At present, I'm a 1st Year Analyst at a UK mid-market Private Equity fund. I spend all of my day modelling in Excel - either for existing portfolio companies or for potential new buy-outs.
However, what I really want to do is pick up some operational experience - i.e. operating at the coal face rather than sitting in my Ivory Tower. I was speaking to some LBS alumni and they think that this would also look fantastic on my MBA applications in the future.
My dilemmna is that I was brought into the firm to fullfill a particular role - valuation, analysis etc., so it is going to be difficult for me to a) convince my Bosses of the value add to the firm of a secondment given that new deals that need analysis could come in in the meantime; and b) my actual value add to the portfolio company - where would I fit in, how could I be of help etc.?
I really want to step out of my comfort zone, away from Excel and into the real world. What's the best way to go about this?
Firms with secondment practices? (Originally Posted: 09/21/2016)
Has anyone heard of companies that offer secondment or sabbatical opportunities to early career (1-4 years of experience) associates? I'm particularly interested in secondments, basically temporary "loaning" of employees to other companies to do projects that give them new experiences and new skills. I know that this is commonly practiced in mgmt consulting and law, but haven't heard of such a thing in finance.
Why don't you just do a Financial Leadership/Development type program where you'll rotate around different businesses/functions at a company? I work for a F50 company and the only seconded employees are ones that are asked to help out in another location/business unit of our company - not an outside company - and not too many are in a finance function. Not sure what it's like elsewhere but I'd imagine if you want to try various roles for short periods of time, an FLP is a good option.
Should I go for secondment to a Financial Modelling team in Japan ? (Originally Posted: 04/20/2017)
Hi guys, I'm an UK based auditor with Big 4, looking to break into PE. I might have an opportunity to go to my company's Japan office to the financial modelling team (with a potential demotion to Associate from Senior Associate). I speak Japanese pretty fluently. While I know Financial Modelling skills are important, I'm slightly concerned about the other aspect of skills I need to break into PE (mainly network) - the new team mainly works with trading houses and utilities, and also that the hierarchy in Japan means less opps to work on proposals than UK/ economic state means less deals volumes/ connections built there is probably very exclusive to Japan. I also thought that international experience may help me get a good mba in long term to break into PE. Alternative is to join the local UK deals teams but my ability to join is more uncertain. I know the UK Financial Modelling team works mainly with PEs.
What are your thoughts? Thanks a million!!!!
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