Q&A: VP at Morgan Stanley to Leading Corp M&A Department

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About
* An established M&A practitioner with 15+ years of experience with elite institutions on both sides of the table * Recently joined a global ingredients company to lead its M&A department * Vice-President within the Consumer Retail IBD practice, covered global food companies * Spent 8+ years with an Industrial company in its Corporate Development & Strategy team and field operations * MBA with concentrations in Economics and Finance * BSBA in Accounting and licensed CPA
Q&A
Ask me anything relating to my career or education.

cbdbanker · Accepted Answer

I'll start off. Thank you for doing the AMA.

What led you to transition out of banking into Corporate Development? Was there not a clear path to D or MD since you were at the VP level?
Can you comment on the compensation differences between IBD vs your corporate role(pay cut, pay bump, etc)?
What is your outlook on the CPG space as a whole? Is it still a viable way to have a (somewhat)recession-proof long term career in IBD or industry?

mledyard · Answer

I'm really glad you asked the question re: if not Consumer, which group? For Morgan Stanley, so many groups have fantastic team cultures, it would be tough to flag which one. Within the associate program, Morgan Stanley is the last firm on the street to do a generalist Associate pool. While it can insight fears for MBAs in terms of getting their "top choice" group, it is a really wonderful way to address group culture and group fit.

mledyard · Answer

I really appreciate this first question re: why transition & was there no path? The path piece has a lot of components to it for any banker, but the most important to me was do I want the path laid out for me? The more senior I became as a VP, the more I observed the challenges and stress that MDs face. As I put myself in those same shoes, the role became less and less appealing to me.

mledyard · Answer

Thanks, Rocafella. While I'm still feeling this out for myself, I've noticed a consistent framework. Because I work for a publicly traded company with a RCF/Revolver, we need to pay our banks who lend to us. If an M&A assignment is extremely complex, and the banks we have who can handle the assignment are conflicted, we will go outside the bank group to hire the right talent. Rarely does a bank bring us an idea that we haven't already pursued or point to a company that we don't already know.

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Q&A: VP at Morgan Stanley to Leading Corp M&A Department

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Q&A: VP at Morgan Stanley to Leading Corp M&A Department

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