Corp. Dev and/or Corp. Strat Role with a non-finance/accounting background?
I am ready to leave the consulting world behind & I've been eyeing corp dev or strategy roles, though would be open to other roles in industry. The thing that gives me pause is that I don't have a strong finance/accounting background (though I have a very basic understanding of both).
My background is as follows:
-Current manager at in the M&A Strategy practice of a B4 in Chicago
-Experience has all been in post-merger integration work (operations focused)
-A generalist as it relates to industry / functional expertise; though my experience has been broad across both categories
-No experience with any kind of due diligence work
-Come from a liberal arts educational background (I have a BA/history & a JD)
To you corp dev/corp strategy professionals:
-Do you work with folks with similar non finance/accounting backgrounds in your role? I hear corp dev. is especially model heavy and full of ex bankers and PE types
-Without getting an MBA, is there anything I can be doing to make myself a more attractive candidate to employers in this space?
-Any courses or certifications that could help my case? I am eyeing a few financial modeling courses
-If corp dev. and strategy are pipe dreams, where else could someone with a background similar to mind fit in an industry role?
Any thoughts or opinions?
You've got a JD -- play that card and play it hard.
I'm on a Corp Strat/Dev team that consists of an SVP, 2 VPs, 2 Mgrs and 2 Analysts. One VP and I are the finance gurus, the SVP and 1 Mgr have a marketing background, and the last VP comes from the state (regulatory issues). Both analysts are generalists and came right out of school.
You could easily fill our Regulatory role with a JD. Yeah, it'd be better if you understood the finance aspects, and yeah, it be better if you had DD experience...but the regulatory piece is a big component of what we do, too.
Go get BIWS to brush up and sell your legal experience.
To be clear, I haven't doing anything related to law for 6+ years, but sounds like I need to play this up.
Are there any particular models I should be focusing on within BIWS?
Thanks for the very informative reply, +1SBed
partially depends on what level you come in at. if you're director or above, you probably won't be cranking out models, so your lack of finance skills is mitigated.
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