Do PE VPs Always Have An Associate Under Them?
Currently an experienced VP. Given unexpected deal flow this year and our current Associates are pretty busy, I've been staffed on a potential new deal without an Associate under me (just an MD and me as 2-person deal team).
I'm expected to do both deal analysis/execution and deal quarterbacking here. I'm already pretty busy with other projects/portcos right now so this would become a huge time commitment if we move forward on the deal.
Other VPs in PE - do you always have an Associate working under you on projects, whether that's portcos or new deals? Wondering if I should push back or ask leadership to hire additional junior support.
This scenario does come up occasionally. In my experience, the Partners will adjust their analysis and diligence expectations accordingly.
That said, if expectations and deal flow appear likely to remain elevated for an extended period, I would definitely push for additional junior resources.
Do you have the more advanced Claude models available? If you are an experienced VP that knows what good looks like and what the answers should generally be, you can do a lot of grindy data analysis with AI that traditionally an associate would do.
Agree - good starting point with solid iterative improvements
This happened all the time at my
old firm (brand MM firm). VPs do everything up and down depending on resources. You’d be laughed out of the room if you complained about it at that place.
In my experience, if the deal becomes legit (i.e., passes some phase in the process or whatever arbitrary milestone you wana shoot for), would bring it back up with the team to reprioritize resources so you can get an associate. And maybe play politics w the associate too so one of them raises their hand
I always have an associate but he's useless half the time depending on the type of project (he's good at 'down the fairway' type stuff, and bad when an ounce of creative thinking is involved). So I'm often filling both seats. It's hard on the schedule but I don't really see pushing back as an option. I think a factor in my pay is the understanding that we're lean and that I'm sometimes being asked to sacrifice an inordinate amount of free time. I don't really see the typical firm hierarchy as an entitlement for me to make demands.
The one time I can make demands is when we're in live deal mode, that's always a card that can be played.
Agree (unfortunately) with the expectation that the VP will fill both seats when there is underperforming associate or no associate available - unless it’s live deal sprint
Curious - Do you "fault" your associate for that? Or is that a given and expectation that hes only 25, or 26 years old. I am similiar. When tasks are easy and simple I can just run with them without guidance. However, if like bigger picture critical thinking is required I am so uselesss....
I feel like 25-26 is quite different from 22-23 because of the quality of training and amount of workload that I know takes place in the IB years between those two age groups. So yeah, I'm expecting an associate to not just turn to shit when the task isn't cookie-cutter. Maybe some runway in the early months but at some point all finance people need to make the transition from being paid for their analytical skills (which is a workable theory coming right out of college) to being paid for owning the full deliverable including all of the annoying messy parts like making numbers fit within a story, dealing with different sources of data that don't align well, etc etc. It can be a data entry job when you're 22, not when you're 25.
Do PE VPs Always Have An Associate Under Them?
If it's a small/young firm, it's not unusual for VP to be the most junior role on the team.
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