Did My Team Set Me Up to Miss VP?
Senior Associate at a large bank, recently told my promotion is uncertain despite consistently positive feedback and being told I’ve progressed significantly over the past couple of years.
The main concern is apparently demonstrating more next level responsibilities, particularly leverage, supervision and senior exposure. The frustrating part is that I’ve been asking for exactly those opportunities for a long time.
Due to team resourcing and structure, I’ve often had limited junior support and senior exposure. I repeatedly asked for more responsibility, meetings and leverage through multiple channels, but also agreed to work down when needed because the team was understaffed.
On execution, I take substantial ownership and genuinely believe I operate at a comparable level to my peers. When given leverage, I’ve had no issue supervising juniors and running processes.
So it feels circular: limited leverage → work down to help the team → repeatedly ask for more → promotion time → told I haven’t demonstrated enough leverage.
I also only learned relatively late in the process that this could actually prevent promotion, leaving little time to change anything.
Already looking externally, but would you still make the case directly to senior management, or is lack of sponsorship at this stage basically the answer?
Life fuck people over sometimes, just put your head down and keep working. The thing you deserve will eventually become yours
You need to lateral asap. Not getting VP promo means you have no real backing in the group despite whatever nice thing your MD is saying. Decisions have been made a while back and there’s very little chance of changing anything. Group head couldn’t care less and probably has been briefed who’s good for vp promo and who’s not. Unfortunate situation, but happens
If someone is willing to fuck you over once, they’re willing to fuck you again.
I got fucked over for promotion and lateraled. Painful upfront but doing way better now in terms of career, comp, culture.
Did you reset a year?
I know a guy from mba class of 2020 who has had this shit kinda luck and will “hopefully” be VP next year. You’re best option is to try and recruit out I think. Even if you don’t get the promo you could go up platform which makes being asso another year at least more worthwhile
This is not an uncommon issue to deal with.
Was in a similar situation. Lateral ASAP
Agree with everything people here are saying. Lateral asap. By how you’re describing it, that should’ve been something you did a year ago
this is probably way too much detail tbh. your team will know this is you for better or worse
ain’t no way they’re reading this many words
lol sorry guys
Normally I would tell you that this is banking, it’s like the military. If you’re commanding officer is a fucking idiot, too bad. Smile and eat shit.
However, you claim to be a high performing junior on a lean team. And you’re interviewing externally and are planning to leave.
So in this unique case, I think you can be more vocal to your MD and lay out your case. Tell him why you should be a VP. Ask him that if you’re asked to repeats a year as an SA will you still get VP comp given you have strong reviews. Going over his head to his boss seems a bridge too far unless you have your external offer in hand.
I am assuming you spend most of the time working with this MD / D team this feels like a betrayal
Typically at a BB, you will need at least one MD in the committee who will vouch for you and put up a strong case for you. Plus a few other MDs who can speak to your work and are either positive or neutral about you. Also the group head has a say in your promotion, and if you haven’t worked with your group head at all, it might be difficult…
Your fortunes seems to be tied to your director somewhat, and if there isn’t enough deal flow in your vertical then it might become difficult to justify specifically to support this MD
Does your MD work with other Senior associates in your group? and is he supportive of their promotion? If that’s the case then you should immediately lateral
No, that’s actually part of what makes this so difficult. The way our coverage is structured, it is basically the MD, my Director and me covering the region, so he isn’t working with other Senior Associates in the same setup and choosing to support them over me.
The MD is also not based in London, he is based in another European country within our coverage region, so despite technically working together, we have surprisingly limited direct interaction. Most of my day to day work goes through the Director. At the same time, this coverage has taken up the vast majority of my time, so my ability to build sponsorship elsewhere has naturally been limited.
That’s why I genuinely do feel pretty betrayed by the situation. I spent the last couple of years focused on this team, consistently received good feedback and was repeatedly told I had progressed. I actively asked for more exposure, meetings, junior leverage and opportunities to step up, including through staffing / development channels.
The first time I understood that my VP promotion could actually be at risk was at mid year in July. Now a couple of months later I’m effectively being told there’s a real possibility I lose a full year of progression. It feels like a bomb being dropped extremely late, particularly because some of the gaps being cited are things I had been asking them to give me the opportunity to develop.
I’m already interviewing externally because at this point I think I need to get out of the situation altogether. But I’m still trying to understand whether there is anything sensible I can do internally before the decision is final. Would you go directly back to the MD and make the case, or at this stage would you assume the lack of sponsorship itself tells me everything I need to know?
I hear you, and it truly feels like you have been dealt with a shitty hand. The real challenge is the D above you. It sounds to me like s/he has used you as a junior resource, and not really relayed the good feedback about your organizational / managing skills upwards to your MD. And your MD has had a limited view of your actual contributions and ideas that you could bring to the table.
When I was a Snr. ASO, in a similar setup with MD / D, I took the opportunity to bypass the D and work directly with the MD for the entire year. It helped that our D was underwater with other projects, so I could bypass him without much effort, and since I knew all / most of the stuff about a couple of deals the MD had no other choice but call me directly in critical matters., and that’s how we built a relationship that’s still going strong
Always remember, at big organizations, you need to work with the senior most person in your deal team. They are the most influential and impactful for your ratings and promotions. The ones in the middle like your D / VP are typically helpful if you are slightly junior, but by the time you get to a snr. Associate role, you should build that trust / network with MDs who want to work with you directly, and that’s their way to say, “hey XYZ worked independently for this deal, ean it, spoke to clients, managed juniors and kept the deal team in check by providing timely questions / relevant flags etc”
In all honesty, it feels like it might be too late to build that sponsorship right now with one month to spare. In your shoes, I’d probably try and lateral somewhere else. And when you have the offer, get a little feedback from the director on why did s/he not put up your contributions to the right parties. Guilt trip the D
Alternatively, at this moment you could also ask the director on what you need to do for him to recommend you upwards to a few MDs for projects and promotion and say this promotion is important for you and you want to stick around and do good work but if there’s no promote then that will feel like a setback, and you would rather go somewhere else. See how s/he reacts and if he’s afraid of losing you or does s/he feel like he can get other people to work for him. That should give you the answer
Director is definitely screwing you over and keeping the structure on purpose. I knew it the second i read "her"
100% it benefits her - bonus: she can’t make MD so if I make VP she is basically redundant…
Yeah this sounds like the heart of the issue.
This sucks man and they don't value you. Seek the lateral VP promo or lateral senior associate ops with clear milestones to reach VP.
US based - but can’t see how someone would hire you with a guaranteed VP title next year unless it’s a step down brand wise, have significant hiring need cause they churn lot, etc. where one year of step up might cost you lot more in the long run. Tbh - if you were a true rockstar it would’ve shown (have you been paid top bucket as associate every year?). Think you are basically saying I’m an associate 3 in a group that’s not that busy where 1 MD only needs 1 VP or D to do the execution work and I didn’t get really bad reviews so I should be promoted because associates should get promoted to VP if they don’t get laid off. Truth is probably you are somewhere in mid to 3rd quartile and group / firm doesn’t have enough headcount need so you are getting the holdback.
You probably still need to make a move but wouldn’t say it’s D or MDs fault / oversight and nothing else. They (and rest of the group) just don’t need you as much as you think.
my biggest concern here is that it doesn't sound like you will have any senior bankers that give you their very strong support when other firms reach out to references.
if you were trying to lateral to my team months before promotion, I would assume you were denied a promotion. you can certainly overcome this but probably not without 1-2 enthusiastic sponsors that can say why they screwed you this way
make sure you can line up solid references (maybe senior guys no longer at your firm) and a good story for why youre not waiting on the promotion to lateral. good luck
Holy sh^t. You take this way too seriously and are turning this into a character evaluation. He is still employed and idiots like you would rather rely on gossip. Do you think the seniors screwing him over will offer you a fair version of the story? If he is not on any PIP, should be good to go or if he was unemployed at max we would chat with his staffer or look at his performance reviews if they are avaibale.
someone asked for feedback on a challenging situation. i gave candid feedback because that is all I would want from anyone else in their shoes. they can take it or throw it away.
i don't know them so I can't opine on their character.
im pretty baffled by this level of vicarious offense though. how are you this thin skinned? Im afraid of what you wouldve done if I said that to you
Eaque unde non repellendus. Qui nam eos sequi facere non.
Ea voluptatem est magni expedita repudiandae repudiandae. Commodi beatae quia aut expedita ex totam consequuntur pariatur.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Dolor hic totam neque sequi odio quod eligendi quia. Ut ut nulla distinctio vitae hic adipisci. Cumque enim voluptatem sit omnis consequatur voluptate. Laborum qui adipisci saepe ea. Eos occaecati ut praesentium dolor quaerat omnis. Occaecati tenetur voluptatem totam error ipsam.
Sit tempore autem cumque atque laudantium quisquam delectus. Deserunt aperiam praesentium amet maiores ut ea aut. Laboriosam accusamus pariatur nihil ut impedit soluta. Id quas voluptas exercitationem quas quia dolorem quibusdam.
Incidunt qui illo molestias officia. Qui deleniti fugit facere autem in quia dolorem placeat. Doloremque ipsa dolorum deserunt eaque saepe minima. Autem soluta tempore suscipit vel et magnam corporis. Id consequatur est nesciunt ut. Quisquam qui dolores facere asperiores dolorum et deserunt.