Associate vs. VP
I'm a late bloomer when it comes to the desire to enter a career in private equity. While networking, I'm engaging people to discuss associate roles. From my industry experience though, I have a decent Rolodex of company management contacts, and I've worked for a couple of sponsored companies. My questions are: 1. What are the major skill differences between Associate and VP? 2. If I have a decent network, could I come from the outside directly into a VP role? 3. What value proposition do I pitch to market myself directly to VP level roles?
If a deal you introduced gets done you MAY be able to come in as business development associate. if you are in corp dev now there is basically zero chance you will get in with the investment team.
scroll through some older posts, many want to transition to PE but without prior transaction experience, chances are slim to none.
Have you ever completed any M&A transactions? Have you ever negotiated M&A legal docs? Have you ever sat on a board and helped management with operational things?
You have ZERO chance at entering as a VP at PE if you're a "late bloomer". Hell, the odds are already low enough for you to join as an associate. It's that competitive.
Over $1B in OFS deals done including sourcing and executing transactions. Soup to nuts. So far PE firms hint at a senior role at a portfolio company. But I'm willing to take a step back to lateral into PE.
I would argue you can pick almost all of these skills in Corp Dev. I would say the difference is the lens you are looking at investments, you change from an emphasis on a strategic view in CD to financial view in PE (although both equally important IMO).
The CD teams I've been a part of we've done everything from origination to integration (including negotiating M&A legal documents - of course in tandem with our legal friends). I think the part that maybe a little lacking is an operational side (could be different depending on company, as we always hand it off to business units after integration)
Oh yeah and deal flow, in CD you might only get to do 1-4 deals in a good year (depending on industry)
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