WSO Podcast | E163: BB IB to MBB Consulting after Top 3 MBA
About
In this episode, BankertoConsultant shares his path from a target school in the midwest to a bulge bracket investment banking analyst role in New York. Learn how he was able to make a transition from the FIG group in New York to the Technology group in San Francisco and why he moved back to India for a Strategy and Business Development role a year before applying for top MBAs. Listen to hear the reasons he thinks he was able to get into a top 3 MBA as well as why he chose to go to one of the top consulting firms coming out of school.
WSO Mentor
Want to work with BankertoConsultant ? Check out his profile here!
Or Listen to the Podcast Here:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Stitcher
Resources:
WSO Podcast (Episode 163) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me! As I talked to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general.
BankerConsultant: [00:00:22] Let's get to it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:25] In this episode, BankertoConsultant shares his path from a target school in the midwest to a bulge
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:31] Bracket investment banking analyst role in New York. Learn how he was able to make a transition from the Figg group in New York to the technology group in San Francisco, and why he moved back to India for a strategy and business development role. A year before applying for top MBAs, listen to hear the reasons he thinks he was able to get into a top three MBA, As well as why he chose to go to one of the top consulting firms coming out of school. Enjoy. The banker turned consultant, welcome to the Wall Street Oasis podcast.
BankerConsultant: [00:01:06] Hey, Patrick. Thanks for having me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:08] So be great if you could just give the listeners a short summary.
BankerConsultant: [00:01:12] Sure. So I'm originally from India. I moved to the U.S. for college. I went to a target school in the Midwest. I was an English major there. After college, I spent a few years at a posh graphic investment bank on Wall Street, was in New York for a couple of years covering fake, then moved to S.F. to the Global Technology Group at the same firm. After that, I spent a couple of years back in India in a business development and strategy, or at a large conglomerate and went back to the U.S.
BankerConsultant: [00:01:48] For business school. And now, finally, I'm a consultant at a top three consulting firm in New York. So I moved around a lot, and I'm one of those rare breeds who went from banking to consulting, for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:03] Super interesting background. I think you've hit a lot of different types of roles that are that our users Or their listeners are interested in hearing about. So let's start all the way back. Now, even before undergrad, I guess, did you grew up, did you grow up in India or where were you?
BankerConsultant: [00:02:20] Yep. So I was born and raised in India, grew up here, went to high school here and in fact, high school was where I got my first taste of the business world, if you will. I took an econ course in the 11th and 12th grade. And so, you know, Micro macroeconomics understanding a little bit about interest rates and inflatuion and monetary policy, fiscal policy, which then sort of
BankerConsultant: [00:02:50] Translated into my major in college and we obviously talk more about that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:55] Was it something that you loved right off the bat in high school or you're just like, This is weird? Or what was the thought process?
BankerConsultant: [00:03:01] No, I did. I for some reason, I didn't know. For some reason my father is a commercial bank, And he has been kind of risk management and credit on the banking side. And so ever since I was able to start speaking intelligently to some of what he did or at least talk about, Hey, this is what's going to happen to inflation, right? Like if you lower interest rates. I think that kind of made me a little bit more excited about the future prospects of going down that sort of path or at least studying economics more in college.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:43] So tell me about the thought process of coming to the U.S. for college. How did that work out?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:47] You know, you're coming in an interesting time.
BankerConsultant: [00:03:50] Yeah, I actually I remember vividly that I joined, I started at school. Two days before Lehman went bankrupt and I had no idea what was going on, just by the way, so it's not like you, you would be expected to know any of that. As a first year in college, even if you ultimately end up in finance. But the decision was driven by, on the one hand, kind of, you know, obviously I've wanted to study. I thought I wanted to major in economics and I went to a top school with a great economics program. But on the other hand, I also liked the Idea of being in
BankerConsultant: [00:04:29] A liberal arts environment and really broadening my horizons to topics and subjects and fields outside of what it is that I would majoring, which is not necessarily the way the Indian educational system or the British educational system, which was another option I was considering, not how they work.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:49] What's that, because what did your dad believe in that or your mom believing that the liberal arts education? I'm just curious
BankerConsultant: [00:04:53] Know actually a couple of my they were very much in favor of me kind of going to either the UK or staying back in India. But it was some of my cousins and aunts and uncles in the US that that sort of pitched what liberal arts and what studying in the U.S. and interacting with people from tens and hundreds of different countries. What that all does to you and that convinced me and eventually convinced that. Very cool. That's awesome. Yeah, it's not.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:23] It's not too common. So, OK, so you came over here, your what's the thought process in terms of like investment banking? And when did that come on the horizon? Was it like not until your sophomore year, junior year did you always know freshman year? We were like, I'm going to be an investment banker? How did how did it work?
BankerConsultant: [00:05:39] No. So freshman year was very much about adjusting to
life in the U.S. and the culture shock and figuring out whether I wanted to focus on a career that was sort of directly in line with economics. So say, if I wanted to do research or go down to grad school or PhD pop And I, while I was fascinated by macro, I soon realized that that was not something that that I wanted to pursue. So it was more my second year when I started to look at a natural adjacency to economics, which is finance and kind of expose myself more to the field by actively reading financial newspapers more, joining a finance club on campus, talking to a couple of peers and seniors, And just sort of immersing myself more in what that's all about. That first piqued my curiosity, and then I started thinking about, OK, how do I actually get hand exposure to the finance and the finance world? I then at the end of my sophomore year, I knew I was coming back to India for the summer, potentially my last summer back in India, which it turned out to be. And so I wrote to a couple of India offices of a couple of the Wall Street banks. And as it happens, one of them had sort of an unpaid internship program for their Asia offices. And through that, I was able to at least get exposed to investment banking and see what it was all about.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:20] Sounds like the perfect kind of sophomore summer
to get it on your resume and going into junior recruiting with a little something on there. So was it? Yeah, a little something, at least. Have the name on there, right? Mm hmm. So you were able to kind of get something your sophomore summer back in India? And then when you came back to Campus, what was it? Was recruiting heating up right away for junior for junior summer.
BankerConsultant: [00:07:42] Yeah, so interestingly, I spent my whole term of my junior year studying abroad, so I wasn't on campus, and I didn't think that was a major issue at the time. But clearly I missed out on a lot of the info sessions and networking events. And so in hindsight, I would have. I love study abroad, but I would have done it another term. Maybe, maybe the spring. So I actually when I came back in the winter, I didn't really get a chance to network much, though I did reach out to a few seniors and their friends and really tried to delve into their experiences as interns and get some interview tips and tricks. And in terms of the application I applied because I was at a target school, I applied through the standard on campus recruiting process. And that's what that was.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:34] What like December time, December time frame or
BankerConsultant: [00:08:37] That was January
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:38] January. Ok, so there were still some openings and you applied. Do you remember how many applications or how many places you apply to and around how many first round interviews you got?
BankerConsultant: [00:08:48] Sure. So, so that was actually when a lot of the applications were due. You literally came back to campus and boom, there were all these resume cover letter drops. I think I might have applied to about 10 or 11, and I landed two interviews, two interviews.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:05] Yeah, so the conversion wasn't great, you think? Because of that, you were gone that that fall. I think that had
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:11] A role to or with your GPA high.
BankerConsultant: [00:09:15] My GPA was pretty solid, It was about a three six which
at my school was pretty good. Yeah, there's not a lot
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:22] Of great inflation yet there. Yeah, so OK. Yeah, so
BankerConsultant: [00:09:26] But yeah, I think it was that I had a couple of alternates, but then, yeah, most of them didn't actually turn into interview invites. So you only had two first round interviews.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:37] Were you nervous at that point?
BankerConsultant: [00:09:39] I sure was. I I knew that. I mean, it was it was a blessing and a curse because I knew that, OK, this is these are these are the only two shots that I have. If I wanted to do investment banking specifically, I did have an interview for credit risk at a bulge bracket. But I wanted to do investment banking and so I was I was nervous. And I think what happened was my first process. Therefore, I was I was a little rusty. I was nervous. I kind of had in the back of my mind that I have to get one or
BankerConsultant: [00:10:18] Both of these. And so the Interview went, OK. The interviews. But it didn't convert.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:27] Yeah. To tell me like to that first round interview at the first bank where they both bulge bracket banks,
BankerConsultant: [00:10:33] They were both price bracket bank. So the first bulge bracket bank
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:35] That you're there first round interview what you said, you're a little rusty, a little nervous. So how what do you mean by that? Like, you're stumbling a little bit and your answers in terms of
BankerConsultant: [00:10:47] Where I was fumbling, I was fumbling in my. Exactly. I was fumbling in. It was it was largely behavioral, just a little bit of technical. I fumbled a lot in the behavioral. I think I was just overwhelmed. I'm seeing the moment and it was it was for a regional office of a of a botched bank and investment bank. And I think somewhere in there, I also kind of hinted at the fact that I was really excited to work in New York. And so, yeah, that I don't think that point necessarily was well-taken. But but it turned out to be a great learning experience. I mean, I don't think I completely bombed it. I it was great practice, not that you necessarily want one of your two interviews to be
A practice,But it turned out to be a blessing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:34] Same thing happened to me. Same thing happened to me. The only offer I converted was one of the last ones, and I can't because I had gone through so many others. Yeah, you just get a lot better. Exactly. So, OK, so tell me about that. Second, that second one. So you didn't. So you had the first round interview. Did you not get a second round on that one?
BankerConsultant: [00:11:50] Yeah, I didn't get a second round on that one.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:52] Ok. And so then the next one is how many days later?
BankerConsultant: [00:11:56] The next one was a couple of days later.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:57] Ok, so you were you just studying? And I was just, yeah, just nonstop focusing
BankerConsultant: [00:12:03] On the areas where I fumbled and just really refining sharpening my answers. Reviewing the vault guide, there was this other one hundred two hundred four hundred question question bank. You didn't
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:16] Use that. You didn't use the I b the W so interview
course.
BankerConsultant: [00:12:20] And then I did not. I unfortunately not. I wish I had. It's all good.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:26] Yeah, no. So so yeah, I'm just teasing you. So like the I guess my question is you only had a couple of days there. Were you spending
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:34] Most of your time? Because I think a lot of people find themselves in this similar situation where they think they're ready, they get
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:39] Into the first one, they get punched in the face, fall down. They're like, Oh my gosh, I have to do a lot more prep. And suddenly they only have a few days to kind of get polished. So were you spending a lot of time doing mock interviews with your friends?
BankerConsultant: [00:12:50] At all? No, so at that point, I mean, it was too little time to do mock interviews, so I just focused on. I mean, I honed in on the questions in the question banks and obviously the notes that I had prepared where I knew I was not totally kind of secure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:09] How did you how did you know what? What were those questions and how did you know you weren't doing a good job on them?
BankerConsultant: [00:13:14] Because when I practiced them before the first interview, they weren't perfect, and in a couple of cases, they weren't perfect. In that interview as well, just brushing up
BankerConsultant: [00:13:23] On my resumé, specifically the investment banking internship, you mean not
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:28] Perfect in the sense of like how you delivered them or not perfect in the sense of like the actual content?
BankerConsultant: [00:13:33] A little bit of both. Yeah. I mean, there's like even now, I mean, there's always even if you know the content, sometimes you you're just sort of in the moment and you might forget. So it's a little bit of the content. And then of course, it's also the delivery when there's two kind of bankers, Senior bankers staring at you
In a small room. So I think it was both, but. What also helped me just on this same point was that for whatever reason, I just went in with a much more kind of optimistic and positive frame of mind Into the second interview process, and obviously that helped in the first round of the second bank as well as the final round two per day.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:20] Let's talk about that. So first round, you come in there asking you all the standard behavioral y investment banking. Why this bank? You were ready to go. You delivered it. How did you not sound so rehearsed. How did you not sound rehearsed? Had you practiced that? Just the sweet spot amount where, like, you didn't write out all your answers? You had like.
BankerConsultant: [00:14:40] Yeah, I did, and I think honestly, it just part of it was just a. For whatever reason, didn't feel as rehearsed as it probably did when I was in my room and I, as I mentioned earlier when I had those conversations with those, those seniors and their friends or who were recent first years because I couldn't network when I was when I was away, I had run some of my answers by them. This was before the first bank process, and so I kind of tried to focus on, OK, what is it that they said? Like, how do I make sure that I deliver it in a particular way, knowing kind of what I know about myself, obviously, and just not? Kind of sound wishy washy. So and I will say, lastly, that it's also kind of the energy that you feed off of the interviewer and the first round was with someone
BankerConsultant: [00:15:39] Who I just instantly hit it off with. And so that that also made it made it a lot easier. And then with the second round, the Super Day, I think I was just a lot more confident than because the first round went well.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:53] Were you flown in for the Super Day?
BankerConsultant: [00:15:56] No, so they flew the two MDS from New York, flew to where I was to our campus.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:04] Very cool. And so you were there and the super Day, you find out you get the Super Day and now the pressure's kind of ramped up. Did it switch to anything? Was there anything unique
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:14] About the Super Day or surprising about the super Day in terms of like? Or is it the same kind of behavioral questions repeated? Or were there kind of new questions, a lot harder technicals, anything like that? Or is it more softballs because their empties?
BankerConsultant: [00:16:26] No, actually, it was so the two movies played good cop, bad cop. One of them. I love this.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:33] Yeah. For the listeners, good cop. Bad cop means one person is acting angry or annoyed or disinterested in the other one's friendly. Exactly.
BankerConsultant: [00:16:43] And so I had to back off first. And he was also from India. He'd gone to a similar high school and this particular bank also asked for your grade transcript. And obviously he was a Uchicago grad, and so he looked at my courses. He looked at the harder courses that I took in which I didn't get straight A's,
but he called me nonetheless. He called me out on why I didn't do as well in those courses. He then asked would randomly ask me. I mean, he asked me some
BankerConsultant: [00:17:17] More sort of complicated, technical, complicated in relative terms, by junior, by junior standards. So the how the three statements connect, how depreciation is reflected, what are the different ways to value a company and what not? But then he would like throw in a question on mental math. Like just a simple
Multiplication, or if he'd asked me some micro and macroeconomics concepts. And it was really just a stress test interview along with the why banking and why that form and strengths and weaknesses. And then he questioned. He questioned my strengths, and he really drilled into my weaknesses. And so it was truly a stress test interview. But I think overall, I held my own and he confirmed that after the fact. And then the second one was more of a good Cop with an Md, which does a lot similar to the first round that I had the previous day,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:19] More like vibing and you're feeling good and it's like a happy conversation and less of a drill.
BankerConsultant: [00:18:25] Yeah, exactly. You wanted me to feel better after the first.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:27] Any tips for people who are kind of getting grilled by a bad cop? Sometimes they put good cop, bad cop in the same room. Have you seen that before in the same interview? I have that happened to me at Goldman that happened to me at Goldman when I was just getting grilled by somebody. They're just rolling their eyes and
BankerConsultant: [00:18:44] So I was good. So this happened to me when I was a third year analyst interviewing an intern or an intern candidate, and I was good cop. I don't think I can be bad cop. But so I was good cop, and we just decided this like a few minutes before the interview. I was not necessarily in favor of it, but so the colleague of mine was bad cop. And I mean. It's one of those situations where you just have to really back yourself. You almost have to at times. Uh, or on the side of being a little too self-assured because otherwise it can really kind of eat into whatever it is that that you do, nor that you are saying,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:35] Yeah, they can steamroll you, they want to see how confident you are in terms of your answers are pushing you even though you think, you know, do you really, really know, are you super confident in your answer? And so they're trying to they're trying to
BankerConsultant: [00:19:46] If it's something about your background and sort of your
fit and behavioural style questions, I mean, you know who you are like, you know your motivations. You know what you've done, but they will just try and poke holes in it because that's their role. So you just have to stand our ground and hold your own.
Yeah, hold your ground.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:06] Be respectful. Even though they're being jerks, potentially. Exactly not. Lose your cool. Really interesting. Ok, so you're in the final round. You kind of had this good cop, bad cop you get out of the final interview and how long before you find out you have a junior summer offer?
BankerConsultant: [00:20:25] I think it was a couple of days, if I'm not mistaken.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:29] Oh, that long, OK? It wasn't right away. It's a few days, and I think you said it was with the big group. Mm hmm. What how did you think about that in terms of so you got a call and they say, Hey, we want you to join the fake team for the summer? It was your only it was your only offer, it was only it was only.
BankerConsultant: [00:20:45] Exactly. I was I was going to take it. Yeah, regardless, but I mean, they did have this. This call it like. Got exactly what it was called basically a day where they flew, you went to New York and you got a chance to kind of interact with people from different groups and then you submitted your preferences. And it was my third preference. It was my. Second industry group preference, but it Was one of the industries that I was interested in besides tech, which I ultimately ended up at a couple of years down the line, so I was excited about I mean, given my econ background, I feel like some of the the policy impact on banks and just generally kind of having that flavor in the deals that I worked on and the industry trends would be quite interesting
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:45] For sure. Just the macro. Yeah, the macroeconomic background is important for fake, right? So exactly. Ok, so you'rekind of you get the offer. You're now kind of coming into junior summer. What's that internship like? Is it one hundred hour weeks, 90 hour weeks? Is it something? Where is it what you expected or how is it like? Was it New York? I assume it was New York. First time ever, being first time ever being in New York.
BankerConsultant: [00:22:10] First time ever living in New York. Yeah, absolutely. So what was that like? It was everything that it was slated to be. It was a nine hundred hour weeks, most weeks. Everyone was getting crushed, as they say, all of the internet. But, you know, it definitely gave me a real taste of what the job was going to be like. I worked on projects across multiple verticals. When I when I joined full time, I get placed into a couple of the five or six verticals, but faith, but I got good exposure to several of them. I really liked the team. I feel like while on the one hand, they were certainly making us work extremely hard, but that's just kind of what the job entails. On the other hand, they were quite supportive and yeah, I got it on with a number of my seniors, and I felt like it was where I wanted to start my career. So when I got the full time offer, I, I didn't sign on the spot, but I signed pretty soon thereafter.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:20] Yeah, in terms of signing on the spot or thereafter, did you ever think of going into full time recruiting with that offer in hand and trying to leverage it for another offer,
BankerConsultant: [00:23:29] Not for another offer? Another bank, necessarily. I was just trying to see whether there'd be Any openings in the one or two Other groups that I was interested in. Like technology. One of many and the other one, which was Stack, those are both obviously in very high demand. And so it was, I think one or two people might have moved around, but generally it was very hard To do that switch between your internship and Starting full time. So do you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:05] Feel nervous about trying to push for that in case of like, did you feel like if I pushed you hard here, they could just rescind my offer?
BankerConsultant: [00:24:13] I don't think I was worried about the offer getting risks in
It, but I was cognizant of the bad blood. You don't want to offend, you don't want to
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:23] Offend the Mds and the. Exactly.
BankerConsultant: [00:24:25] I don't want to offend the people in fig and ruffle any feathers, and especially if the odds of moving were to begin with, I sort of I just kind of tested the waters and soon realized that that it just made sense taking fig.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:41] So you worked really hard that summer. Do you feel like I don't know if you've seen recently released part two of our survey? They came out and mostly for the bulge bracket banks just showing. How analysts started before you sell the Goldman Sachs 13 Typekit survey, we just released a more industry wide survey. Did you see that? I didn't see that. Yeah, so it just came out and he's getting covered by NBC today. It's going to be pretty. It's getting it's getting out there. So it's really no. I just wanted to get your thoughts on just the mental health and what you saw around you because it sounds like you were in a pretty. You were working in a time that was pretty busy, right? The economy was recovering. There was a lot of transactions to do out of, you know, you're well out of the financial crisis at that point. So tell me a little
bit about once you started there full time, you know, did your analyst class dwindle fast? Was it something where there was a lot of attrition? Did you see any mental health issues or you personally, how did you handle the long hours because you were there for over three years? I know you made the transition from New York to S.F. and from fake to technology, but I'd love to hear just How you dealt with it personally.
BankerConsultant: [00:25:59] Yeah, sure. So in terms of the analyst class, it didn't really window before the two year mark when a lot of people move on. But you know, we like any other typical industry group or any investment banking group. We, as an analyst class kind of really bonded together. We tried to kind of pick people up when the chips were down and rally. I think in terms of mental health, I I try to find whatever outlets I could. A lot of the standard sort of hobbies that one can pursue in the little time that one has outside of the day to day friends. I luckily had a lot of friends who had sort of moved to New York to also work in finance. And so there were others who I could commiserate with, if you will, even outside of my group. I'm. And. I I think when you at least in my group, what I what I liked was that when there were certain people when where you did reach out to them, or even if you didn't reach out to them, If it was a really bad week or rough week or rough project, they would really appreciate the hard work that you were putting in and try. They wouldn't go out of their way to make your life more miserable. If that makes sense and that goes a long way in a job which is going to be intense, that that really does make a difference. I mean, there's a lot more that one can do. And we've seen a lot of policy changes that have been put in place over the years. But that was that was great at the time, relatively.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:54] It sounds like you were able to handle the stress and the long hours pretty well. And as you're approaching kind of a year or two, when did you think about this internal transition? You know, how did you think about potentially leaving the firm and doing a lateral jump versus internally and how not to ruffle any feathers again?
BankerConsultant: [00:28:11] Yeah, no, I mean, I really liked the firm, and I like the people who I worked with, I truly didn't want to ruffle any feathers unless I really had to, which sort of did come up to happen. And yeah, it did happen as I expressed my interest in switching groups. And so two of my I started to find myself really developing
a strong interest in a stronger interest in technology. I worked in the fintech protocol as one of the verticals within Figg and so spent some time in in an area with intact and was
spending a lot of time outside of work, really trying to understand what was going on there. A couple of my seniors had transferred from fake to tech NSSF as it happens in those six to 12 months before I did, and the firm touted its internal mobility as well. So, you know, it was it was something that I'd seen happen and something that I knew that if I really pushed for it, that they would hopefully make it work. So I expressed my interest. I told the operating head of Fake that I that I wanted to move to the tech group, but then they kind of delayed added. They tried to convince me to move the following year and maybe move to a different group first and then move out there. It's in high demand and so on and so forth. And but I was ready at that point to make the move, and I think it was the first time when I really kind of put my foot down and almost threatened to leave if they didn't let me interview with the SF team within the next the following couple of weeks I had started looking externally, which is the point that I mentioned earlier and I. I had just secured an offer from a top impact investment fund focused on fintech for the unbanked in Europe. And I was going through a couple of other processes as well. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:27] So you knew you were in high demand. You knew that even if they. Even if you did have to leave, there wasn't it wasn't a fake bluff or anything like that, it was a legitimate, legitimate threat of like, Hey, I'm either moving or I'm gone.
BankerConsultant: [00:30:39] Yeah, at that point, I did have a little bit of leverage, and so I for the first time, I think I was I was more aggressive than I normally was, and it worked. Yeah, they call me an interview with the global head of the technology group the next week. A couple of other MDS, a VP and an associate. And the following month I was in San Francisco.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:00] That's fast. So you did you did have to stand up for yourself that it wasn't even for a firm that touts itself as having internal mobility. You can see the struggles internally, the politically, how hard it is when there's a group that tends to struggle a little bit more to retain their good talent to a group that's in high demand, it's still very hard to make that transition. You see the same thing in the big four people trying to move from audit to transaction advisory services, the same thing and all these and all these banks and even.
BankerConsultant: [00:31:27] And to be fair, that was super hot those two years. Yeah. So that that especially. And so it made sense.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:36] But to talk about that transition, what was it like going from fig to technology? And was it really was it a hard transition learning curve at all? Or did you kind of just were able to kind of hit the ground running when you got out to S.F.?
BankerConsultant: [00:31:49] It was a harder transition than I thought. I I was obviously interested in the industry, but it's one thing having immerse yourself in a very specialized world of financial services, looking at price to tangible book and capital ratios and whatnot to a completely different world where you know they're different, obviously different business models, different revenue models, ready balance sheet lie just a lot of kind of industry knowledge that you have to build up, especially relative to peers of mine who had been there from their first day. And so I sort of felt like a first year analyst all over again or maybe sort of a rising secondary analyst for a little while until I came up the learning curve. Of course, I had the technical grounding and I knew what the job entailed, but it was a meaningful transition.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:48] Sure. Ok, so you're there for a little over a little over a year in San Francisco and you get the analyst to associate promote. But at what point do you start thinking of moving back to India and what prompted that move?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:03] And what in terms of what types of opportunities were you looking for?
BankerConsultant: [00:33:08] Sure. So I started thinking about potentially moving back to India around the same time that I was going to get going to be communicated the promotion so around June, July of that year? Ok, yeah. About eight or nine months into the yeah, exactly nine months, I think into the stint. And it was because, I mean, I liked what I was doing. I like banking. That was the reason why I stayed for the third year, unlike most analysts, and I loved the tech group from what I was, was earning and doing. But I think the more time I spent in banking, the more I felt like I also wanted to experience how a company. Makes decisions at the highest levels, not just in relation to finance, but also more broadly kind of around strategy and operations. And separately, I was keen on working in the emerging markets, having spent several years in the U.S., I also had this medium term goal of wanting to go to business school. And so I thought it would be helpful to diversify my experience and my profile a little bit as well. So that's when I started exploring chief of staff and sort of generalist business roles at startups on the one hand and large corporates and conglomerates on the other. In India, Startups, startups abroad as well. Startups, no startups also back in the area. Oh, India, India, OK. Back in India. So you ended up taking I could leverage my Bay Area Tech banking experience there, which obviously is a great Trump card.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:58] So you ended up getting a great role as a manager of strategy and business development or office of the chairman for a large conglomerate at it at India. Tell me about that role, how different it was, the day to day. So you were still probably working 90 ish hour weeks when you were in technology. I assume since it was a hot, it was a hot time. You're doing longer,
BankerConsultant: [00:35:20] Longer hours on average than I didn't think
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:23] So. A pretty rough three years, man.
BankerConsultant: [00:35:26] Yeah, to be fair, I think when I was when I said nine figure was probably closer to 80 on average, deck was closer to 90, but they were all ideals big had less likely exposure just given the deal flow for our group at the time. So I mean, I was fine, I guess in some ways working those longer hours. But yes. Yeah. Ok, so you're
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:49] Looking your thing. You're thinking business school. You're thinking, diversify my background. Were you worried that you'd be put into the investment banking bucket? And were you worried if you went to private? Were you thinking private equity at all? I'm curious why you thought strategy and operations.
BankerConsultant: [00:36:02] Yeah, so I was obviously exposed to private equity as a lot of my peers kind of, you know, look looked into it and went down that path. And it's a great path. But in my case, I didn't actively consciously work towards it or pursue it. I.
like I said, I came to realize that I really liked banking, I was I felt like I was learning a lot. I like working with a wide range of companies or different levels of maturity on an M&A deal, on a on an IPO debt equity financial advisory, often at the same time. And
I knew kind of the pros and I guess some extent, the cons of going to private equity, and I didn't feel particularly compelled to actively make the move. I would have probably just sort of jumped on the bandwagon if I had gone through that process, that's
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:06] Fair. Ok, so you're you land this new job in Mumbai and you're kind of moving back near closer to home. I don't know if your family's from Mumbai, that area, but you're kind of moving back closer to home. Tell me a little bit about what the day to day, how different was from technology investment banking to strategy in operation. I'm sure it was super different.
BankerConsultant: [00:37:25] But tell me about yeah, in some ways it was. It was very different just in terms of how larger corporate organizations work. And this was a role where I was at the holding company. So kind of working closely with a number of different group portfolio companies on strategic initiatives on operational support that they might have needed and some group level projects, special projects, Quote unquote, that we were trying to implement. And so when it came to matters at the group level that we were going to roll out across different portfolio companies, I think those
were generally easier to push through. We were a small team. We were the office of the chairman. It was a high profile, high visibility unit. But when it came to working with the operating companies across different industries that that the conglomerate had interests in there, it was a lot more kind of hyped in some ways. There's a lot of stakeholder management that that has to happen, even if you are ultimately the holding company, you're working with senior leadership. You are a quasi chief of staff. You know, twenty five year old. These are industry veterans. And so you have to strike a delicate balance when it comes to trying to get that buy-in around what we might have wanted to push them to work on. Can you give an
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:01] Example of like what you were trying to push through to some of these leaders?
BankerConsultant: [00:39:04] Yeah. So for instance, one of the areas or Clusters that this large conglomerate has companies in is the financial services again. And so that was part of the reason why that I worked closely with those companies in that I had a finance background or financial services big background. And what they were trying to do is they were trying to really shore up their digital capabilities. So there was that fintech element which having worked in tech, having done a little bit of fintech was also super fascinating to me, an area where I could have added at least a little bit of value or so I thought. And so those were the kinds of conversations that we were having where we would take stock of where they were in that journey in areas like digital payments, digital lending, insurance and so on. See if there was a way in which we could maybe develop a unified super app which allowed customers to access a whole host of different financial services through a single app. And it's also obviously digitally accessible. But, you know, different companies were at different stages of their journey. Different CEOs had different views of how they felt about some of those interactions. And oftentimes, you know, you'd make a little bit of progress, you perhaps even identify certain companies as I was in business development. I would even identify certain companies that we might have wanted to strategically partner with. But then there's obviously all the puts and takes of establishing those types of partnerships. So there is a lot of those, I think, incredible learnings that were very different from being on the advisory side, but at the same time. Challenges, if you will, around influencing people, getting by and actually executing the stuff that you don't necessarily see when you're on the advisory side,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:21] For sure, so did this. Do you feel like this experience, though, even if it was maybe a little frustrating and you couldn't push everything through that you wanted was did you feel like it was helpful to differentiate yourself in your business school applications?
BankerConsultant: [00:41:34] Oh, it absolutely was. I mean, there was I talked about some of the differences and maybe to some extent the difficulties around being in that type of role. But if it was unique, I was working with the. Senior leadership of one of India's largest conglomerates, the chairman and his and a senior team, because of that,
I had access to and was having those types of discussions with the C-suite of the operating companies. And so a lot of high visibility projects, a lot of interactions with people who obviously have a lot of experience and are leaders in their respective fields. And I was able to kind of weave a lot of these softer elements and experiences into my application and my interview more so than my application, because that's when it sort of really sort of came to came to light when I could actually speak to some of those experiences beyond just what I was able to include in my written application. So I think that certainly helped me stand apart, or at least I would like to believe it did.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:55] What is your GMAT score? I just get you don't have to share. I just I'm curious like you. You're coming like, OK, so you're competing by and large with a large base of applicants from India who tend to score incredibly high right
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:13] On average, especially on the math component. Did you feel like, well, obviously you had been in the U.S. for a good seven ish seven, you know, good a good number of years. Do you feel like that helped you as well in terms of just
BankerConsultant: [00:43:25] Just, yeah, that helped. I got a I got a high score in the gym at. I did well on both I. I think the English or yeah, the English piece was easier, I attempted twice and I think the English piece was definitely easier for me because I had spent a lot of time in the U.S. I mean, not that I grew up speaking English, but there's just certain nuances that you don't necessarily think about until you're asked to complete a sentence on a Math test. All right. So that helped, and my quant was Ggenerally strong. So overall it went well. And the beauty of the GMAT is that you can you can take it in quick succession if you don't like your first score, which I didn't. So it all worked out.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:22] Tell me how much you jumped on your first, second or was it like seven hundred twenty points? Ok, so let me guess seven. 10 to seven. Thirty four seven thirty to seven. Fifty seven twenty seven. Forty seven I was close. Yeah, it's interesting you retook at seven 20, most people wouldn't do that.
BankerConsultant: [00:44:42] But you felt like, yeah, I felt like I had a little bit more in me. Yeah, fair.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:47] So let's talk about business school. You get there, you're having a great time or, you know, immediately, Hey, I want to go consulting or what was the thought process around? Did you kind of go in knowing what you wanted to recruit for? Because I know for business school, as soon as you get there, it's almost like recruiting starts within a few months, right? Or even if the first month, the networking sessions and all that. So did you kind of go in knowing.
BankerConsultant: [00:45:10] Uh, not quite, to be very honest with you, I went in wanting to go even closer to the front lines of business operations. So from kind of investment banking to a holding company rule to actually getting my hands dirty. There were, excuse me, a lot of consulting around me at the school, and of course, the consulting firms spent a lot of time on campus, and so I did attend some of those networking sessions. But it was it was mainly my second year when I when I actively applied to consulting and sort of converted and joined full time. After my second year, my first year, I ended up interning at a fintech startup in Asia. Because again, like ultimately, I think. I that's what I wrote about in my business school application, and it was my curiosity had been piqued over a period of four years, having worked in fintech to some degree in banking and then done a little bit of fintech work and projects at the conglomerate that I wanted to actually work in the insides of high growth fintech startup. And so that's what I did. But then I think I also realized that I wanted to spend more time in the U.S. that was sort of one piece of it. And the other was to, I think, being a business school and having to analyze and assess real world business problems and situations every day for school rubbed off on me, and I wanted to extend that into the real world. And consulting obviously gives you the opportunity to do that, working across functions and across industries. And that's another reason why I felt like it would be a great place to start at both business school.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:21] How painful was it to prepare for interviews after having you already had the banking interviews done? All of a sudden you have to learn the case format. Was it painful? What were you able to pick it up? Pretty fast?
BankerConsultant: [00:47:32] It was hard. It's a different muscle. It's a different approach to expressing what you probably have learned over time. Having spent a few years in the working world, so I feel like I had to really hone that skill of cracking the case and really doing a good job. In a case interview, I practice a decent amount with peers of mine, with a lot of the alums who had worked at the big three consulting
Firms and then who were at the business school I was at. Mm hmm. And I kind of focused on the kind of mock cases that that some of these firms hand out to their alumni and their current employees when they come to campus. After a while, I kind of stopped practicing cases from the case booklets and really focused on those ones and repeated them on my own dime to myself. Um, or just some of those and some of the others is
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:41] A lot of like the practice so that you just get used to using the frameworks in a certain way, like, OK, this is like a case sizing problem or this one's a specific profitability or division problem, you know, case and just doing the math by hand, that type of stuff is just getting,
BankerConsultant: [00:48:56] Yeah, it's getting it's getting reps in and you don't necessarily. And that's what I was trying to get at in terms of sort of going back and revisiting some of the cases that you've worked on. Trying to see whether you can repeat those frameworks and do some of that mental math or some of that brainstorming before your final recommendation in the case. Because the more kind of full cases you do, the less return on time. I feel it is especially towards the latter part of your of your prep period.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:34] So you ended up at a top consulting firm. So tell me how that transition has been to banking, to consulting the hours similar a little bit. A little bit less, probably. But just tell me a little bit about that and then. Tell me a little bit about the pay in terms of it being, you know, it's probably not a pay cut because you're probably getting paid really well at your bulge bracket
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:54] Was that ever a consideration of like, Oh, the pay isn't going to be, as you know, the bonuses in as big typically. What was your thought process on that?
BankerConsultant: [00:50:03] Yeah, so there were a couple of questions that start with the transaction, the hours, so it's in some ways going back to the client side of. Off the table, and so while the hours are not as crazy as investment banking, you're in a client services business and to some extent, in some cases, depending on the project that you're working on or the practice that you're in, it could be a little unpredictable. There could be some, some ups and downs. But on average, you get your weekends, which is automatically, you know, roughly 15 20 hours of work, perhaps, and Fridays can be can be light. Um, I have spent most of my time in the private equity practice, which is the more intense of the practices that that you might find yourself in. Just given the shorter timelines for these diligence assignments. But on the other hand, It's been a really rewarding experience because it's allowed me to stay connected to the world of finance and explore some of the more qualitative and strategic aspects to investment opportunities. Whereas I might have only looked at the valuation and the financial analysis side of them when I was in banking. In terms of the. Actually, forget what your second question was.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:46] I'll pay just on pay in terms of the bill. Yes. So in terms
BankerConsultant: [00:51:49] Of the pay, I had already taken a pay cut when I moved from investment banking as a rising associate to the corporate world in India, won just because of the currency switching to because it's going from corporate to from investment banking to corporate. So I had already done that once and this was obviously a step up from there. Yeah, but the pay is great in consulting and I feel like I'm
learning a lot. I'm really enjoying the work. And so frankly, the pay was secondary to me. I feel like over the course of my career, hopefully, hopefully I'll be fine.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:33] I think you'll be fine. Yeah, no, it's important because I think people get so focused on, you know, the money and what they're saving and all this stuff and what they're building versus. They are actually enjoying the work they're doing day to day, which I think is you're spending so many hours a week with your colleagues and with your what you're doing. So you should at least try to enjoy it somewhat. So that's great to hear. So anything else before we call it? Any final words of wisdom, you know, looking back at your path and that you'd like to share because you jumped around quite a bit. Countries, cities, industries? Yeah.
BankerConsultant: [00:53:08] Yeah. Well, on that point, one little reminder that I give myself all the time or try to it is always be curious. Abc and always be open. Don't, you know, don't let that that inner child in you who kind of is always asking the innocent, why question or trying to learn about something different? Fade away. Be open to new opportunities. And the so-called emerging strategy instead of, you know, only thinking about your deliberate strategy and moves and the other piece when you said sort of
moving around and jumping around is oftentimes when you're kind of in a super intense environment, you feel as though you might be getting a little or you're just you can be overwhelmed by everything that's coming at you in these hard and intense jobs. And then when you're a little more emergent, then you look around, you and others are crushing it and seem to have it all figured out and have things lined up. More power to them. But I. I guess that's not often the case, and so I just try to remind myself to trust the process, surround myself with friends and mentors that remind me of this and that I'll do just fine and just fine and that this too shall pass if they say,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:49] Yeah, there's a lot of there can be a lot of heartache and mental anguish. If you try to compare yourself every two seconds to everyone around you, there's always going be somebody out there that's getting the job that you potentially wanted or succeeding more, making more, whatever. So I think it's that's really great advice for those out there to, you know, look internally, are they being content with themselves and what they have and being grateful for what they have?
I think it's great. We'll end on that. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your wisdom. Thanks, Richard. And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street, Oasis, if you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis. And till next time.
or Want to Sign up with your social account?