Strategy / ops roles understanding post banking

Currently interning at a PE firm with full time banking offer in hand. While I don’t mind the work I’m doing, I don’t love how PE you do lots of work just for a deal to die. As an intern I also do research and marketing projects that add little to no value (understand full time roles you may still have to do some of this stuff). I have found more fulfillment in working directly with a company and helping that specific company grow by executing on strategy.

My question is: what roles should I focus on recruiting into post banking for this? Should I focus on heavy operational PE firms and try to join a portco? Or would corporate development be a better pathway for that? Or should I just buy a small business or join a small / medium sized company where I can get equity upside?

Curious to hear others thoughts. I’m just not super sold on how much I will like PE right now.

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I wouldn't buy a small business right away - especially in this market + without real operational experience it's hard to do that well.

You sound like you might enjoy a strategy role at a startup. Corp dev is much of the same with deals dying constantly. However, any role under VP is going to be a lot of "meaningless" work so you do need to get used to that regardless of what you go into.

 

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