F500 Corp Rotational Program to VC?
I received an offer for an F500 Corp Rotational Program pre mba. My career goal is to work in VC. However this F500 is an fashion company, am I positioning myself negatively if I take this offer? I do not see much play as an fashion company to VC unless I play the consumer angle....Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I don't think working at a F500 rotational program leads to VC, maybe if that F500 was in tech (and that's only because of the geography / people you would meet/interact with at say Google).
I think the best way to get into VC would be to start a company and get VC funding if your company needs it. I think most VC firms have the mentality that you should be an entrepreneur now and a VC later. The only person I've seen that has spoken about this topic differently is Bill Gurley at Benchmark.
Please note that I work no where near anything startup or VC related so take my "advice" with a pound of salt.
I have found that there are a few different ways to get into VC:
-Finance route (IB or PE to VC, or start at the bottom as a VC analyst) -Management consulting route -Start-up route (starting your own company or BD/Sales/Marketing/Product Manager in an existing startup) -F500 Corp Development/ M&A -MBA
Sometimes a VC will have more than one of these things in their professional experience. Now, everyone will have an opinion on what makes the best VC investor, however I think most successful firms will admit that you need a diverse set of skills and perspectives.
So, to answer your question, I don't think it will necessarily HURT your chances of getting into VC by doing the corporate rotation program. The important thing (for any job you take) is that you go into it and extract as much value possible in order to have a good story to tell when it comes time to working at a VC. In this case, if you do the management rotation program, and you have exposure to M&A, operations, strategy, there's no reason why that can't be leveraged into working at a VC down the road. In theory, any company a VC invests in would like to go public or be acquired by a large MNC, so having exposure to that process is valuable as an investor.
Secondly, the fact that it is a fashion company is not necessarily a bad thing, because there are a number of VCs out there that are looking to get into the luxury goods space, as well as e-commerce, consumer markets. That being said, it all has to be able to fit into the story you want to tell.
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