Former VP at Morgan Stanley Shares Her Story (Part 2 of 2) | WSO Podcast E45

About

Member @mledyard shares her path from working in corporate development at International Paper and moving up the ranks to her transition to investment banking. In part 2 of this 2 part episode, Megan shares her experience as an Associate in investment banking. How she survived without prior banking experience and two key tips for having a successful career.

Part 1

Check out part 1 of this episode here.

WSO Mentors

Want @mledyard to Mentor You? Book time to chat with her here.

Or Listen to the Podcast Here:

Apple Podcasts
Spotify  
Stitcher 

Resources:

WSO Courses

WSO Resume Review

WSO Mentors

WSO Podcast (Episode 45) Transcript:

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:05] 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. Let's get to it. In this episode, remember MLedyard shares her path from working in corporate development at international paper and moving up the ranks to her transition to investment banking. In Part two of this two part episode, making shares her experience as an associate in investment banking, how she survived without prior banking experience, and two key tips for having a successful career. Enjoy. We could end up working out and you clearly got an offer and you start at Morgan Stanley. Talk a little bit about that, that path in the promotion you ended up getting promoted. Tell me about the Competitiveness of that and just the hours and the gruelling nature of it and how you how you feel or why you feel like you were successful.

Mledyard: [00:01:17] So much there to unpack in all of your questions electorate's beginning. I had interviewed for both the New York and Chicago office and I wasn't going to get two offers. They were going to decide amongst themselves. And so Morgan Stanley in Chicago extended the offer. Yeah, I actually clearly remember having a conversation with my former head of Global corporate development, and he interrupted me when I told him I had an offer from Morgan Stanley. I got an offer from Morgan Stanley. You haven't accepted it yet. The thing? I'm really excited. So you told me to focus on New York and this is Chicago, and I still have dollops of Goldman Industrial of New York. He said, Meg, I would not take Goldman Industrial's in New York over Morgan Stanley's Chicago. They said, seriously, there's no because that's the bet, because that’s the best offer people are trying to get when he was in business school. And he goes, we can talk more about it later. He had to go to another meeting.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:13] He's like, just take it.

Mledyard: [00:02:13] Oh, yeah,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:16] He's like, just take it already. Yeah, OK, so hey,

Mledyard: [00:02:19] Come on, you got a good offer. Go for it. Yeah, but it was a little bit of blind faith. I hadn't talked with a lot of people from Morgan Stanley towards my recruiting Process, but I knew they had a good Reputation. They have a very Strong Chicago book network and they were going to have me start in New York. And I thought, OK, it's great. I can get to know the friend in New York. I spent six months In New York. Morgan Stanley Is Unique and how it on boards is associate. So we sit in a Generalist pool structure, which means for those based in New York, they get to work with a variety of different teams and then they go through a separate placement process. And I think that's fabulous. And we did something very similar in Chicago, Cleveland, a variety of different industry groups in Chicago. Yeah. And you know, it's One thing to go grab a coffee with somebody and feel like you connect with them. It's something totally different to work on a very stressful project with that person and with that team and Go, Okay, I can Sit in here. I get how they operate. Every coverage group. Every participant is different.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:21] So how much in that six months? How much of a taste do you actually get, though, across all those groups? Or is it like typically two or three? Like, it's just random?

Mledyard: [00:03:29] Oh, man, it totally depends person to person. Some summer associates who come into full time Associates, some of them know they want to work in town and that is their jam. So they may have. And hopefully the media group also feels the same way about them. Yeah, but if that's the case, then they work almost exclusively and then they'll have to pick up other projects because there's so much that goes down With a pool. Yeah. Other people are really just trying to stay open, and they can work with seven or eight groups over the course of their summer and in the fall. But pretty quickly, people find their fit. What was really interesting to me is my friends from group Went in and like these two are focused on M&A and the next two were focused on a media, comms or consumer retail, so on and so forth. So my pool class had 20 generalists for New York and all but one their number one preferences changed throughout the fall. Everyone got what they wanted, but it was not the same as what they wanted when they came in. Interesting. Interesting.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:34] Yeah, really interesting. Do you feel like that was because maybe when they started, it was just they didn't know as much and it was more stressful in the initial deals and then they got better? Or do you feel like I don't know? Why do you think that is? That's surprising to me that it was so few

Mledyard: [00:04:49] Or one? Only one? No. I think what I observe is everyone that was there for the summer was completely Focused on getting an offer Right? And it was I'll take anything. I'll do anything right. Let me know how I can be helpful. And you're certainly trying to get to know the truth, but that's just your guard is up because they want to make a good impression. Yes. And now that you have the full time offer and you're able to kind of take a deep breath and actually work on projects and get to know people better, I think they start to find their fits in a little bit more. I hope it was an honest way, a little bit more of a natural way. Yeah, I one of cool classes for sure. Can you tell

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:32] Me a little bit about? Can you talk a little bit about Coming from a corp dev and strategy Background? Do you feel like the analysts were? I know when I was at Rothschild were the analyst. You know, there was a little bit of a tension between the analysts and the associates, especially the associates who hadn't done banking before. Did you feel that where you came in and you felt like, OK, oh my gosh, these analysts are running circles around me in the model and it's tough to manage them? Or was there a good where the analysts really helpful to you? Well, it went both ways.

Mledyard: [00:06:08] There were certainly analyses that we I felt a great amount of tension was. And there are other analysts that were incredibly helpful to me. Ok. What was one thing that I really liked about what we did at Morgan Stanley, particularly in the Chicago office, is for the first couple of months the associates would operate without. And that was really to push them to do the modelling for the comps, to Pull the data, to understand fundamentally where everything comes from. Yeah. And to really ensure that those technical skills are found and by all of my friends across group had different experiences in different banks. What that amounted to me at Morgan Stanley was you have some very, very technically sound Bankers because Those Associates are much More confident and they are much more capable and effective than with the analysts as they then move forward. And it's not perfect, but if you are not technically sound at Morgan Stanley, you won't make it right. It's just did you feel like that time?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:13] Was that enough time for You to feel confident when you Were given an analyst?

Mledyard: [00:07:20] I would say that I purposely took longer, so there are different projects that I would take and then I want to do this. Got it. Got it. I'm also I'm a Person that I really like Operating a spreadsheet and kind of like a little comfort.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:34] I enjoyed it. Ok?

Mledyard: [00:07:36] You really did enjoy it. So I probably were. Other people might have taken like three To four months. I think I stayed. I mean, I Started getting emails that same time, but I Still look for projects if I could do it on my own, particularly with the VP that I really Liked. Yeah. And the thing that I actually really had to push myself to do, I'm a person that unless I know it's 90 percent of it, I'm not comfortable, right? And what I learned how to do over time was to say, OK, I'm 60 to 70 percent comfortable with it. Great. Let's move forward so that there are two parts of that learning curve that you will

Know that makes that makes perfect Sense.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:13] So, OK, so tell me a little bit about the actual progression and associate one second year, third year. Was there pressure? Was there like you knew it sounded like you wanted to stay right? So you're going for the VP promotion, right? So your tell me a little bit about that whole dynamic. Is it because we don't hear a lot about that on Wall Street Oasis? I'd love to hear just the stress of the job for the associates that we have so much of the analyst side. I'd love to hear the associate side. Yeah.

Mledyard: [00:08:46] It is intense, it's thanking everyone has pressure and it just changes and evolves as we were both listening. So for me to associate the did not come from an investment banking background, there were separate changes in the job. Almost every six months. So the first six months, like running around her hair on fire, you don't really know what you're doing. They're trying to make sure that everything is perfect. No errors. People are getting what they need in a timely fashion. And what I chose to do, and I communicated this with my Family, my friends, to say, Look, you know, two years in Business school, and then it's truly a year if you want to call it residency or internship or something. Because, yeah, banking you, you don't run it out of a book, right? You know this? You've done that. Yeah, it is all on the desk training. And I spent a Lot of time with my family before I started and kind of made that investment. Put a lot of chips in the bank, if you will. Yeah, and my friends knew me and they kind of said, Look, I know you're going to cancel me a lot. It’s okay, but I'll always try To make the point to make up your

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:56] Mind, but stop there for a second. Tell me about your personal life at this point where you I don't even Know. Were you married at that point where you have close friends that were in Chicago that you were trying to kind of build relationships with? Or were you still friends with like your Ohio State? You know,

People, what was that like in terms of personal side?

Mledyard: [00:10:17] Personal site, so I have three guys and they are my brothers from another mother.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:23] Cool.

Mledyard: [00:10:24] And I mean, I Literally have now like I had Brunch with their kids last week and like the other two, I moved Back from New York, So they are the guys that I went through Recruiting with. And I also have a lot of really close friends from business school. Very cool. So my close friends understood that the first year or two of my career that. You know, that's what I was going to do, I was going to invest In the job and I was going to Do everything I could with the job. And you know, that can only last for so long. Let's be frank about that. But there was a lot of openness about that. And so I got a lot of flak from my family and I got a lot of flak from my friends. But the promise that I did make is that when I was with them, I was fully present.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:14] That's tough to do. That's tough with your phone attached.

Mledyard: [00:11:18] Yeah. But that's also if I'm in the middle of a live deal and it's

Saturday at dinner. If we would have just sent the book out to the M.D., I know that I can take two to three hours to go to dinner. Right, right. Yeah. Now, when I got up to the restroom, I might have taken my phone. I just took, you know, nothing urgent. Got it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:40] That's fair. Ok, so you're going to this. You kind of have put in the investment to your family, to your friends, you're basically and this is you're in Chicago, correct? So for these three plus Years,

Mledyard: [00:11:53] First six months of

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:54] Research? Yeah. But then you quit. You tell me about that. Why did they go to? Why did you move to Chicago or go to Chicago? Well, that's the plan, I guess that's how it works, OK?

Mledyard: [00:12:06] You know that our starting class was mainly sitting In New York. They said, Go sit with your class. The building, the relationships. The Morgan Stanley Is really important. And that's what the Chicago office invested in been having a say in New York for six Months, which was really wonderful. And I can definitely see how it helped me along with my career. Great. And then the next six months back in Chicago. Now I kind of my Quadrant of I don't know what I don't know. But now it was OK. Now I now more work Comes on because now you’re more efficient. You can get things going and kind of really started to move through that learning curve. And I could tell I was getting put on larger, more complex deals because there's an element of trust. Yep. And so that's kind of like the Second six months really shifted. And then I get into the third six months. And what I noticed is Every deal that Came through, I had an analyst on it, on everything I may have had, like a summer associate come through, and it was really Pushing much More on the project management side of that. And I was when I started getting analysts on things, I was getting the Good analysts I Was getting the analyst for. I wasn't going to have to go through by selling their excel to fix it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:27] That's not it important. Makes a big difference on your life, too. I'm sure

Mledyard: [00:13:33] It makes A huge difference. It makes a huge difference. Yeah. And then so that first six months was really about product management and that we had a new class of analysts. They needed to be trained on modelling and comps and all that good stuff they needed to Kind of understand. Here's how their workflow is going to go. And we went from Gavin being helpful with them. And again, each bank is different. Sometimes it helps them for themselves and our office. That was really important to have the have a really strong bullpen Morale because when it's not horrible for everybody, Agreed.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:11] So yeah, Yeah.

Mledyard: [00:14:14] Well, and for me, The last, the last, for the last Six months. So kind of get to the end of the two year time frame. And that's when I started going to meetings regularly. I had clients that I covered. I was assigned to accounts. There were people within the account that I was supposed to try to maintain connectivity with. And from that juncture, then I go into my third year and associate getting ready for VP promote. And I remember getting hounded one day by one of my employees. We're getting ready for a board meeting. It was the second time's Book, which is never usually what you do for a board meeting, but this is for a specific deal. And she grew up in the me, and she finally found an air on one of my 60 pages, and I take that very personally. Yeah, well, she taught me the next day. Yeah, and she's like, I know you're mad at me and I'm like, I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at myself. And she tried to explain something to me and I'm Like, Okay, I get it. This is a minute. I'll try to find a different way. Like, Hey, I get it, it's fine. And then she said to me. I'm not going to treat you like an associate when you're functioning as a V.P.. You should be treated like a VP. I was like, oh, okay. And so that's sometimes how you look at that VP progression that kind of just happens over a course of time, but really, it comes with your MD trusting, informed kind of thing. I know if I give it to her, It can be done right. People are going to be cool. Life is going to be good.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:47] And so that that kind of that moment in time when your MD, she was really kind of upset with you, kind of. But that that phone call kind of opened your eyes a little bit because she was like, You know, I know you're mad because I lost my temper or whatever it was, but it was almost like it opened your eyes saying, OK, wait a second, but I'm doing something right and I have a path here. Is that? Is that what you're saying there?

Mledyard: [00:16:11] And I would be totally fair. The M.D. did not lose your temper at all. Ok. She is.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:16] She just pointed out a mistake. She just pointed out a mistake and it made you feel like, like, frustrated. I should have seen that or whatever.

Mledyard: [00:16:23] Yeah, it's empty. Empty, but don't lose their temper. Hmm. And they kind of have more of a quiet tone and they look at you kind of at a corner of their eye. They slow down. You're like, I'm in trouble. Yeah, I get it. You know, you screwed up and you like them so much you don't want to screw up. And so I was more. I was mad at myself. I was not mad at her, right? But again, she is. She is one of those movies that really care. She's very good at her job. Yeah. So you want that. You wanted to do well for her.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:00] So tell me. And so it was kind of a foregone conclusion that you were going to get the promotion. And tell me about, let's talk a little bit about pay. Was it I mean, we already kind of know the pay structure, but were the years getting better as business picked up and as you started getting put on larger deals? Now, to be fair, pay

Mledyard: [00:17:20] Never really materialized, right, Expected, and even in the Years that you may top bucket, you're like, That's top bucket.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:28] That's surprising to hear. That's surprising to hear. So, yeah, I mean, I know we have a Ton of data on Banking. Typically, I assume first year associate, you're going to school. What is it? The basic one? Twenty five, one, thirty or one fifty?

Mledyard: [00:17:43] Now I don't even know They switched it. So we got a bump midway through like we started at one hundred. We're supposed to move to one twenty five. Yeah. And I think they moved us to like 150. We got some retroactive right? And then for associate pay, you move up twenty five and the bulge as you move up twenty five thousand each year.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:02] Right. So that's your third year associate.

Mledyard: [00:18:04] It's yeah,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:05] It's like two hundred and whatever to twenty five or I'm sorry, it's two twenty if you're at one fifty to twenty five by your third year.

Mledyard: [00:18:14] For bass, yeah, whatever, whatever ended up to be, it was that and then at the officer level, everyone's at 250 And stays there.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:23] Got it. And then the bonus the ranges was it around 80 percent of bass or 80 percent of bass, all the way up to one hundred and fifty percent of bass? Is that fair In terms of the range? Yeah, that's about right. Ok. Yeah, yeah.

Mledyard: [00:18:36] And then as you get into the officer levels, then so that's going to be deferred. Got it. And it was that new. Not all cash coming in was that new? Was that new? Was that something?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:47] New where they had deferred There or?

Mledyard: [00:18:50] No, I Actually got I started getting deferred in my third year of this issue and talk to me

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:56] About that. What is how does that work in terms of deferred meaning like it's in options, it's in A bonus they Can claw back what, how what form did that take? Yeah, it's of

Mledyard: [00:19:10] Mine halfway into cash, half on into company stock, Ok? And then I think that the vesting Schedule was three years. Oh wow, that's a golden handcuffs there.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:24] Yes, you're not seeing nearly as much, not nearly as much cash comp. Ok, so you're but you're doing well for yourself, but you're working really hard for it. The hours Are, what, 70 plus, I assume, if you're a top associate.

Mledyard: [00:19:39] Well, then when you put travel on top of that, it kind of depends on how you travel. Yeah. So typically, I would be in the office sometime between nine and 10 a.m. on a good night. Well, earlier associates and late year. Ok, so that’s your associate and you're trying to get into the office by 9:00. And then I was averaging leaving between midnight and two a.m. And Then I would typically work A full day on the Weekend and might have split it up between Saturday and Sunday. But I would do that. I remember there was a period of time in my A1 year where I worked. I think it was every Day, like July 4th to Labor Day. Gosh, that was intense. Yeah. And to be fair, like weekends were not 12 hour days, but

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:34] Only five or six, only five or six. Yeah. Now I know even as a man, a Lot about

Mledyard: [00:20:41] People talk a lot about 100 hour weeks. And so I I'd like to be able to kind of Clear something up here. Yeah, let's exclude the travel here for a second. A hundred hours a week is incredibly intense, and it also assumes that you are At your desk actually working. Yeah, right? Not taking the coffee breaks. Not like going down to the gym for an hour or so on and so forth. But in mind,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:04] You're on your own call, You're on call Twenty four seven, but you're working, actually working maybe 70 hours, but you're in the office, maybe eighty five. That's the problem, right? I mean,

Mledyard: [00:21:16] No, there are times. Yeah, but there are times you can get up to 100 Hours, but they are Rare. Yeah, they are truly rare. Yeah, I would say by the End of my three, I would usually be able to say we have between nine to 10 and then I would leave ideally between Seven and eight, and then I might have a Little bit more work to do At home. Hmm. And then as I started traveling more, that in a way it got better, but it got worse. Right. So it was you’re on the road, you're leaving home at 4:30 in the morning to catch a six a.m. flight. You're not really getting back home until 9:30 10 o'clock at night. And you're trying to find ways to review books and so on and so forth in between. But there's also more freedom and more intellectual curiosity, more emotional challenge that comes along with it. So, yeah, I was never really quote unquote get better, right? But I enjoyed more of them. I enjoyed it more when I was traveling rather than just sitting in the office.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:19] That's fair. And so you kind of were getting a little more of that intellectual curiosity. You could you could think a little bit more rather than just be grinding in the model and think about managing your team and reviewing the books. And so when that promotion came, tell me what was the thought process? Was it like? Is it a big celebration? Is it expected and Kind of Not that big of a deal for you? Or did you feel like, Hey, this is some, this is somewhere I'm going to be for a very long time and similar to international paper somewhere you could see yourself being potentially there forever and potentially getting up to empty.

Mledyard: [00:22:55] Absolutely, I would say for me, it was somewhat expected. And I think for most, you're given A heads up Maybe at the end of your or year, like if things aren't working out. Yeah. And there was a lot of client responsibility I have been given. So it was manifest wasn't come if something is really wrong,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:17] Like you were too, you were too critical at that point. You knew that, like they couldn't just say bye to you.

Mledyard: [00:23:26] They were going to get, Oh, no, no. We're all replaceable. Yeah, you know, we're all replaceable.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:29] But you've developed, but you had developed relationships with key clients, right?

Mledyard: [00:23:33] So not to say that it would be awkward. It would be awkward. It's awkward if I just kind of got pulled out, right? But trust me, it's happened. Lots of different things happened, right? Ok. But no, the VP is still very replaceable. Just to be clear. No. But I think for me, it was an opportunity to step back and say, OK, Arthur, here is they’re all hard. They're just they're hard in different ways. Mm hmm. But now I've gotten a little bit more of a taste of BP. I was ready to kind of evaluate it over the first three or four months and see how it goes. And as I Really start to see more of what the end result looks like, the kimono gets opened a little Bit more. I did a double down and it was I was very excited about that career to managing director. I had two really fantastic mentors and they had pulled me onto their book of business, and there were times that it was just it was really Hard. We were simply stopped in Chicago. So as a VP, you didn’t always get an associate. Yeah. So that first six months of the VP can be a really tough transition because you're trying to do the VP job, You're all you're having to do The associate job and you're trying to make sure you get a good analyst who can do the analyst job and also part of the associates job. So you can kind of like bridge the gap there. Right? And they really enjoyed it was fantastic experience. But you know, the reason was so Fantastic is because I got to work with really great people. I had wonderful clients and Morgan Stanley got tons of resources.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:17] So tell me, tell me why the

Mledyard: [00:25:19] Flat out of you that they give you what you need to do a job?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:21] Tell me about the transition to New York.

Why jump to New York? Then is it just a better place to be as a VP or like, what do they want you there? What was the thought process there?

Mledyard: [00:25:34] Mine was totally personal. So my significant other had just gotten back from a tour in Afghanistan, and he was really acclimating into reactivating into place. He did not want to go back to his job in Louisville, Kentucky, and JP Morgan has a fantastic veterans immigration program internship program. So he earned a role with JP Morgan In New York, and One of my two mentors was based in New York, and he had consistently asked me when you were going to New York, when he moved to New York and had done that for A couple of years. Yeah. So when I checked in with him and said, Hey, Tim got a job in New York. He said, Oh great, we can do that.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:21] He's like, It's going on. He's like, you’re here tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. Like, I need to go ask permission if I can. If my Chicago team will let me move to New York. Right.

Mledyard: [00:26:32] But you know, it's Morgan Stanley is fantastic. Within two weeks, they said, absolutely. We just had to go do all the paperwork and is ready to go.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:40] So, OK, so you get to New York. Is it the culture Very different in between the offices? Can you talk to me a little bit about that? And then specifically, Kind of what change Did something change where you felt like, OK, this may not be for me, and I want to kind of have this change of direction go work for a smaller firm back to Corp Dev.

Mledyard: [00:26:58] I'd love to hear about that. Yeah, no, totally. Yeah. So what I say as part of the global consumer retail team, I really do mean it was truly global in nature. So there were deals that I worked on their clients that I covered, where there were bankers from offices all over the world. So when I moved to New York, it was like,

Just, you know, rewrap the computer. Sort of a different desk I did on all of my clients

Because again, I had one M.D. that I work with. I was based in New York and then the others were based in Chicago, and it was a very fluid team. And I would say for me, because it was really I was part of a consumer retail team. We had kind of one common

Culture kind of, I would say, somewhat across all of the offices. But Chicago and New York are very interconnected. Yeah, I would say. Sitting in the New York office, there's a lot that goes on in New York. So there was more opportunity to participate in some of the more extreme white events, which is great as you're just continuing to build your relationships inside the firm. And then to answer your question in terms of, OK, you move to New York. You guys are both there. You know, for me, I had two mentors leave the firm, and I had worked with him very closely to the prior three or four years. And as I started to look around in transitioning over, those accounts kind of got scattered across different. And in a sense, almost kind of rebuilding to a certain degree. Mm hmm. I kind of looked up and said, you know, I really enjoyed this job. And some of the favourite people that I've worked with have kind of moved on and

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:45] Out of curiosity what

Mledyard: [00:28:46] What it's working with.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:47] Out of curiosity, what did they do? Why did they why did they leave? Was there all different? I'm sure it was different, but there was two specifically that where like your MD, your mentors, you know? Was it something where they jumped to other banks? Was it something where they just personally said, I'm retiring or other things?

Mledyard: [00:29:06] Yes, they did. They did choose to move to other things, and they had different reasons for choosing to move to other banks.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:13] Got it. Were they trying to pull you? Or are they trying to pull you with them? Were they trying to pull you with them?

Mledyard: [00:29:19] They could not. They had a no hiring clause in banks in force. That pretty closely, I think. I think both of them had two year hiring, which

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:30] Makes sense. Ok, fair enough. So they couldn't recruit you. They couldn't bring you over. And so but and you felt this makes perfect sense. So you're sitting there, you're your two main Mentors are now gone. You're your clients Are kind of scattering across all the other mds. So tell me about this the thought process in terms of just how you regrouped it and how did you start kind of looking and what were you looking for? And why not go to another bank? I.

Mledyard: [00:30:02] Why not go to another bank is actually really easy. I seriously Have nothing but fantastic Morgan Stanley, and I was Fortunate to obviously work with a lot of other banks in terms of color advising, and I've had friends from business school who went to literally ever the bank on the street, and I felt as A banker that I was Treated very well at orders daily. And I just could not imagine going through that, getting to know a firm and kind of building a wall the resources are and trying to integrate into a different culture. Yeah, banking is hard. No doubt about it. Thinking was hard, but I looked at the way that I was treated, relative how my peers were treated. And as hard as banking is, I also didn't want to compound it with cultures that I did not feel were nearly as good as we're doing.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:52] Mm hmm. Fair enough. Ok. And so then how did you look at Your next opportunities? You're obviously something in M&A makes a lot of sense, something you're getting back to your roots. And so, yeah, and tell me about all of that.

Mledyard: [00:31:08] Yeah, I had to. Unbelievably supportive group heads. And so when it came to the conversation of like, what's Next, I kind of Said, you know, I think it's probably time for me to look for something outside the firm. And they were like, Are you sure? But yeah, it's like kind of getting into V two through here. Do you want to do this? The ID rule is very different or evolved to be very different from a VP role. And I really like you

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:36] Said sorry, you said the executive director. You mean?

Mledyard: [00:31:40] Herr Director, thank you. Yes. Ok. Yes, some things call it something, yeah, OK.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:45] Director Yeah. Ok, fair enough. Director I like executive director. I like that. So so you were kind of you're you had that kind of lined up and they're saying, Are you sure you want to leave? You have Potentially Much more. You build this business and you, I assume, make a lot of money. But at this point, probably money isn't your biggest concern. You know, you've done well and you have enough. So, yeah, tell me what's kind of the thing that's motivating you in terms of what you're the next job and where did you even look or who did you talk to? Well, well, one what motivated

Mledyard: [00:32:22] Me, it goes back to what I shared earlier. Way, way, way back into undergrad. I like math, I like problem solving and I knew to be intellectually challenged. And then the thing that I picked up over the 15 Years of work experience and I now have is culture really matters. Your supervisor really matters. Your mentors, everything kind of really matters. So I wanted to take that and say, Ok, let's take a step back. They never really did that. Find yourself searching business school like a lot of other people did. Yeah. And working family was incredibly helpful. A lot of the senior bankers I worked with opened up their Rolodex and said, Happy to connect you. What do you think in what industries? Where do you want to go so on and so forth? And they allowed a lot of freedom to me and my job search, so I did the big take a step back. What interests me in the long run? Cfo role to me is still very interesting and I know that I love M&A. And so I took an opportunity as a very, very, very supportive, significant other who said, Go figure it out and then we'll figure it out. That's great. So I knew that I was going to stay in the U.S. for at least narrow the geography there. Yeah. But I went out to the West Coast and I met with a bunch of start-ups who were looking for heads of FEMA and kind of that pretty CFO role. Yeah. You know, I looked across the rest of the U.S. in terms of different size Companies, Private companies, public companies, M&A role, other kinds of finance. I knew I wanted to be on time

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:07] At the level that you were at. If you had invest at a top investment bank, I'm surprised. Were you? You know, I would think you could separate into a CFO role. Is that was that not the case, that some of the start-ups that you were looking at slightly larger start-ups in like Series C that had kind of the finance function built out already?

Mledyard: [00:34:23] Yeah, I was looking at a series seriously. Yeah, there were some there are some companies that were just getting into a Series B where they were going to have to hire a CFO. Right. And I just didn't have that risk appetite yet. Got it. And having had enough friends who have gone through Either starting their Own company or joining things that have gone Series B and honour, if I'm going to step into a CFO role, I want to be decently qualified For it. I've kind of Gotten out of my. I got another 90 percent of it. Yeah. Um, but there's an element of Treasury that I understand there's no better relations. I understand there's a corporate Controller ship closing the books month and close, and I understand. But there's also an element of that. You have not operated inside of a start-up before, and the way they do things is different. So I was looking for that opportunity kind of in the right start up and something that was not something that had enough had enough runway in the business model, in a culture and a where I kind of aligned with the belief. Yeah. And I realized that I wanted to be either in the Midwest or The work. And so therefore, if you're looking at start-ups and you're not ready to be on the West Coast, Your funnel gets quite small. So, you know, an opportunity came up. I there were many of my Clients. We're. Unbelievably helpful. In fact, a couple of them came and said, I wish I would have known you were looking in the fourth quarter like we just filled a job and was like, No, it's great.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:13] But. Tell me a little bit about like the interview process at these more senior roles where you're interviewing For senior Managers, directors of M&a. I assumed that it was it would be more Just fit and culture and how you Manage people is that is that accurate? That is accurate. You're telling me they're not asking you what happens to the three statements when depreciation goes up by 10 dollars?

Mledyard: [00:36:42] I think some of the people that were interviewing me probably didn't know the answer to that. And they are incredibly intelligent people, by the way, that they hire people to do that and they hire People to manage people, to hire people to do that right. To be fair. Yeah. Well, you know, they're going to want to understand your view. If the dollar is strengthening against the euro and you have a factory in Japan that is shipping into the U.K., they're going to want to have you talk through that piece of it, which I can't be right now. I have to study it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:15] So fair enough. Fair enough. It's a little bit more of a macro view of the business As a whole, which makes sense. So anything else

Mledyard: [00:37:23] Important as I realized, yeah, they’re not just interviewing you for that job, they're interviewing to see what you can do in the Job after that and the job. So that's great. They need you to fill a certain role, and you should already have the resume to know That you've got 50-75 percent appropriate for that role. Yeah. They want to know where you can stretch and they want to understand what your long term interests are and do your values align with the values of that organization? So often they're was not being interviewed for that job. I was being interviewed for the next job and so forth.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:57] And how did you think of Prep interview Prep for this, these senior roles? Was it something where you were doing any sort of mock interviews or something Where you felt like you were ready?

Mledyard: [00:38:07] Just, you know, it's funny, actually, a couple of them had me do a case, hmm. Some of them had me do it in the office where I had to go through about the model and then drop some stuff on the

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:16] Surprising that other

Mledyard: [00:38:18] People gave me like

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:20] Prada. That's surprising to me at that level that they're doing that. But OK.

Mledyard: [00:38:25] It's also indicative of the culture. Ok. Ok. That way. But they were also trying to make sure that they weren't getting the investment Banking people who never really got comfortable with the models and just kind of pushed everything down.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:40] Ok, that's fair. They were trying

Mledyard: [00:38:42] To weed out That too, which I understand. And so you did fine. I think for me, it was it was talking about the deals that I had worked on. So it was for me going back through for sure. We had a lot of a lot of different transactions to pick from. But there are certainly some that stand out as being my favorites. And it certainly had to do with the complexity of it. The joy of working with the clients, again, I can't say enough good things, but some of the clients I had, they're awesome people. And so it's focused on that and articulating, you know what the complexities that were of the deal, how do we work through them? What was the outcome for the client? What was the role that I played? Um, and then the other piece of it just goes to, like you said, like knowing yourself in articulating this crisply, you can what's important to you and what do you want to do? And we'll be able to go. Um, and then the rat, the last piece of it is, what questions do you want to ask them? Right? And the reviews were usually split 50 50. And they really try to make it a conversation, so if I hadn't done my homework, it shows and being thoughtful about what I'd already learned in their background, we can get caught up with it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:00] Yeah, I always ask people, Hey, you have any questions for us? And what they ask is a Big part of the interview. I guess it tells you a lot in terms of the types of questions they're asking. It's you can learn a lot about the candidates. So anything else, you want

Mledyard: [00:40:14] To have the two questions for you, though I

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:16] Know it's fine. Please. Now, do you have anything else before we call it? It's been a really enjoyable conversation, much longer than the typical podcast. Anything else you'd like to share with the audience before any kind of piece of advice or wisdom before we call it?

Mledyard: [00:40:32] Yeah, I think there's two things that have as I look back on my career. There are two things that have been really important to me. One is you stick to your values and know Lots of times. You think that everything is going to be purely black and white, but so much of it are shades of gray. And when you have that intuition that something doesn't seem Right or you’re not really sure if you should be doing something, it is far better to ask for permission and a lot of those situations than it is to ask for forgiveness, particularly the more humour you become in your career. It's incredibly important to be mindful of what the rules of the road are because it can be interpreted a lot of different ways. I would say the second thing, particularly for those building their career. Anything you can do to broaden your Experience, to give yourself a greater breadth and depth of knowledge and skill set and anything that continues to keep options open for you as you do it. The sooner you have To kind of start making Choices and being a little bit more as a specialist, if you will be very thoughtful about those choices, a lot of times coming out of business school, people either do consulting or Investment banking very normal. Then I would say you Go into those using that as an example. This as long as Make sense for you. And throughout that time period, and either one of those professional service type organizations take a lot of different kind of appointments and you'll start to really Find what speaks to you And maybe therefore what you want to do in the next phase of Your career. So keep your Options open as long as you can.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:18] So generalist all the way early specialized later,

Mledyard: [00:42:22] Like me and you figure out that you don't want to be a generalist in terms of being a general manager of a business, then definitely specialize in finance.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:30] Fair enough. Well, and we'll end it there. It's been a real pleasure to have you on. So thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you for having me. 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.