MBB to PE at the AP/Principal level
Current AP/Principal at MBB. All casework experience has been in software across many different functions, including a lot of work around M&A broadly -- in addition to many diligences. Perhaps also relevant: academic background in finance, top MBA, and an internship in during my MBA.
My assumption is that a move to PE will only happen on the ops/value creation side. Is there ANY chance of moving to an investing team? From talking to friends and my interactions with our PE clients at the VP level, I genuinely feel that I could do the job -- and do it well. But fully understand their hiring decisions need to be risk-averse. Any thoughts on how I could make it happen if I really wanted to?
How old are you / years of work experience? Did you do MBB before MBA or something else? What was your MBA internship?
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I think this is a massive uphill battle. You most certainly cannot do the VP job. The interactions you have with the deal team are only on your workstream, we have another ~10 workstreams to deal with which we can all do at an equivalent level - and you might not even know they exist frankly.
So what does that mean? You need to find a fund that’ll let you ramp up very slowly as if you’re an MBA with no prior experience (very few who will do that), a fund that’s desperate for your brand name (ie deep into the LMM), or you could try to be an Associate with pre-agreed accelerated path through to VP (it’s happened before).
On top of all this the hiring market is very tough for PE, making it all the less likely people to be open to take a gamble on you when there are lots of people around with directly relevant experience.
Doubtful. What’s wrong with the value creation side of PE? At least at my firm that team is growing faster than the investment side.
Ya other thing to consider here friend is that you’re presumably in your late 20s minimum or early 30s… to go to PE you’ll start off as an associate and go from leading teams to the very bottom of the totten pole.
Even if by some miracle you make it to a deal team role, you’ll be at a far less prestigious firm than you are right now, make less money, and it will be very difficult and unlikely to get to the level where you’ll make similar money or more.
Take a peak on LinkedIn, I’ve actually seen some dudes start tiny PE firms with backgrounds similar to yours. That or VC is realistically your best path to “doing deals” that sucks the least, but of course VC is also a very different job.
Circling back, agree with above. As you probably know, IB and MBB (both pre-MBA) are the most common paths to private equity given the analytical training and responsibilities. Those equivalents post-MBA are notoriously less analytical and increasingly more managerial.
I agree that you would not be equipped for a VP/post-MBA PE job and a pre-MBA PE job (i.e., associate) has fairly rigid hiring (often up to 2 years in advance) for a narrow set of profiles and typically early/mid-20s personas.
Your best bet (admittedly still low odds) is trying to join something very small or new (i.e., high risk) where they're willing to take commensurate risk on you given their precarious position.
Appreciate the feedback from everyone! All makes sense and candidly, it's what I expected -- just wanted to check. On the value creation side, what's generally the best path to getting started there? Are there particular HHs you can recommend?
do a search on this site for the typical hh for pe. they also headhunt for roles on the ops side. also just network on your own - there are many ex-mbb folks in pe ops.
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