As the title explains, curious if anyone has landed a role in strategic finance making more than $200K after 2 years in IB working 40-50 hours. Wanted to see if feasible or if I should adjust my expectations
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Based on the most helpful WSO content, transitioning from IB to strategic finance with a $200K+ compensation while working 40-50 hours per week is feasible but not guaranteed. Here's what you should know:
Compensation in Strategic Finance:
Hours in Strategic Finance:
Adjusting Expectations:
In summary, while $200K+ in strategic finance with 40-50 hours is possible, it may require more experience or a pivot to other high-paying finance roles. If you're early in your career, consider focusing on roles with strong growth potential to hit your target in the medium term.
Sources: Strategic finance?, Is Corporate Banking that much worse than IB?, The Case for Taking a Banking Attitude to Other Industries, A Guide for Switching From Commercial Banking to Investment Banking
Think this is an anomaly but my friend did 1.5 years NYC BB > Decacorn strategic finance role, made $290k all in hours 9-7pm
damn how’d he find a role like that? guessing through linkedin or something?
yeah linkedin apply - got super lucky. He was non-target undergrad and his BB is the weakest one out of the 8
What’s split of cash and stock of that $290k?
All cash. He has no equity (not offered to associates)
Which decacorn? Not sure I believe this. OpenAI and Anthropic aren’t even paying $290k to non-engineering w 2 yrs of experience, and they’re known to pay top of line. Also not offering any equity for a decacorn is v unusual.
Trust me, he is one of my best friends and I called BS too and he showed me pay stubs. I have no reason to brag to online strangers about a compensation that's not even mine.
Don't want to reveal what decacorn to spare him but it is non-tech. Equity is offered but he came in as pretty much the most junior person (associate) so he did not get any for his rank. How absurd is his current situation, severely overpaid compared to industry averages and norms?
I call BS on this. No strategic finance role is paying 290k cash to an associate. Explain in what world a company would justify paying such a high salary to someone who doesn’t bear all the risk - ie at the associate level. Just common sense. And then the other person’s point on Anthropic and OpenAI - exactly, these are the highest paying companies for strat fin and they are not paying this much, so this is highly unbelieveable.
That is fine, dont need to debate back and forth. I know its real. His base was $135k and bonus was $155k. Doesn't have equity.
Share the job posting then. It's likely expired but you can easily access archived job posting links. You constantly post about these huge strat fin cash offers for folks with 4 years of experience.. please share evidence :).
He probably had a large one time payment related to some major corporate event. When I was F500, we went into a busy period where we did several really large deals in a row. My boss set up a bonus structure per deal and we all ended up making a lot. Granted I didn’t make 290K, that is the most likely explanation. His base is pretty normal and inline with comp reports for that level
After PE this is doable, after just IB it’s tougher. After just IB, I think $120-$150K cash for a 9-5 fully remote is realistic. If you stick that out for a few years, you can cross 200K at the manager / sr manager level very realistically.
bump, so basically you're taking a huge pay cut to enter strategic finance?
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