Q&A: woman in growth equity

UBS is a BB. Her mentor profile literally says the bank she worked at lmao

Okay, I will admit that my moves weren’t quite as intentional with GE in mind as end goal. I knew from lev fin I wanted to invest in something credit oriented rather than straight buyout. In my junior capital investing experience, I was doing mezz and pref, and liked the idea of coupling downside protection in structure with the equity ups (I am a very risk averse personally, and my money goes into these funds, too, plus carry so I wanted to invest where I believed I’d get a good risk adjusted return). For me, I had the skills around credit analysis already and the ability to think about relval. that’s all that really mattered.

best skills for me in interviews - I expect you to have technicals down esp if you’re coming from a bank (some people don’t and can’t answer basic NWC questions or think about valuation). I am looking for is intuition, experience modeling different structures, and drive - my roles have always had sourcing, underwriting, and portfolio management components. Do you have the ability to balance those?

apologize if this last piece isn’t that helpful, but I was not in a traditional growth equity role, but if you’re an analyst or associate, I don’t think you need to stay locked into a market if you have the analytical skill set.

re: MBA, my teams have always been mixed bag. some firms require it to get to VP level, but I didn’t want one given business undergrad (and never applied to any institutions that required). I think of MBA as helpful only if pivoting massively... or if you want to take an expensive break.

I can give you my personal opinion. obviously given industry, money is important to all of us. I have a very low tolerance for BS though, and I would always rather have a better culture and lower pay. that’s why I’m not one of the people on here who did BB -> large buyout -> whatever.

you can try to make a difference, but HR and mentors cannot fix systemic issues (at least not within your employment/life). ultimately, if you want to have a family or a life or basic respect and your institution isn’t making that possible, you can try fighting or you can give up a little $ for happiness. Your choice if you have the will to fight. not everyone does.

that’s just the compromise women have to make.

again my role was different as it was late stage / structured preferred rather than clean 1x series b deals. BUT. my mezz background gave me a leg up structure wise - I knew docs and minority rights and weird ways to structure deals better than others joining my team. preferred equity is still a hybrid security and so you do need a component of credit thinking to understand how to underwrite and value that risk and also how to think about waterfalls in an exit.

I did minority deals only, both in my former junior cap role and in GE. I just was never a buyouts gal.

i would expect minority deals as the norm, lots of unique structuring discussions as you get into later stage businesses, and yes, more sourcing at the associate level. you’ll most likely have an ever growing cold call list and meeting setup quotas.

I ended up looking at techier, more recurring rev businesses vs prior role, and I spent less time with cash flow modeling and more time on unit economics, valuation, and steady state

people I know who have left the industry usually go on to startups / growth stage businesses for financial suite or biz dev roles. I know a lot of people who just stay and move between funds.

can’t speak for other firms, but both of my buyside employers hired exclusively folks with IB backgrounds for associate roles.