positioned to move up and I can focus on BD, win win. The other associate always needs a line by line review of every piece of work.
As VPs, we have our faults and unfortunately, it's you guys / girls that suffer. "Value add" comments that are useless, analysis/scenarios that are meaningless, make work bullshit that gets dropped in an appendix or tossed completely. I think that stems from people who aren't ready to make the step up and need to latch on to work and "contribute" to demonstrate "value". VP is the first real "up or out" move IMO, and not everyone can cut it. If you're (VPs) going to lead, you need to lead by example. Train and mentor your associates to take point on deliverables.
On the flip side, there is some merit to some of the additional work. You'll see this when you're more BD oriented, that clients often don't know and what seems to be a useless piece of make work often becomes a focus of discussion for the client. A good banker with a view into the client's thinking should be able to gauge what's really value add and what's not. A useless VP / glorified associate won't have that.
In fairness, client forgetting his laptop isn’t your VP’s fault
Should have phrased it better, the client had told us they forgot their laptop ahead of us making the presentation. Got some good backup slides for the future though at least.
I went to an on-site meeting with our client and a prospective buyer, which was in another city from where I am based.
I fly out to the city we were meeting when I realized I had my laptop bag but forgot my actual laptop. I was devastated since I was supposed to be the one who was sharing the slides for the discussion.
I had printed out the deck for everyone but my MD did not want to use the hard copies. I was freaking out and the morning I got there, I found out that the TV we were projecting had an apple TV. I downloaded the PowerPoint app on my phone and mirrored the PowerPoint presentation to the display TV.
Things went on without a hitch and there was good dialogue was had between parties.............and of course we only looked at one slide out of the whole deck.
I was pretty stressed out at the time.
TLDR: Don't forget your laptop
Regarding stupid comments oftentimes the VP's have worked with these MD's for 5+ years and are anticipating comments they know they'll get. A lot of my VP's would do that around formatting / phrasing preferences that seemed dumb but that the senior would ask for if the VP didn't.
Ok then maybe flag those in one of the first 10 times / rounds of comments seeing the same pages instead??? Or when you send the text for us to drop in?
Orrrrr (God forbid) you make text edits in ppt so save everybody time? Oh but I forgot when you do that you need me to pdf and send because somehow in the year since you were an associate they disabled pdf and removed your attach button in outlook
I completely understand the reason you do a lot of this to get it how the MD wants it, that’s not lost on me. What is lost is the absolute garbage level of resource management and the pretend games we play about these marginal adjustments that buyers don’t give two shits about
I prefer making text edits directly in PPT but that also means that juniors don’t bother to check what changes I made (and understand why) and ultimately don’t learn
How many investment banking VPs does it take to screw a lightbulb?
One. He’ll be screwing around all night.
Response to joke - that’s the only thing the VP has screwed.
But in all seriousness, no single person in this thread has nailed down what it means to be a successful VP (and I manage 10 of them). Watch this space,
Only 10? Pfff
You know he’s a real MD when you see a line end mid-thought with a comma
Ps. 10 lightbulbs is a lot in a recession just saying
Here's my answer for what makes a successful VP and why analysts (like OP) make that transition difficult.
MDs typically know what to say. If not, they'll spend lots of time on materials to help them think through the message.
VPs typically don't know what to say (that's why they're not bringing in revenues). They should spend time on materials to figure out what they want to say if they were an MD. In addition, they should spend time on materials to make sure the MDs don't have to worry about pages. Eventually, VPs will be in a position where they will begin knowing what to say to clients. Successful VPs spend the first half of their tenure focusing on content + execution, and the second half of their tenure focusing on content + execution + relationships + BD. In other words, they shift. The best VPs make that shift early.
And if VPs have time left over, they should help with either other clients where attention would be helpful, or on BD.
VPs can't do any of this well when analysts don't format well, aren't proactive, want to be told exactly what to do, are incapable of filling in the gaps, complain, drag their feet or can't be trusted to run more thoughtful analyses because they don't even format slides well.
If your ability to do your job well is materially affected by some junior's inability to make columns the exact width that you like then maybe you're just not very good at your job
In an ideal world, VPs would focus on what it would take to succeed as a Director or MD in terms of client sourcing etc. The VP role is the critical juncture where yes one has to focus on balancing guiding the process, ensuring good deliverable quality, and making sure the MD's instructions are being followed, but they also need to make sure they are building their own relationships both within their existing client network and outside of it. A lot of them don't get this because they feel it's more value-additive to mindlessly create work for the sake of delivering it to a client for no rhyme or reason. This just leaves them with a bad taste in their junior team's mouth and if and when the MD realizes they did this, they'll just not respect the VP because even though MDs are the kings of brownnosing, this will come off as the ultimate demonstration of that.
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