Citi M&A TMT or Financial Sponsors to VC?
Fellow Monkeys,
I am considering joining Citi in London soon. I have the opportunity to either join their TMT team (which, from what I understand, is mainly focused on M&A transactions but will involve some ECM / DCM work as well) or their Financial Sponsors team (where 2/3 of the workflow revolves around the TMT and Healthcare sector).
My career aspiration is to get into VC at some point (possibly post MBA), so I am looking for advice on which team I should join to better position myself as a strong VC candidate in a few years. I am mainly concerned about the transferability of the skill-set, the industry exposure, the networking opportunities and obviously the reputation of the group.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
TMT would be better because you will only be working in tech and get to know the market better. Sponsors isn't a bad option, but you could get staffed on stuff all over the map so you won't get as deep into the industry. Plus, the sponsors you will be dealing with (the funds), are all going to be large, late stage guys, not VCs.
Note: I worked in Citi FEG/PEG a long time ago (PEG no longer exists) and was able to secure VC offers after my analyst stint, although I chose to go to a tech boutique bank instead. TMT would have relly been a better path to VC.
TMT = Tech, Media and Telecom. By definition you are not just working in tech. Also, you will not work with VCs in TMT either -- only late stage TMT companies. Just a heads up.
Pretty much anything relevant in Media or Telecom these days is tech enabled or delivered. Telecom isn't about rolling up CLECs anymore, and print media is more or less dead.
Go to TMT. You'll get a skillset more relevant to a VC job.
That's what I thought, thanks for the input.
Absolutely. Good luck!
Ultimately, if you want to do VC, entrepreneurship / start ups are your best bet. That said, you can make the transition from pretty much any team in banking. i have friends who just went to VC from FIG, for example. the point is that VCs look at companies from across industries -- sure there is tech, but you can come at that from the fintech angle. Or you can do consumer and focus on consumer / retail VC,... TMT companies are late stage and in a very different point in their life than companies you will look at in VC. Thus, the analysis you will do and things you will think about will be quite different. Which is all to say -- do whatever you want in banking for the most part, if you do well, do a great MBA,... you will be well positioned to make transitions later.
The best piece of advice people gave me for banking is to not worry about the area so much, but instead to focus on the team dynamic: are they people you want to be spending a lot of time with? Are the analysts respected and given responsibility? Will you interact with seniors? Is the work / life balance reasonable (for banking)?
If you do a team where these answers aren't favorable -- well, you may end up hating your life for a few years. On the other hand, if you go into a team with a good culture, you'll find yourself excelling more, learning more, and being in a good position to get those recs for MBA. Not to mention not hating your life, the importance of which shouldnt be understated.
Good luck
TMT - something people on here haven't mentioned is any ECM experience (particularly involving IPOs) could be looked upon favourably by VC firms
I don't agree with this. IPOs are too rare these days, and I don't see many VCs planning for them as a guaranteed exit path. I'm also not sure if ECM was ever that relevant to VCs for recruiting. If a VC backed company grows to IPO scale, they just hire a bank.
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