What are some options after a 2 year pre-mba associate program at a middle market PE fund in a 2nd tier city? Can I lateral to a different fund in a different city? What level would I expect to join at? Do I need to get an MBA after the 2 years or can I advance with the PE industry without an MBA if I'm able to lateral?
My fund doesn't offer direct promote opportunities. What are some other things people do after programs like this?
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Sort of depends on what you want to do next. I'm assuming from the rest of your post you want to stay in PE - from here, your options are to lateral (probably to a smaller firm) or go to B school. If you want to do something else, then you can ... go do something else. The world is your oyster.
Sure. I doubt you're lateraling to a fund that also has a pre-MBA associate program, but you could take a look at smaller teams looking for experienced talent.
Really depends on the firm. Could be an associate, could be a sr. associate that credits your experience, could be a VP if you have great deal experience and the team is small.
Not necessarily.
Sure, you could. There are plenty of people at VP-level and above positions at PE firms that never went to b-school. But a lot of this depends on your own capability set and what kind of firm you see yourself at.
Shit man, get creative. You could work at a portco, you could join a mezz / minority equity fund, you could be a mailman, you could do corp dev. If you're really struggling, and you can get a decent GMAT, pull the b-school ripcord and go figure it out.
After banking I did 2 years at a PE firm in NYC with a fund size of several $bn. I didn't want to do MBA and got a senior associate job at a smaller fund and am on a track to be VP after 2 years. So if things go well I will be a VP basically at the same time I would have been starting as a VP after b school. If you have decent PE associate experience there are a lot of funds that hire out of 2+2. No need to follow the herd to MBA if you aren't into it
Depends on firm. Broadly a MBA skipping senior associate will have a normal associate (24 years old) and will report to a Principal (normally wont have a senior associate reporting to a post MBA VP).
My firm is pretty lean. I generally do deals on a two man team, myself (sr associate) and managing director. I am just finishing my first year as a senior associate, and the plan is roughly to hire a normal associate (out of IBD) in about a year.
There are pros and cons to every team structure but on the whole I have enjoyed this layout. I basically do all of the analyst, associate and VP work.
My boss MD is not in the weeds and leaves all the business / financial diligence to me. All he will review are committee-style pages on the Key DD items. I also basically run the financing and other advisor processes (MD makes initial call to advisors and then punts the day to day to me). It is a little annoying when you first get into a new data room and spend an entire week doing vlookups and sumifs in excel at 28 years old...looking forward to having a junior guy on the team to punt work to.
The plan that at the end of my 2nd or 3rd year I will get VP promote and then 7-10 year track to MD
You must be my counterpart at a different firm. Do you really think it's going to take 7-10 years for MD? I have for myself 5 years to make Partner.
Also for your data room vlookups... bankers will do it, if you ask and have a good relationship with. Are you also negotiating PAs? I'm on my first one...
We're apparently all the same person. Titles may be a little different but the responsibilities all sound the same.
I'm pretty stretched in this model - as I get additional sourcing and market-facing responsibility, it gets tougher and tougher to find time to do the analyst-level work (I still prep our MMM packet). Adding analyst/associate leverage has been a bit of a point of contention for us lately.
7-10 years to partner from a senior role sounds rough, maybe that would be the case in a pretty structured firm (~4 levels), but not in a smaller middle-market shop. I'd suspect around 3-5 years you'll say "wait a minute...I have partner responsibilities, but my carry doesn't reflect that." The current group will either pay you for your expertise, or you'll get paid for it somewhere else.