Up or Out in IB?
How long can one stay as a director/md? Always wondered what life as a career banker would be like after making a director/md. Is it similar to consulting?
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At one of my old banks, one person was at the Director level for five years. They were not very good at bringing in projects, but they were willing to call every PE group and take a ton of market update calls, so I guess people like keeping them around as an expensive management relationship person.
thanks for sharing. So if you grind enough staying at the level is possible
No, you don’t really ‘stay’ at any level below MD.
Sure there’s a few random 5th or 6th year VPs/Ds hanging around, but that’s the exception. And their time is limited.
5 years is not a long time to spend as Director. The minority of Directors are promoted to MD after 3 years. If you're okay playing the lateral game, you can probably stretch a VP stint to 5 years and Director stint even beyond that.
Most places are pretty focussed about not keeping hold of people for too long at VP or Director.
I often see if you don't make director after 4 years then you're out or MD after 5 years.
However, even shit MDs seem to bounce around multiple places for years fleecing employers and bringing in nothing. Esoecialky if they start in Bulge abd work down. Makes you wonder how they even got to MD....
thats literally my dream.
start at a strong bb...barely make MD...pull a bonus clip or two....then be lazy and bring in no revenue....get pushed out
sign a guaranteed bonus offer at a lower BB, receive said bonus...be lazy...bring in no revenue...get pushed out
repeat at a mm firm like baird
then lmm firm
then a really bad no name boutique
probably save millions of dollars doing this game while barely working
By the time folks figure it out you have ten years of MD experience! Probably can move back up market if you hit a good bull market!
gotta assume that people will talk and that it would be easy to tell that you're a no revenue MD...especially if no wins that you can point to.
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