What's everyone do in the A&D industry?

Nice - I'd be interested in talking with you more about your experience. You wouldn't happen to know of any openings, would you? lol

I've tried to break into corporate development/corporate strategy in A&D/Government Services but have not been able to make the transition. I had a final round w/ a top A&D firm for a corporate development job but was passed over for someone with banking experience. I also had a final round for another top A&D firm for a strategy position that ended up going on hold and then was eventually eliminated from the budget. Close but no cigar.

Anyway, I currently work in public sector management consulting and have primarily worked with DoD and DHS, although I have done a couple of notable internal corporate strategy projects at my company. I'm looking to transition to IB or corporate development post-MBA (or sooner if possible) in A&D, technology or energy.

No openings that I know of at my company - small group, 2 analysts, turnover every ~2-3 years has been the norm. We do have an MBA intern this summer, but all analysts have been internal hires. At our parent company, the corp dev group has also historically hired all analysts internally out of a rotational program, but all managers/directors have IB/consulting backgrounds.

Have you looked at boutique aero IBs? I am also trying to plan my next step, and am starting to look at smaller banks that focus on aerospace & defense as a possibility.

PM me if you want to talk more specifics.

I've worked in a research & analysis capacity within the defense industry in a few different areas:

Market forecasting for Defense and Federal IT markets Market intelligence for government contracting opportunities with the defense agencies Defense budgets of other countries (economic/military analysis)

My academic background is in econ and accounting, I'm applying for MSF programs here in DC as soon as I finish taking the GMAT this summer. My goal is to transition to sell side ER covering the major defense companies next year (summer internship 2012, probably).

I'm also starting on the CFA level 1 this fall.

j-radI work in M&A/Strategy for a major aerospace systems provider. Curious to know what everyone else does (all 3 of you) in this group. Anyone in aero IB?

I'm trying to get into aero IB :P The HL conference looks very interesting...and am heavily considering making the trek down from Toronto in october. Has anyone been to the conference before? If you did go, how was it?

j-radI work in M&A/Strategy for a major aerospace systems provider. Curious to know what everyone else does (all 3 of you) in this group. Anyone in aero IB?

I'm trying to get into aero IB :

The HL conference looks very interesting...and am heavily considering making the trek down from Toronto in october. Has anyone been to the conference before? If you did go, how was it?

I work at one of the large A&D companies in strategy but would be interested in shifting to a boutique IB firm in the future (my background/education is in finance).

Are there any websites or books that you guys recommend to learn more about the sector? I'm interviewing for a bank which has a MD specializing in applied defense and technology companies and I want to get a stronger understanding of the industry and its trends.

New to the group. Work in A&D equity strategies/research. Excited to dig into the space and get to know the mgt teams across our companies.

Anybody have a good source of A&D news outside of financial publications? I am looking for a more specialized news feed meant for industry. As we all could assume, the WSJ is NOT the world's foremost authority on this subject.

I've work at INPUT directly on the database. I covered Air Force, DoD, and DHS. :)

I worked for Lockheed Martin for 6.5 years as a Systems Integration Test Engineer Asc. and (for the last 5 years) a Quality Engineer Senior. I worked in two of the major business units (Integrated Systems & Global Services, and Aeronautics). I am likely to get an MBA part-time starting this fall. I have interest in the CFA, though my plans to attempt level 1 have been pushed off until Dec. The goal for now is equity research covering A&D. Though my role as a quality engineer has led to a lot of great operational experience, so we'll see where I end up.

Hi everyone. I'm a new monkey. In my 8th year as a UAV an small satellite engineer and program manager at a smaller firm. Working on my MBA now and looking at aerospace consulting, IB, but preferably equity analysis.