I want to be in a c-suite level position of a retail company. I have been told by a few people that I should focus on gaining operational experience instead of the M&A investment banking experience that I am getting. What exactly is operational experience and what kind of role provides you with it?
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get a position in product management or ecommerce. jet.com category specialist comes to mind as a good role for you
so is operating experience better than financial experience?
depends on what your goals are. Most C-Suite positions in the Fortune 500 or any industry, operational experience (aka management consulting or in the desired industry) is better. CFO might be the only exception where starting in IB or Corp Dev works in your favor.
i think they should be viewed as a marriage. to be clear, when i say financial experience, i am referring to understanding the impact of business decisions on the P< not transaction experience like IB or corporate development. anyway, point is i dont see how one can be a good operator - manage expenses, improve logistics relationships, manage vendor agreements, budget decisions, etc - without concurrently getting financial experience during the decision making process.
I remember seeing that when it came to Fortune 500 CEOs, the most common experience on their way up was operations, followed by finance, so the advice you were given wasn't terrible. Rounding things out was general management and marketing/commercial, with no CEO coming from an HR or legal part of the business IIRC.
Agree with much of the above, but I'd say that starting with a couple years of professional services experience, whether it's banking or consulting is one of the better ways to go. The rigor of banking/consulting helps you develop a baseline, general skillset/mindset pretty quickly, and generally opens up better opportunities to join companies in more operating type roles vs. going straight out of school
If I decide to do banking for a few years first, are there any divisions/groups/industries that would best prepare me for a career in luxury retail/fashion?
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