Hi All. Was pushed out after 2.5 years at my early-growth firm (smallish firm managing ~$500mm in a non-US, developed market - will leave it there to avoid identifiability) a few months ago. No major performance issues - just didn't gel extremely well with new leadership amid a change in culture, and was given the "no path to promotion" line. Did manage to close 4 deals in my time there. Firm remains generally supportive (ie happy to provide references, intros).
I landed at a portco of my former fund as Chief of Staff (300ish employees, tech-enabled services more than pure tech, strong US presence, operationally-driven; I led the diligence, execution and portfolio support on this one so the CEO knows me well). No admin tasks in this role - there is an EA for that and there is no overlap in responsibilities. Purely acting as CEO's mercenary within the org, and able to forge my own agenda as well. Heavy exposure to all facets of the org, particularly the finance team. That said, I'm leaning towards wanting to return to the buyside when my 24 months are up (or before, for the right opportunity). Was hoping to get the following answered (FYI: Have completed B-School and have no IB experience - spent some time in Strat/Ops before my investing role):
- How would you look at carving out a path back to the buyside? Early to Mid-Stage growth is ideal, but also open to more operationally-intensive LMM/MM PE.
- How would you (particularly people who are doing/have done my job) look at maximizing my time as a Chief of Staff?
- I've long been interested in a move to the US - how feasible is this given that I'd still be working in my current non-US market? For context, the company is a known quantity to certain US investors, but hasn't yet received any term sheets from them.
- Any stories on the role or what comes next for former Chiefs of Staff? Always interested in hearing stories, and definitely interested in stories involving CoS's going off and doing something totally different that isn't the buyside.
Thanks in advance! Also happy to answer any questions you might have.
Interested in this as well. Unfortunately don't have a ton of great advice, as I'm in a somewhat similar situation. Got pushed out of a PE fund after 2 years as an analyst, and have been in a really really terrible corp dev / strategy role for a year. For the past 6 months I've been looking for a way back to an investing seat. Seems like an uphill battle to get looks from headhunters given the abundance of IB analysts.
Your best bet is likely networking instead of the traditional headhunter channels, although frankly I've had limited traction with either approach myself. I'm leaning towards business school as a GTFO option and then MBB/EB/BB IB -> back on headhunters' radar -> buyside. It sounds like you already finished your MBA?
Sorry to hear that man. Lateral market is terrible right now, so wouldn't take it as too hard an indictment, but hopefully will recover in next couple years. Have you tried recruiting for MBB direct? Hiring is bad right now but should open up in next year and referrals should hopefully get you a first round at least.
Yep, already did business school - great that you still have that bullet in the chamber.
Can you elaborate as to why you want to go back to the buy side? I feel like many
folks go into IB / PE with the goal of eventually locking down a role similar to yours as chief of staff. Curious what the motivating factor for you is.
Additionally, do you have advice for someone who wants to get a role like that?
I'm a few months into my stint so weighing my options right now. Definitely considering a host of other things after this stint. Motivating factor is I like the forward-looking, generalist, and somewhat contrarian nature of investing. Ops side is great, but definitely has shortcomings in being tethered to one company at a time, rather than a massive opportunity set that allows you to constantly be learning about the world.
Agreed with you though - as far as outcomes, chief of staff was beyond what I expected when I asked for it, and am very happy with the outcome.
EDIT: As far as advice - my path is one, where you build a relationship with the CEO over time via an investing role. Others work within strat/ops at companies. Others apply online when a posting comes up. I think with me, though - I had done good work for this CEO for a while and he knew me well so had no qualms about creating the role for me. If I was going to absolutely optimize chances, I would guess MBB or IB+PE -> strat/ops -> CoS. Given you're in corpfin, I would probably just focus on relationship-building, moving into strategic finance or consulting, then make your way either via internal networking (StratFi) or through prestige's inherent halo effect + networking (MBB job).
Thanks makes sense - title isn’t updated but I actually went A2A in IB. Thinking about going to a startup though.
Question for you: how did you navigate the delicate nature of networking with the CEO about a job without it being obvious to your seniors? Or was it more so an opportunity created by your situation
Bump
Bump for general Chief of Staff discussion
Is it realistic to get into PE after taking on a Chief of Staff role at a platform/portco (if that portco is highly acquisitive and the COS heads up M&A while reporting directly to the CEO)?
Also, given COS roles vary, what kind if B-school prospects arive from a COS role and what duties appeal to B-schools (glorified assistant may not be but coordinating product lines may be, etc.)
I've seen a SVP at Vista Equity pull it off. Spent a few years at a portco leading M&A integration. Left to the portco as an associate, came back as senior associate.
Have also seen a MF associate --> same MF portco CoS --> GSB --> a top HF.
I think it highly depends on the 'quality of work' you'll get at the CoS. Some CoS roles are purely admin. Hard to vet these roles unfortunately as their quality of work tends to vary drastically.
Thanks for those data points. Looks like the first guy effectively never left the fund since he was in PE before the COS role, went directly to a portco and then came back. Second guy sounds like he was also in PE before the COS stint so he already had that "stamp".
Wonder what the PE (or b-school) prospects would be for someone coming from MM IB->MMPE-backed portco COS would be. Probably would have to go through an MBA to break into buyside from there?
OP curious what eventual path you took here? Where did you end up?
Still here - has been super interesting. Hours are long-ish but quite like the people and the autonomy has been great.
Have casually taken a few interviews but nothing that's really grabbed me. Had 1 process that didn't work out that I would have taken (mid-stage VC, really liked the firm but was more on the consumer side and i ultimately think lack of sector expertise hurt my candidacy).
Overall, have taken the approach of continuing to stack my resume and wait for market to turn around or something to really grab me. Big priority would be shifting to an NY/SF or a London (increasingly feeling envious of the network of peers who are in those markets), but I'm ok waiting for the right role to open up.
One thing that has changed - slight preference towards operating rather than buyside at this point. Would take a good investing seat if I got me into my preferred geo/enabled me to level up brand and network, but I suspect the role would have to be excellent and super operationally hands-on to keep me from wandering back into operating. The pace, autonomy, ownership and lack of hierarchy - this feeling that you're scaling a mountain rather than just repeatedly hiking a set of hills - really meshes with my personality.
Long-term comp is a concern of course - I am well aware that my PE/GE friends who've made Sr Asso/VP are making way more than I am on track to make at this point. The only solution to that is to obviously a) ride a rocketship, b) get so senior you get pulled into a COO/CEO role, or c) get entrepreneurial on the side. I'm currently leaning towards c) as it's most within my control (to an extent), but have to figure out what that means.
No path for you to get a CXO or VP role at your current firm? Also curious more generally what inbounds you get as a Chief of Staff given your experience and is long hours 70+?
To each their own brother , am glad you’re happy, but am a little shocked that you’d do the long hours for not great pay nor path to great pay. Having 100 hr weeks is really not worth it at 25 for 150k in my books
‘Mercenary’ lmao - very tuff
First off, thanks for giving advice when the post was asking for advice. Clearly it’s not a conventional path. Really appreciate what you’ve shared. I’m currently being pushed out of my fund and am interested in a CoS role. I think ideally I would rather lateral to another fund, but not sure that’s in the cards in this market. Although I’m tempted to take the role and think it could be a valuable learning experience, in the back of my mind I don’t want this to be such a pivot that I can’t back to the buy side. Do you have enough knowledge after a couple of years now in the CoS role to rate on a scale on 1-10 how difficult it would be to go to a LMM fund?
Course! Let's say in current market probably anywhere from 6 to 8/10 difficult? Someone who's actively looking from their CoS seat is likely to have a better answer - my search has been passive to date.
Think where you land in that 6-8 range depends on strength of pre-existing network from finance days, quality of CoS role (did you just do OKRs and admin work all day? is your operational exp relevant to the fund? or were you a real exec/operator?), time out of finance (are you plug and play? are your skills still sharp?), fund/bank brand, and how geographically flexible you are. I think it's doable but it'll be unstructured and in short bursts: randoms from your past reaching out and a headhunter representing firms that have suddenly decided that value creation is the way/are based in nowheresville and love the idea of throwing up [insert fund name here]'s logo on their Team page. All this is probably fine if you have a steady paycheck coming in - you can, to some extent, afford to take your time.
Of course, if your heart is set on staying in the game, I'd exhaust the lateral route. It'll be smoother to do that than switch back from operating. That said, as I mentioned above, don't go into multiple months of unemployment for this dream. If you're getting the sense it's very likely not going to happen, and have a reasonably good (emphasis on good) operating role on the table, take it. May be my own interest in operating + my unwillingness to be unemployed, but I think the opportunity cost is way too high.
Why? Well, you're on the verge of entering accelerated quality decay as a candidate if you decide to be unemployed for an extended period of time. PE doesn't like "blemished" candidacies and each month that goes by is an additional blemish - exponentially so (ie 12 months is probably 100x worse than 4 months). As well, and while much more tolerant of employment gaps, those good operating roles will also start to fade away - especially as getting a seat at the exec table in your 20s is hard to do without connects/your fund backing you. Finally, that employment gap will make it hard to get into a decent MBA, so you'll have to get a job just to go back and do that M7 MBA.
Should also note, nothing is stopping you from continuing to recruit when you get your new CoS role. What I heard from recruiters, when I was contemplating my CoS offer, is that going to a portco of your fund will be viewed semi-favorably as you were obviously good enough to be kept "in the family". That was a sellable story. So, in theory, you could hedge by taking the CoS role and continuing to recruit.
I'll put the following to you. 2 resumes for an associate posting come across your desk. Both ex-MM PE investors. One has been unemployed for 4-6 months. The other is 1 year into a CoS role at a platform that you recognize and respect. You obviously can guess they were pushed out but there's plausible deniability: "I just felt it was the right time to get some operating experience, made me a better investor, etc". While you may not hire either, which one is more likely to advance to screeners? If you're 4-6 weeks from leaving your fund with no real traction on the fund side, then you're likely choosing which one of the candidates you'll be. In a better market, you may be choosing to be a third candidate - 1-2 months out from finishing your ASO stint and in 3-4 live processes. Based on what I've seen/read, that represents a fraction of candidates at the moment.
Following
Bumping thread. In a similar spot.
One more general CoS question. To your point, this is a bit of an ad-hoc or mercenary role. How do you push your own agenda if you don't belong to a single business unit? Is there not abrasion with the respective execs and organization?
I feel that ex-PE folks are enamored by the CoS role because of its potential widespread impact but fall flat once they see it's a diluted exec role where ownership is tough to realize.
Good question. It's politics. Some random thoughts based on my n=1 experience.
Eventually, perhaps quite quickly, you'll be treated as a full-on exec.
This is some really good info, appreciate it. In summary, my take is that high-achieving, ex-investors looking to gain real exec experience via CoS roles are better off looking elsewhere (perhaps within a defined functional group, ops-based investing seat, etc.) unless they have the backing of the CEO. Otherwise, it sounds like a CoS role still retains a lot of the things PE folks hate about their jobs like admin work, insane amount of politics, and general lack of ownership within the bureaucracy, without the true ops experience they seek.
This guy fucks... I'm not worried about you. You'll do just fine. You're clearly a strategic thinker and understand how the world works. I don't think you need to be back in some investing seat - the more time you spend exploring the success paths off "the path", you realize that for smart people with initiative, finance is only a small part of the game. There are many ways to leave your mark in the world - and it's up to you on how you approach each thing thrown at you. You're clearly approaching things proactively and are determined to make lemonade. In many ways, for people like this, the hierarchy of institutional finance is a retardant, not an accelerant.
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