Very young MDs

Intern in S&T - FI

I keep seeing articles on the internet about very young (29-early 30s) MDs at banks, in trading especially. How common is this is and what does it take to get there that quickly? Asking for a friend ;)

Probably more common than IB but not that common.  Typically you need one of two things - either everyone more senior gets fired (think credit in 07-08 - basically the only guys remaining were like mid-late 20s at the most, and somebody needs to be an MD), or you need to lateral to a small bank where you are tasked with building up a tiny business.  If you're able to do that well, possible to make MD, but understand that this entails significant career risk.  P&L is also an important driver, but not as important as you'd think.

Banks are still relatively structured, so it's not like these are are going from AS2-VP-D-MD with a promo every year.  

For what it's worth, Goldman just made a 32 year old trader Partner this past cycle (believe she was an MD for a few years before that).

i know a few people who made MD in trading before they were 30....in every case they were just good traders who hit home runs with P&L.    Seat had an expected value of 10mm and the trader made 40mm...promotion from VP to Director.....then made 80mm next year...promotes again to MD.  I've seen this a number of times...always based on P&L.

Justin Lubell made MD at Bear at like 25 yrs old after graduating from UPenn at 21. Went to SAC after and now runs GE at Citadel.