Post MBA Corp-Dev/Strat
After an M7 MBA, what level of corporate development or strategy would you enter into? What salary could you expect, and from that point, how high do most people advance? (Assume an impressive background, BB/EB, MBB consulting, PE, ect.)
how many years of WE do you have pre mba?
Let's say you worked in IB for 2 years, then PE for two years, but failed/didn't want to get back into PE. Or something equivalent in consulting.
My guess is likely as a manager. Total comp would be in the neighborhood of 180k-240k. However, some companies might have a position between associate and manager such as a senior associate that they would slot you into.
That total comp range is too high, unless it's including signing bonus. Just do a sanity check against the following benchmark:
MBB consulting pay post-MBA is ~$185k ($165k base, bonus up to $41k but most get ~50% of max bonus)
Corporate salaries are generally substantially lower than consulting/IB salaries. A range of $180k-$240k would imply that corporates pay at the least as much as MBB does, which is just wrong. Check MBA employment reports - Corp Strat is often broken out as a separate function (Booth has median salary for that function at $127,500).
For those with 2 years in IB + 2 years in PE + b school, I think Senior Manager is the most likely starting spot. Without being in tech, I think a base of ~$130-$160K with 15-25% bonus targets is most realistic, Not sure if SBC is typical at that level, but SBC at a similar level to bonuses could be possible.
It will depend a lot on the company. Large companies tend to have "standard" incoming MBA titles - i.e. everyone coming in post-MBA comes in at the same position, regardless of pre-MBA experience. For those companies, SFA is standard for CF jobs, not Manager, and definitely not Senior Manager. For smaller companies without established MBA pipelines, title and comp will be what you negotiate.
For sure. Helpful commentary.
For reference and as a follow up to my original comment, I've most often seen Sr Analyst (2 years experience / post banking) -> Mgr -> Sr Mgr -> Director -> VP (can be head of Corp Dev depending on size of group).
^ recently joined a F500 company at the SM-level in their Corp Dev/Strategy group, can confirm base and bonus are very much spot on, atleast in my case.
That's basically what my company has put out for our CD&S manager/ director role and what my comp looks like. I do get some stock comp as well.
IDK how common it is, but I also get a smaller bonus for every deal we close.
I want to reiterate my post supporting the anonymous comment about total comp $180-$240K.
I joined Corp Dev post-MBA (at Senior Manager) at the higher end of that range ($225K, although I work in Tech in Bay Area). I think any post-MBA Corp Dev role should pay at least $180K in total comp (likely $140K base + $40K bonus/stock), unless you're in a low COL area. If you're in SF or NY, you should be asking for at least $200K.
The Corp Dev folks here seem really willing to accept what I see as low comp, and I want to discourage it. If you're working on deals and your team allows the company to forgo bankers (who easily charge $1M+ per deal), then you should be bringing enough value to warrant at least $180K post-MBA.
Good point about the cost of hiring bankers. The majority of the deals I worked on were CD led (no buy side advisory).
EarlLoeb - You are working in Tech within the Mecca of Tech so your comp is most definitely going to be on the high end of the range. I know starting post-MBA salaries for Product/Finance roles at FAANG companies are now ~200k all-in so not surprising that yours is a bit higher than that.
If you were to look at a non-tech company but still in a high COL area, I bet their starting all-in comp for a post-MBA CD/CS Manager/SM would be quite a bit lower and prob within the $140k-160k range mentioned earlier
$140K all in would imply $110K salary and $30K bonus/stock. I find it hard to believe that I was getting paid 40-60% more than my peers who are doing the same type of work at the same city, just in different industries. Looking at post-MBA comp surveys, I would expect $140K to be the base salary ($180K total, the low end of my range).
Can I ask where you're getting these numbers?
There’s Another topic that describes Director comp of $350k+ with 7-10 years of exp: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/director-of-corporate-developmen…
That seems quite accurate in my experience, and not at all aligned with this thread. If Director is at $350k for 7-10 years of exp, then there’s no way the post-MBA role is paying less than half.
Again I assume these are all tech and I’m not sure what non-tech is like.
Should be post-MBA manager at $220k, Sr Mgr at $270k, Dir at $350k.
To quote myself (above) re: post-MBA Comp:
"Also, re: post-MBA comp, "should" and what actually happens are different. This isn't a hard thing to verify - almost all T10 MBA programs break out Corp Strat as a function with associated comp #s. The median salaries are ~$130-135k. HBS is $135k (https://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/data/Pages/function...), with a 75th percentile of $140k. GSB is $140k median with an "expected bonus" of $22k. So if GSB/HBS grads are by-and-large not getting $140k-$170k, who is?"
Feel free to click the link or go to the GSB employment report.
$135K is base salary. There's also bonus (and stock) that should add up to another 25-40% (especially for Corp Dev vs. more fluffy / less execution-focused roles such as "strategic planning"). I am a graduate of one of those schools, so I am extremely familiar with these reports (my own salary is a data point).
I think one important distinction that should be made in this thread is whether you join your post-MBA role in CD/CS through a formal on-campus recruiting process or not. Companies that have formal OCR where they take a 'class' of incoming graduates tend to have a standardized comp structure for all of those coming regardless of pre-MBA experience or job function (although those going into more technical roles could get a premium). I know this is the case at Amazon where everyone entering their post-MBA programs (Retail, Finance, Ops, Program Mgmt, non-technical Product) all receive the same compensation, but they do pay a premium for those in Tech Product roles.
I would imagine that if you are entering a company's CD/CS team through a standardized recruiting process as the one described above, you would get paid more of a 'normal' corporate compensation amount for a post-MBA role as there is little/no room for negotiation since they pay everyone the same. If you were entering the same team outside of the above process, you would have room to negotiate and would be able to get a comp figure of ~220k as EarlLoeb described if you can point to relevant pre-MBA experience (IB/MC)
Yes, I think this is an important clarifying point. I think Masterz57 is on point when it comes to standardized comp packages from post MBA OCR (I wouldn't expect F500 roles to pay more than MBB all in, which comes at around $205-220k or so).
In my mind re: Post MBA I was thinking less immediately after graduating and more a couple years down the line. But it seems challenging for me to rationalize someone going to business school, assuming $300-400k in opportunity cost to make $120k all in at some shops (using AMEX as a sample point). Pre MBA corporate development roles at some shops go up to around $125-140k all in for senior analysts.
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