We all know that 90% of IB analysts exit to PE/HF, but I'm curious about what they do after. Those of you a few more years out of your analyst years, where are your colleagues now?
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Based on the most helpful WSO content, here's a breakdown of where analysts typically end up 5-10 years after their IB/PE stints:
Corporate/Entrepreneurship: Around 40% of analysts transition into corporate roles or entrepreneurship. This includes positions in corporate development, investor relations, or starting their own businesses. These roles often offer a better work-life balance while still leveraging their finance expertise.
Hedge Funds (HF), Private Equity (PE), and Banking: Another 40% remain in high finance, split between hedge funds, private equity, and continuing in banking. These individuals often climb the ranks within these fields, moving into senior roles like VP, Director, or even MD.
Diverse Career Paths: The remaining 20% pursue entirely different paths. This includes non-profit work, law, family businesses, or other industries unrelated to finance. These career shifts are often driven by personal interests or lifestyle preferences.
This distribution highlights the diverse opportunities available after the initial IB/PE experience, with many leveraging their skills to explore new industries or roles.
Sources: Where do Most Investment Banking Analysts end up?, Accounting vs Finance: Part 1 – Career Paths, Accounting vs Finance: Part 1 – Career Paths, Q&A: HF Analyst @ $5bn+ Fund - Breaking In and Transition to Risk-Taking Role, Breakdown of Post-IB Exit Opportunities
Username checks out
10% large-cap and 60% mid-cap PE. 10% growth equity and VC, 10% corporate (exec, dev, strat&ops), 10% HFs.
Only around 20% of the 80% in privates got an MBA, likely why they moved downstream as they became senior.
Could you elaborate on the mba part?
Need an MBA to move up at older large funds with lots of partners already. Easier / sometimes more economical to move from large-cap to mid-cap PE to attain partner - nearly all actually started in large-cap PE.
Bump
10 years out. The most successful are the couple HF guys and the ones who stayed in banking. The PE people may catch up / exceed if their carry ever pays out
10% start up. TBD how it’s going but they turned down a VP PE role
30-40% hedge fund with varying levels of success. Ranges from PM at top tier MM to senior analyst at top SM to analyst at bucket shop
30-40% PE - senior vp to principal generally all at UMM/MFs but no one has made any actual carry given PE performance lately
10-20% banking (director / MD)
No one went to corporate? Makes me feel like I fumbled the ball more and more
At the post MBA associate + VP level, that's where most of the exits are. Can be a pretty awesome exit if you find the right company in your coverage industry (assuming you like the industry you cover in banking).
Outcomes depend wildly on the firm, there are some excellent opportunities though
Did the HF guys make the jump straight from IB or do IB -> PE -> HF?
Also, I'm guessing your IB pedigree was from a top EB, since those outcomes seem great.
In your view, are your buddies as PMs at top tier MMs more successful in the traditional sense than senior analysts at top SMs? To me it sounds like they've all fared quite well especially given the median outcome in HFs.
Like the other commenter, would also be interested to hear whether the guys at HFs went there directly from banking or did they do a stint in PE (likely the senior analyst at top SM did?).
Cheers
Yea the 2
As a PM at a L/S equity MM particularly one of the top 3 you make buckets of money
Hm bit surprised tbh. In my experience there’s a much smaller percentage that stay in “high finance” than that suggests. Just purely from a numbers standpoint there are way way more banking analyst seats than PE/HF roles, hence there’s usually a pretty broad splintering with a good amount of corporate/tech/startup. Not saying you’re wrong, it’s an interesting data point. Maybe it’s partly a function of when you start - ten years to now was a period of massive expansion of alts broadly whereas I’ve seen even in the last two years a lot of strong people in my analyst class leave finance altogether. If I look out another five years I’d be surprised if more than 40-50% are still in IB/PE/HF. Interesting.
Agreed. Maybe it’s just my bias because I ended up in corporate like a loser. I guess, but my class outcomes at an EB after about 8 years now are totally different from what I’ve seen.
Like yeah everyone started out after 2 years in PE (no one went A2A) (a couple HF guys sprinkled in too), but now 80% of the class is not on the sellside, IB or PE.
I was in a group that attracted a lot of finance hardos who were simultaneously also personable (for the most part)
Yeah I’ll have to scrub thru LinkedIn for mine, but most left either IB or after trying PE for corp/start ups/etc
A lot have ~2 year stints in PE tho
Ex-consultant here, adding because I did the exercise anyway, and for basis of comparison. 9 years out
From what I can tell the people who stayed in consulting are probably furthest along in their careers, although suspect the PE/VC guys still made more money. Not sure if that's a sign of skillset transferability or just a commentary on the state of private investing the past few years (everybody, including me, went tech-focused so adds to that)
8 years out. At a smaller bank, but a group that self-selected more towards folks who wanted PE. Including my class + 2 classes above and below me (so 6-10) for the sample size:
7-8 years out of a good group at a top bank. 50% of people that are in post-MBA positions at PE went to business school (Harvard/Stanford)
Thanks for the detailed breakdown, super helpful. Overall, who do you think has been the most successful career-wise? And who do you think is the happiest?
There's no way to rank who is the most successful lol. They're all fairly similar "prestigious" positions. The only way is whoever gets to the most senior position, irrespective of field I.e. the EB group head is more successful than the MF PE principal who couldn't get partner promo
Quick question -when you say 7/8 years out does that mean 7/8 years post the end of your IBD analyst program or 7/8 years out or college? I presume the former since you mentioned a few people are already principal?
I mean 7-8 years out of school. Some firms don’t have VP positions and just call it Principal (see KKR) so I would say everyone from my class is in that bucket.
I can’t really say who is most successful / happy. Unfortunately don’t keep tabs on everyone’s personal lives. I would say that most folks that stayed in NYC are still single and unmarried whereas those that went outside are married and have families. Take that for what you will. It’s also much more uncommon for someone that’s earlier in their careers in PE to settle.
I also think we are at a point in our careers where no one has hit escape velocity from a net worth perspective. I would venture to say most are $1-2M net worth with a range of outcomes baked in from there. If you’re in PE, you probably make $500K - $1M cash comp per year with carry that could materialize in 7-10+ years while if you’re at a start up, you’re probably at low-6 figure cash comp with meaningful upside if your company break out. Hard to say and normalize.
Private Capital of some sort, corp dev, consulting, lending, industry, tech, cannabis back office, failed start up founders, couple stayed in banking
My favorite is at a small marketing firm making ads in Kentucky. His decks were so good and he used to talk about feeling like he was truly just a lazy person. Bro is kind of crushing it.
This was my consulting start class about 7-8 years ago (so 5-6 years post analyst). We had a few people who had 2-3 years of work experience already (who nearly all stayed in consulting at the same firm for some reason). The people who stayed in consulting were clearly by far the most average (not the worst, although some were pretty bad, but distinctly middle bucket on every metric). These people have the fanciest titles currently but at being outearned by nearly everyone else and most of them are trying to exit but can’t as the market has turned against them.
5 consulting (Associate Partner mostly)
2 PE Ops VP / Director (SWF / LMM)
2 PE deal team VP / Associate (UMM / LMM)
1 start up
1 tech product
1 government
Have actually never done this and was pretty curious to see the results ~10 years post grad. Out of a slightly under 40 person analyst class (MM IB):
Interestingly nobody still in HF or at a LO shop even though some people did this right out of banking. Was a bit surprised by how few people did early stage investing and how few people are in the startup world in general. Nobody in law, crypto, doing anything more off the run like working at a sports team or in art, or really pivoting and becoming like a social worker or teacher. In aggregate just over 50% in traditional finance still.
Pretty much everyone is around VP or D / Principal level, no MDs. Some of the people who went corporate are in pretty senior level roles at what seem to be real companies. Didn't pay too close attention to this but def under 50% got MBAs.
We only had I think 4 post-MBA associates in our class - 2 in banking still (1 made MD I think 1-2 years ago, other is D), 1 person corporate, 1 person in law.
Bump - really appreciate these answers and insight
Jimmy quit
Joey got married
Jimmy went to a fintech startup that revolutionized how we do absolutely nothing — he’s at a different one now
Katie went to a MMPE shop and she’s at a family office now, married to someone whose most defining characteristic is that he’s male
Aaron went to an MMPE shop and he’s in corporate now
Amar is at the same MF he exited to
Anjali’s at Golub
Sahil and Jared do hedge fund things and are insufferable still
Elise does growth equity
The rest are all in PE somewhere
And me? I’m here. Writing this post.
music plays
~5+ years out
4 - Corporate/start-up
3 - PE
1 HF
1 IBD
1 Crypto/retired
Would love more clarity on crypto/retired.
Don’t we all
~10 years out:
20% still in IB
20% still in PE/VC/GE
10% at "startups" (co hasn't raised >$250mm as a rough definition)
20% corp dev/strategy roles
10-20% in real estate in some form
10-20% other
Out of all of these people would you have wanted to trade shoes with anyone or not really? If so why and who? If not, why as well?
~8 years out of school, so ~6 years since completing my analyst stint (EB in NYC). Mostly at VP-equivalent roles for the investors, couple still at SA. Very few MBAs, know 1 each at HBS/GSB/Wharton so ~10% of class, two of those guys are start-up co-founders.
interesting no HF...
~10 years out.
40% PE (from LMM - MF but mostly LMM)
14% PC
12% IB
10% Corporate (Corp Dev, Strategy, Finance)
6% Founder/Start-up (including a Founder with a 9-figure exit)
5% Commercial/Corporate Banking
3% Consulting
10% Other (Law, LP, Public Trading, Corporate excl. above categories, other random shit)
PE number seems way too high for 10 years out. What kind of hardo class was this
There's a lot of variety in that 40%. E.g., I included a few at active family offices, a few who started their own independent sponsor shops, a few in BD roles, etc.
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