Recently sat in on a client meeting where the MD was pretty much laughed out of the room, after making the junior team work over the weekend on a 50+ page deck. These days, I can’t seem to find one positive quality in even the rainmakers and “cool” MDs. Do feel others feel this way? If so, how do you motivate yourself to keep going?
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Our MDs have a lot of respect because they largely built the BU we are in. They saw the right trends early on and invested in the right areas. They are also very respected members of the PE/VC/IBD community and have worked and lived in multiple locations. So yes, our MDs are respected.
It's on a sliding scale. In my sector there are some known leading MDs, and then the rest. Internally, our top MDs do garner a lot of respect, even if they don't always kill it or even if we don't always agree at the junior and mid levels. In terms of having a sustainable career, I think you really need to start looking to move if 1) you can't respect your MD, and 2) clients can't either
No. MDs are just as sleazy as the next salesman willing to do anything for a dollar. All their “relationships” are purely transactional and the MD is likely a sycophant. Your MD is also probably on his 2nd or 3rd wife and has multiple sets of kids. Some are good at what they do, but at the end of the day each would be groveling on the floor for engagements if their coverage universe dried up. I respect the sophisticated clients and entrepreneurs who put money where their mouth is and are more nimble in chasing trends.
On top of what you said, some MDs in top BBs are trying to pass themselves as "trusted advisers" while all they do is getting advantage of the top franchise they work for (think GS/MS/JPM). If they were to move to an EB or something they wouldn't even get through the client's PA lol
Always gets me when banks talk so much about how great relationships are. Never heard a bank say how poor they are, clients want execution and are transactional.
No
How was he laughed out of the room? Can someone give an example of this sort of client interaction?
i can give you one from my summer internship back in 2019 (bb ib coverage)
MD has juniors prepare this huge pitchbook with an insane amount of "strategic" alternatives. meeting ends up being just a call and thus i, being an intern, had to take notes on said call.
the call ends up mostly being the MD vocal frying his way though all of his bullshit strategic alternatives with near zero client interaction. finally the MD gets to the "big one". the one strategic alternative he's hoping the client will bite on. some huge and complex acquisition of a portfolio of office supplies crap to be divested by another company to our client via Reverse Morris Trust. and the one the analyst had to run full RMT model on and literally stayed in the office overnight to do one night
as the MD was starting to discuss the page, the client immediately cut him off and said (verbatim): "yeah this is something we've actually looked at, we just don't want your help on it. we're talking to other banks."
That is fucking brutal.
Some of them yes. Some of them no. One of my MDs took a month off to spend the summer with his kids before they go off to college / went on sick vacations. Asks me if I’m okay after a long night and generally cares about me as a person. His clients love him and he’s a good person all around. Another md, I hate him. Generally wish nothing good ever happens to him (nothing bad, just nothing good)
i see just about all of my MDs and directors as fucking losers
there's this one MD that i work with and she's like 40, unmarried, no children, no pets, etc. my new hobby is guessing how she's going to kill herself in 10 years when she realizes her whole life is meaningless
is she atleast hot
i'd fuck
You know what you have to do, slugger. Go get that bread.
No.
My MDs barely know the businesses of the clients they pitch to and half the ideas make 0 sense. Its fine when you first start and are just focused on getting the numbers and pages out, but once you've been there long enough to start to take a step back and look at the big picture, you realize how stupid most ideas are.
One of my MDs was the biggest tool you could find. Ok boomer, you were a bigshot during the Dotcom bubble, but today no one gives a shit about your glory days. The guy really wore square shoes to the office, can you believe that? And he made the cringiest dad jokes I ever heard, absolutely painful. Probably shouldn´t have made it so obvious tho, gave me the worst review of my life as a parting gift.
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