Career Guidance and Mentorship

After grinding away for 15+ years in IB/PE I decided to retire at the end of last year. Along that journey, my friends and colleagues have often sought me out when faced with difficult work + life situations. Over the past five years, an increasing number of people have found me through LinkedIn for a similar purpose. And of course, I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with countless members of the WSO community, sometimes even face-to-face. I’m now kicking back, traveling the world, and focusing on something I’m equally passionate about: providing career guidance and mentorship.

So I have officially launched my independent career/mentorship consulting business. I will continue to post and contribute to WSO, but will also offer bespoke feedback, delivered face-to-face or via zoom (on a paid basis). The details are on my website here: www.RossettiAdvisors.com. Yes, I’m doxing myself here – please be kind.

I do not wish to compete with WSO’s interview prep and training courses, so please continue to turn to WSO if that is what you’re seeking. Outside of that, pretty much any topic is on the table. I’ve worked extensively with hundreds of people ranging from university students to retired CEOs that are evaluating serving as a board member for a PE backed company (the latter as recently as last week). While most people fall somewhere in the M&A sphere, I've also done a fair amount of work with people in various industries and functions (healthcare, marketing, insurtech, industrials, start-ups, etc.). If you're interested, go to my website and shoot me an email.

Looking forward to continuing to help everyone with their own professional journeys.

  • CompBanker

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My track record and career journey has been well documented here on WSO, but I have provided some links at the end of this post for those who are interested and haven’t been following along.

Breaking into Banking, Post #1 (2006): https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/success/how-i-got-into-banking

Getting an MBA (2012): https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/school/to-anyone-considering-an-mba

The Booth MBA Experience (2014): https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/school/reflections-on-year-1-at-booth

Update (2020): https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/private-equity/then-and-now-compbanker

Retirement Story (2022): https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/off-topic/qa-the-final-cut

Final Note: I got approval from WSO before making this post.

 
West Coast Analyst

congrats! you are the reason why I still come back to the site and read. will vouch for your advice any day of the week (and in fact may look into signing up for a session myself as a mid-career professional)!

Thank you for the kind words. You've been here for nearly 15 years yourself. Incredible to think about how much has changed since then! Looking forward to potentially connecting live in the future!

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

Thanks RonMexico. Helping people work through their career challenges has been really rewarding. Glad people are finding value in it.

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

Thanks OracleofBromaha. Really happy to hear that my perspective has benefit the HF community! Had dinner over the weekend with a friend and her husband who works at a hedge fund specializing in crypto. Fascinating world — learned a lot — still a lot more to learn.

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

I’ve been called Chuck by a few different people throughout my life and always found it a bit strange. That said, for double my rate, you can call me whatever you’d like.

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

Congrats man. You've always stood out here for your thoughtfulness and kindness. It's entirely unsurprising to see so many people testify to experiencing the same thing in offline interactions. 

I hope you're enjoying having so much more free time, and I know you're using it well.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 
Most Helpful

My ‘retired’ life has been absolutely amazing so far. Hiking all day Sunday, Kitesurfing all day Monday. No regrets.

It has also been really fun helping people through my new platform … surprisingly a lot of professionals with c.10 years of experience with a whole assortment of challenges. A much more rewarding day-to-day than cranking out deals (even if i cut my pay by 99%). In fact, you even got a shout out today by one of my clients APAE!

Against my better judgment, I actually started an instagram account. I’ve been shocked to find out that when people meet these days, they don’t exchange phone numbers, they exchange instagrams. I mean, damn … how out of touch am I?

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 
CompBanker

Yes, I'm doxing myself here – please be kind.

+1 SB. Congrats. Had the same thought when putting out my book and listing my real name on WSO. People online are really amazing....Believe it or not had only minimal negative reactions and about a million kids blowing up my LinkedIn account.

 

Just a side thought. I hope that WSO keeps letting you pitch your services on the site. Social networks prosper when users can leverage those platforms and their networks to their benefit as well. I hope that starting your own site doesn't lead to less posts over here.

 

Believe it or not, it has led to a lot more posts. I’m continuing to respond to questions and try to be helpful where I can. The reality is that the mentorship type services im doing for people is WAY too bespoke to conflict with forum posts — so I’ll happily continue to answer posts on the forums and if people want to pay for private, personal discussions, they are free to do so. I’m also not really running a substantial practice here … I’m looking to enjoy life so only taking on a handful of clients.

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

That's exactly my point. If you are allowed to indirectly pitch your business, it will lead to more posts which is great for WSO

Another interesting thought would be to set up an affiliate relationship with WSO where you can get a small cut for signing up clients for WSO interview prep. While you aren't competing with WSO, there are some synergies that would work great for both of you. I'm sure that interview prep is not what you want to spend time on but also helps clients trying to break in. Maybe something worth talking to Patrick about.

 

Thanks Patrick. We’ve all come such a long way! If only people today could experience what IBOasis was like in its infancy!

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

I didn’t realize this post got ‘bumped.’ Thank you for the kind comments. I was extremely active on WSO for the first six or so years, back when there weren’t many (any?) experienced professionals on the website. The website has grown tremendously since, so over time I tried to focus my posts on questions that couldn’t be answered by junior / mid-level employees. Seeing the evolution and even going back and reading some of my own posts has been quite enjoyable. I like to think my 20-something year old self was pretty ‘aware’ but my insights have obviously changed as I’ve gotten older and more experience. Thankfully only slightly!

At some point I’ll post an update on how retirement is going now that I’ve been at it a year!

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

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