WSO Podcast | E135: Ultra High Net Worth Portfolio Management to CorpDev
About
In this episode, CorpDevWestCoast shares his path experiencing several 6-month long internships during undergrad to landing in portfolio management at a firm that deals exclusively with ultra high net worth clients. We learn about the investor allocation or fund of funds world, the ugly side of wealth management, how he showed a genuine passion for PWM to survive recruiting as well as what came out of over 300+ applications. Listen to why he decided on the MBA and the importance of optionality early in your career.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 135) 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 talk 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, shares his path experiencing several six month long internships during undergrad to landing in portfolio management at a firm that deals exclusively with ultra high net worth clients. We learn about the investor allocation or fund of funds world the ugly side of wealth management, how he showed a genuine passion for GWM to survive recruiting, as well as what came out of over three hundred plus applications he submitted online. Listen to why he decided on an MBA and the importance of optionality early in your career. Enjoy. A Corp Dev West Coast, thanks for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:01:10] Yeah, thanks for having me. So be great if you just
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:12] Give the listeners a short summary of your bio. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I grew up on the East Coast, but made my way out to
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:01:20] The West Coast about seven years ago. You know, I've had kind of a long, varied career in finance. It feels at this point I started out working at a sort of ultra high net worth investment advisory, got my CFA during that time, then went back and got an MBA and kind of found my way into the corporate world now. So living in the Bay Area and enjoying the corp dev work, for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:48] Cool. Ok, let's start all the way back in undergrad this year on the East Coast, you're going to undergrad. Are you thinking you're in a business program? So like, you're kind of always kind of had
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:01:59] A bent towards business and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): Finance and that type of stuff? Or what was the thought process? Was it like family pushing you there?
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:02:00] Or were you just naturally?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:07] You know, I definitely knew that I was interested in business. I knew I wanted to go to an undergrad business program. I think I was probably
Inspired by the economics class that I took in high school was probably my first foray into it and realized I. This was a science that I felt
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:02:24] Like a much more of a tangible relationship to. So I knew I wanted to do business, but I kind of thought I wanted to do marketing first and lucky, lucky for me, I went to a school that is kind of a five year undergraduate Program where It's called a co-op program. So you end up doing three different six month internships over the course of the five years of undergrad. Which is great because you get to Kind of choose, you get to kind of Try out different fields over the course of those five Years. So I worked at an Ad agency in New York City for my first six month internship, like really enjoyed it. I thought I wanted to try finance after that, and it went to a fund of hedge fund for my second internship, also back in New York City, and kind of fell in love with the finance world and Didn't look back To marketing really after that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:17] Tell me about the what was the agency like? I said, I'm just curious because I don't know anything about that. Was it like a large agency where you come in and you're like a grunt and you're helping just do whatever they ask you to? Or were you actually working on accounts and like doing real work? Yes, I was in there were there were four different, there were four classmates of mine scattered in different groups. I was the we called it traffic, which is really like project management in the agency. It was a cool internship because I got to see every different department, but my job was basically to keep
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:03:45] And keep Everybody on schedule for the advertisement that I was working on. So I would, you know, go to the Art director and tell them I needed something, you know, By the next day at noon so that the creatives could review it. And it was kind of an intimidating position to be in as like, I don't know, it was probably 19 having to corral all these ad execs and finishing their work on time. But it was a really cool kind of crazy environment right on Madison Avenue in New York.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:14] And as a way it visible or is it like TV, print and everything? So it's mostly
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:04:22] Mostly print, mostly like direct mail and stuff like that, so skip the advertising world. Yeah, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:30] Well, direct mail, is it really fast? Yeah, that's
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:04:35] Where a lot of the best
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:36] Copywriters, I mean, because they they're able to split tests so much with. With basically the codes that people enter in, like where you heard this or whatever, because they would split up the code, yeah, little mailers, it's really interesting.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:04:50] The whole the whole split testing
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:52] Is
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:04:52] Basically it originated with like those mail
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:55] Order catalogs and all that stuff for those that want to geek out on advertising and marketing.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:05:02] It was a cool. It was a cool world, and I definitely felt like I learned a lot of just like how to how to act in an office and how to manage my time and had it. You know, it's my First sort of desk job.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:17] People blow you off. You're supposed to
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:05:19] Corral them, but they just blow you off or they like respectful. Some did. Some definitely did. Others were. I mean, an ad Agency like it tends to be Very young anyways. Like I thought, a lot of these people were like really old and senior and looking at it now, they're like 23 and 24. And but no, I mean, it was most people. Most people were respectful of the deadline. They knew that if that I was just the messenger and that someone else would be coming after me, it's if the work wasn't done on time. But yeah, no. So it was it was a cool environment.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:58] So you followed that up with the next summer, you said hedge fund of funds
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:06:02] Again in New York, right? Yeah. So you kind of fell in love with that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:05] What about that was kind of so different. I mean, it sounds like the first one was kind of like fast paced and stuff. What was the fund of funds like day to day like? Yeah, so I had this kind of wild experience with the second
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:06:17] Internship where the fund, a fund that I worked for, had an allocation to Madoff, Which in the Second month of my internship, all the Madoff stuff was hitting, you know, the front page of the journal and exploding. So like basically when I got there, We realized that, you know, call it like A six or Seven percent position in the fund of funds like was just getting written down to zero all at once. And the Fund of Funds Name was all over all over the news. As one of the One of the groups that
You know, that was kind of wrapped up in this scandal. And if you're, you know, if you're a fund of hedge fund, you have one job which is like, don't invest in Madoff. And so over the course of the six months that I was there, you know, at this fund to fund probably went from 15 billion down to seven. And it was just a Just a wild ride. So I mean, I Think, you know, it was also stressful, also fast pace, you know, they kind of tossed me around from group to group, you know, working on various things. And I ended up kind of spending most of my time at the Investor Relations Group, Which understandably
Needed the most help at that time. Like, what
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:32] Were you doing like day to day when you're like, you're helping draft? Copy like emails like what to the press like, what does investor relations sort of in that sort of emergency fire drill setting? Yeah. And how was that? How long was the panic like every day, like you guys were seeing redemptions come through and it was just like trying to stop the bleeding. What was it like? Yeah, exactly that there were just redemptions after redemptions coming, so I mean, a lot of what I was doing was just processing redemptions and responding
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:08:02] To client requests like what is my Balance look like now? What's my lock up? When can I get out that sort of stuff? And I Think probably three months into the internship they tried to put in place kind of an offer to investors to kind of stop the bleeding a little bit, which they were. They were going to buy back the Madoff position to anybody who wanted to sell it at 50 cents on the dollar. If you took that offer, you had to agree to like a longer, like a lock up period. Interesting. People did that
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:36] Or it was a backlash. I mean, I think some I think it worked for some, some folks. I don't think it was super popular and
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:08:44] Most people kind of just want it out. But, you know, probably it probably kept some money from going out the door. But yeah, I mean, for me, the experience was, I think I don't think I knew anything about Hedge funds beforehand. And then I kind of Joined this group and was exposed to, you know, This whole world of hedge Funds that I found sort of Endlessly fascinating And that I kind of, you know, Came back from that internship with my head spinning like, I've got to figure out, you know what, I even just experienced and what that all Kind of went into the eye of the
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:21] Storm of like the craziest like hedge fund scandal or fraud scandal and pyramid scheme in like 20 years or whatever it was,
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:09:33] It was pretty nuts. But you know, I thought it was cool being able to, I thought working for a fund to fund it was really interesting and that you could kind of as you dug into the portfolio, there was, you know, 30 different hedge funds in each portfolio that were all sort of, you know, employing different strategies, working in different geographies. And all had these like weird names that were, you know, like a Lord of the Rings reference or this reference. And I just like it felt like this whole Pandora's box of this world that I just, you know, really knew nothing about. And the more that I dug into one fund versus another fund, the more I wanted to kind of understand how, how it all worked and what the different investment strategies were. That was your goal of that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:20] So, oh, I guess this was one of the six months. Yeah, this was like
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:10:24] The maybe my Third year of the five years of undergrad.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:28] And so what do you have one more co-op left?
I did have one more after that, so I knew I wanted to. Of the two, I liked the second one more and I wanted to kind of stick in finance and I took a position. My third co-op was with Goldman
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:10:45] Kind of on their prime Brokerage team in the Securities Lending Group. So I was in a kind of client service function in the SEC on the SEC lending team, which was also kind of a quirky, obscure, you know, Part of the prime Brokerage World. Yeah, explain
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:02] To the listeners who don't know a prime brokerage is just and then then what your specific group did, because I think for me, it took me a while to figure out what this was. Yeah, I mean, I think of prime brokerage really is just like hedge fund services, you know, brokerage for hedge funds and big trading outlets.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:11:21] So you're helping
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:21] The Mexican drug, you're having to
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:11:22] Execute trades put on do what do what types of services like that specifically
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:27] Like actually positions? Well, yeah, specifically in securities lending, like you're kind of a middleman between
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:11:36] Between Borrowers and lenders of securities. So on the one hand, our clients Were, you know Jpmorgan's of the world. The MFS is like big mutual fund Houses that Essentially, if they wanted to, they could lend Out individual stocks in their Portfolio through a securities lender like Goldman to people who wanted to borrow them on the other side, which is mostly people looking to short sell. So you're kind of sitting in between mutual funds and hedge funds. So you're a broker kind of facilitating, you know, allowing those mutual funds to earn An extra 10 basis points or something like that on a security when a as a hedge fund on the other end is borrowing it so they can short it that hope that it goes down. In short, it so kind of an Interesting space Again, again, something I knew nothing about but was a good to get That kind of like big investment bank Type of experience and kind of an interesting seat to be in. You know, it was it was cool that you got to see the different rates that different securities were going out at. So for instance, if there's a stock out there that that that everybody is looking to short that everybody's trying to borrow so that they can short, there's a rebate rate on it, which is essentially what the short seller has to pay in order to Borrow It. And some of those rebate rates can be
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:09] Really insanely high. So like a test, Tesla, what do you think? Would it be right now if everyone's trying to short test them? I just I have no
Idea what it would actually be, but like you know, at the time, Sears Roebuck was like the most shorted name. And the amount that people were paying just for the privilege of being a blue short series was incredibly high.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:13:30] So it was it was kind Of cool to get to flip through all of those and like a rebate
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:34] Rate. What is that? What is that quoted in like monthly like interest? You get it like a monthly rate or something or an annual rate of like. So if you if you were to say, Hey, give me, give me, you know, $100 million worth
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:13:46] Of Sears to short like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:48] I want, they would say, OK, but we're going to charge you 20 percent annualized on that or 30 percent annualized something like that. Yeah, I think they I think I'm going to have to like, stretch my memory back to remember what I think it was probably annualized. You know, this was just, I know there's an internship, so it's not fair. A decade ago? No, it's okay.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:14:09] It's okay. I'm just curious
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:10] Because I'm trying to. I'm just curious how they quote it and stuff like that. So OK. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:15] So wood as a prime brokerage, are you?
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:14:18] Are you getting a quote
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:20] From the mutual fund and getting margin
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:14:24] Getting like a slight
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:27] Kind of margin on that? So providing the liquidity or is that how you can think of it like? Yeah, that was. Yeah, I mean, that was the that was kind of the whole function of the team
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:14:38] You so if you borrowed a stock, you'd have to post cash collateral or securities collateral and those would generate, you know, be Invested in, I think, Money markets and generate a small amount of money. And then that kind of that the earnings on the collateral would get kind of split between all parties, the custodian between us, the securities lender and the lender and the borrower. And yeah, my you know, it's all talking like very Small numbers like really, really small returns for kind of all parties. I mean, I think I had to put together one of the clients Like annual Reports.
And I think in total we earned them like an extra seven basis points from a whole year's worth of activity. So it's a very low risk, low return type. Function that I my view has been Mutual funds might As well do it because you can Earn a little bit, you can Earn a tiny Bit on it, but It's not, you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:42] Know, that's seven basis points if you're talking one hundred billion. It matters. Yeah, they could. But my role specifically was in in client service, and my job was basically
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:15:55] To put together Reports for the clients on a daily, weekly, Monthly, quarterly and Annual basis. There were Different reports, different clients got, you know, Essentially every day. So if you're a mutual fund and you want to enter into one of these securities lending programs, you can kind of set different Parameters around it, Depending on kind of your risk threshold. So how much of any one security can be out on loan? How much can go to different brokers? You know how long you like it
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:28] Out? I'm coming out of this. Were you like, Hey, I wanna go back to the Fund of Funds, a world that was much more fun? Or what else were you thinking like? Did you even know about private equity hedge funds, any of this stuff
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:16:39] Like buy at this point
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:40] Or investment banking? Like, what was that? I mean. My I think, you know, there are good things that I took out of that internship at Goldman, but I think my biggest
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:16:52] Takeaway was like, I don't want to go work for a Goldman or an investment bank like it was. I think I was just working, you know, like six a.m. to seven or eight every night, which, you know, maybe compared to some other Bankers is not that terrible. But I just I just wasn't really didn't really find it. Yeah, yeah. I didn't find it that intellectually stimulating. And I just felt like kind of one very
Tiny cog in a giant machine. And like, I didn't have any influence. Or, you know, if I if I went away, nothing would. Nothing would. Nothing bad would happen. I just it just it wasn't that excited about it. And so the second internship, which is more the Fun to fund, had me more interested in in the investing world. I would say I Was pretty ignorant
When it comes To like I didn't really know much about investment banking programs like I didn't know much about, you know, management consulting or some of these other more like tried and true paths.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:00] Had you come across Wall Street Oasis at this point? Yeah, I think so. I just probably wasn't reading it as much as I needed to. But, you know, I mean, one of the one of the benefits
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:18:14] Of kind of getting to try out those three Internships was like I felt like I had a really defined picture of what I wanted to do at that point. So I wasn't necessarily thinking, you know, I'll do a two year sort of check the box type of experience and Then go from there into what I want to do. I thought I thought at that
Point that I had it all figured out and I knew exactly what career that I wanted
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:38] To go. Twenty two year olds or whatever you were at that point, we know, you know, all is a
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:18:44] Twenty two year old, right? Exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:48] So you're coming. Yeah, kind of going into the final year, you
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:18:52] So you're thinking, I want
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:53] To go more kind of to the best thing. It's a little vague, but OK,
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:18:56] You liked the fun.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:57] So you're kind of looking for more of those types of roles. Can I get to a fund of fun? Can I get to it?
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:19:01] Were you thinking principal
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:02] Investing potentially like where you'd actually put the money to work? Were you trying for that? I was thinking a little bit more. No, I was actually. I had kind of dialled it in to
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:19:10] Being a little bit more even more specific. So I thought I wanted to go more into like the Private wealth management world. So I wanted to work with like individuals and families to, you know, help them plan for future invest their capital like build portfolios that that sort of thing. So I like investing, but I wanted to I wanted to go into like portfolio management, type of investing, and I wanted the client people really. People are going
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:43] To ask, why didn't? Why didn't you do an internship with Northwestern Mutual or desk or like any of those, you know, because like P.W. is sometimes considered one of the easier ones to get into. You can be you can do
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:19:54] Incredibly well,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:55] But a lot of it sales, isn't it? Yeah, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Tell me about how you said about that. Did you know, did you have your eyes wide open about that?
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:20:05] Like when you're thinking, Hey, I wanted to do more wealth, private wealth management, go talk
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:09] To, you know, help families. Did you go in knowing that's what this job was and tell me how you ended up landing your first gig and how that recruiting pathway? Yeah, no. So I
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:20:21] Learned I learned Mostly through the recruiting process. So I, you know, I went to the Northwestern Mutual like recruiting day. Like I went through one of those presentations, like sat through one, I think, at JPMorgan two and there's a few.
As I kind of started applying to roles in that field, you learn kind of quickly that it's like it's a commission based job, like you're not going to make money for your first 18 months to two years. You know, the questions that people were asking me was like, you know, what are your parents do for work? And can they float you for the next two years while you like? Get this up and running? And how many family members can you bring on our platform? Like and I was like, All right, this is feeling really seedy and not at all what I was, What I was expecting. So what I kind of realized from there was the low end of the market. So the mass affluent base Is much, very much like that, like on commissions and things like that, but that if you move into like the ultra high net worth space, there's firms that are a little bit more Stable that are, Are, you know, not, you know, have a salaried position, Have kind of two year programs Where that you can go into. And I think there's probably not that many. It's a relatively small world when you start getting into like investment advisors who manage 50, 100 million minimums and up. But that's Where I started looking And I and where I started having The most traction because I had a little bit of hedge fund and Alternatives like Exposure and experience. So I basically drilled it down to I want to work for an ultra high net worth Area that's in New York City, and I kind of had that laser focus. And that's awesome.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:11] That's amazing. You know, that's amazing for
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:22:13] Me, but I guess it's probably
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:14] Because you did the co-ops. I think it really helped you.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:22:17] It sounds like because most kids
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:19] Coming out, they'll either be like, Hey, I want to go this way because, hey, I don't know what else to do, and it
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:22:24] Pays really well. It sounds like you really gave it
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:26] A lot of thought, which is kind of rare. For that, yes, I think
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:22:33] So, too. So, but you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:34] Narrowed it down so much. Was there any fear of like, I'm not going to find the job in New York or like, how did you even go about sourcing these specific ultra high
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:22:43] Because those aren't
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:44] Necessarily easy to find, right? Those offices? Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I think I got extraordinarily lucky. I was applying to everything off of every platform. I mean, I don't think LinkedIn even
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:22:56] Really had like job postings at that Time. So I was like, I was like on Monster.com, I was on Craigslist. I was just like, you know, putting portfolio management and, you know, investment associate Into Any search thing that I could find and firing out like resume after resume.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:17] This is this is your senior year. You had nothing lined up. Yeah, within like nine months. You're like panicking. Were you panicking? What was the thought process? I'm going to have to go move in with my parents. I was the I wasn't panicking so much so I had. I was kind of in my last semester of school, I had only two
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:23:34] Classes left in order to graduate, so I had a ton of free time. And so I was kind of just grinding at it and putting a ton of effort into recruiting. I had. This is a funny story, but I was in Boston, and so I Picked up a part time job driving a bicycle taxi in Boston, a pedicab. And so I was literally, I mean, my Days were like taking Fans into the Red Sox games at Fenway Park and then spending all night sending out resumes. And so I felt like I felt like I was getting enough responses and enough Interest based on my resume. Like, you Know, having a Goldman internship at the top of it probably wasn't bad for me. You know, coming out of undergrad, like, I felt like I was Getting lots of Lots of interest and I turned down a couple of roles that didn't really feel right.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:28] And I mean, how many places do you think you applied?
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:24:32] Like if you count all the applications
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:34] You submitted on Monster and indeed all these? I mean, hundreds, maybe.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:24:40] Yeah, hundreds, three hundred for hundreds.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:42] Maybe not.
CorpDevWestCoast: 00:24:44] Yeah, at least I think it's I
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:45] Think it's helpful just to for the listeners to know that. So like, yeah, you had a Goldman internship at the top of your resume, you still applied to three to four hundred places. Yeah. And you know, and you kind of knew what you're looking for, but out were smart enough to kind of, Hey, I'm
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:24:59] Going to get the reps. Did you?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:00] Those places you got offers for, did you still do those interviews or
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:25:03] Was it just like, yeah, we'll hire you. Tell me about
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:05] Those. The ones you know, I still did enter, I still did interviews, they were all kind of I mean, so there was a couple that were like that more mass affluent private wealth management. You say mass affluent. What does that mean? What does that mean? So I mean, it's like a I guess it's a kind of a category in the private wealth management of like college One, it's not worth
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:25:30] It's like, yeah, not worth it, one to
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:32] Five. So it's a little more seedy. They're trying to get you to bring in your own family stuff like that.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:25:36] Ok?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:37] Yeah. Yeah. So typically more commission, less salary.
CorpDevWestCoast : [00:25:41] So.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:41] So you kind of you got some interviews for those types of places. Tell me how you approach those interviews where you're just seeing it as practice, where you're like, Hey, let me just hear them out
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:25:50] And tell me, did those help you and your
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:52] Kind of final interviews for the places you ended up going? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I was approaching them, I was approaching everything pretty seriously, and I don't think that
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:26:03] I was, You know, overly confident enough to like, pull out of processes at that time like I was, even if I was like, kind of sure that it wasn't something that I wanted, I probably was going to say yes to each interview and then see, you know, if you could see what the package was at the end. And yeah, but you know, I was I was considering the sort of Commission side of things. I just didn't really know if that was normal or not. You know, I talked to a couple of professors. I had a really good sales professor in in college, and I kind of asked him, Is this something I should actually be thinking about that talk to my parents and, you know, they were like, It's what you want to do. You know, we can help you and all that, which is which is great to have that support. But at the end of the day, it just I wasn't expecting to Come out and be taking A purely commissioned Sort of job. Like, I just don't think that was really realistic. And, you know, there were a couple of other jobs that were in sort of like hedge fund research, like there was a third party group That was putting together Their own proprietary hedge fund research and selling It to different Institutions. That could have been interesting, but the package was like really low. And so I kind of said no to that. It was a couple of
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:26] Hedge fund under 50 K. Yeah, I think it's more like 45 K at the time. I remember I made a huge mistake in the guy kind of surprised me and given me the offer
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:27:36] Like right in the middle of the last interview, and I was kind of taken aback. And he said, All right. He was basically like, how much do you want? And I quoted him a range, but I started with a low number and then he cut me off before I could even say the end of the range. And just as like, great. Yeah, forty five cents. Good, here is your offer letter. And you know, when can you start? And I was like, Oh, let me think about it. So I mean, there were always Situations like that where You get thrown in to a negotiation. You have no idea how to negotiate or what.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:14] It's interesting that, like, that's a pretty aggressive move.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:28:18] I mean, the price he
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:19] Thought that would work or if that's worked in the past.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:28:23] Yeah. And so it gave me enough of a bad taste. Yeah, not even counter. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:29] Yes. Ok, so you're
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:28:31] You're kind of applying. You're applying.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:33] You're and then and then tell me about the place you ended up going or you know what type of
CorpDevWestCoast: Place it was, you know, to get
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:38] Into specifics. But just and kind of how you progress there and actually what the what was the interview like there was and how did you like show yourself that you were ready for this? I know you had the prime brokerage. You had the Fund of Funds Co-op, so you could talk a lot about that. But were the questions technical at all? Was it more just like, hey, how do you see yourself growing with us? Tell, tell me how you kind of prepped for these because it's a little bit different. It's obviously very different from, like an investment banking interview. Yeah, I would say the interviews were not very technical. Most of them were trying to gauge like genuine interest in the space.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:29:14] So I think a lot of you know, a lot of Kids are coming out of undergrad, you know, just blasting out resumes as I was doing to all sorts of different things and, You know, not really sure what they want to want to do. So I felt like in a lot of cases, my job was to just to kind of prove to them that I Understood the industry and I understood the role And that I had like genuine interest In :This sort of Position. How do you know the most
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:42] Technical you talk about? Did you talk about like
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:29:44] Trades you put on? Did you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:45] Trade personally? Like, what did you do to show that you
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:29:47] Were interested specifically on
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:49] Like portfolio management? You know, I. So I mean, I had a small investment account.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:29:55] I didn't really bring that up in in interviews at that time. I felt like
Unprepared to like, throw a stock pitch at someone and I wasn't going to, you know, I felt like maybe I, you know, yeah, maybe I got my hand burnt, like one time on doing that were like, I mentioned Some stock That I invested in and they were like, OK, well, give me the, you know, give me your five minute stuff, pitch on It like, and I couldn't even tell them What the margin profile of the company was. So it was like, I should probably not try that again. No, I think the most technical Questions that I Got in those kind of roles were like, if you had an if you were advising Your parents on investing their Portfolio today, like talk me through what you would, what kind of advice you would give them. How much do you think should be in bonds? How much do you think should be in
Stocks and Other things like that. So sort of giving like a thoughtful response, not just, you know, rattling Off the last 10 news stories, you know, Affecting the S&P 500, but More like assessing my, you know, The hypothetical situation of my parents and where they are in their life and retirement and careers and how much risk they should take, you know, showing some knowledge of that, I felt like just
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:19] Basically portfolio construction, portfolio theory, stuff like that.
Yeah. And that sort of stuff. Yeah. So what did you say, like? Did you say you're going to allocated some to commodities, some to bonds, three percent higher percentage of bonds since they're getting older? I think I don't remember what you know, what asset allocation I should Have just said I'm sure it rode on the stocks, baby, we're in. We're in a long bull run about the hit ever. And you would have been right.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:31:47] But yeah, no. Sorry, go ahead. So you're so you're know something along the lines of a reasonable
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:55] Answer. I'm sure you gave them OK?
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:32:00] So, yeah, I mean, I think I probably talked a little bit about, You know, where my Parents were in their career and like, you know what I put. They've got A house that's worth X amount, and so they don't need to put anything into real estate in their portfolio because they already have real estate exposure here. Like little things like thinking through their, they're more Holistic, you know, net worth and asset base was Showing, you know, you're thinking more Holistically and broadly about their whole portfolio and exposure. Cool.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): : [00:32:35] Any suggestions on how people can prep for that or get well versed in that, is that just more like academic portfolio construction? You know, I think there's really no substitute
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:32:47] For reading the News and Just having a little bit of a sense for a few different, a few Different asset classes and kind of like what's going on in in those Spaces. So like it might be helpful to know where you know, where long term interest rates are. It might be helpful to know like what the general p e multiple is in the S&P 500. It might be helpful to know, like if there's any emerging market or emerging, you know, a fact or two about some emerging markets you might think are interesting just to kind of get a sense for where things are in the business cycle and demonstrate that you understand how different asset classes will behave in different market environments. Quick, quick game a little quick game long or short, Tesla Go .Just kidding. I'm probably long. Yeah, I am.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:45] I don't know. I know these valuations crazy, though. I agree. And long the business, you know, long term, very long term, short term. Probably short.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:33:53] Yeah. But anyways. Ok.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:55] So you kind of you were at this. You eventually got a role in portfolio
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:33:59] Management and you're at the firm for quite a while.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:04] Tell me how you progressed. Tell me a little bit how you progressed there. We're kind of running out of time
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:34:08] A little bit, but I want to keep it too long. But tell me how
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:10] Things progress there because you did make a pretty big move. And tell me how that came about, how you kind of moved up an organization like that. And it was an ultra high net worth. Portfolio management? Yeah. Correct.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:34:24] Ok. So you tell me about
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:26] What that was like? Yeah, so I mean, I kind of found a perfect home for me, like with such a laser focus on what I wanted to do, I found like exactly the right
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:34:37] Shop to go join, which I, you know, think back on how lucky I was to kind of kind of land there. And then when I did, I stayed basically as long As long as I could. So they had a sort of two or three year analyst program and then a two or three year associate program. And then after that, it was kind of you kind of have to move on. And most people kind of go to business school after that or trying to find something else. So I started in the in the portfolio management side of things as an analyst, and it was pretty much Exactly what I was Hoping for, exactly what I was Expecting, you know, sitting across The table or in some cases, going up to Some rich guy's house on The Upper West Side in Manhattan. And like with my boss and presenting the quarterly his quarterly returns and watching my boss talk through incredibly deeply and knowledgeably, I'm like every hedge fund private equity venture fund in its portfolio, like able to explain the returns For every Single line. And I thought, Like, this is this is a
Pretty cool, pretty cool space to be in. So I really enjoyed it and I loved that I got, you know, going from not knowing who my client was at Goldman and being pretty sure they didn't know who I was to sitting across the table from a client. What 90 percent of what I was looking for to get that kind of that connection. So my first goal Joining was like, I Just want to keep my Head down and get Promoted to his associate is, you know, make it to the associate level. It was kind of like an upper out type of situation where if you weren't getting promoted to associate at the end of three years that you kind of had to move on. So how do you how
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:17] Do you perform well in this type of role? Like you just make yourself useful. Help with analysis that type of stuff or like, are there programs you guys are using that are like internal? Just I'm so it's so opaque to me. Like how you deal with this? Like everything,
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:36:32] Everything was in, there were some internal programs that everything was like, mostly in Excel. And honestly, like as an analyst, your Job was to like, Make sure all the Numbers in the Clients report at the end of each quarter were exactly right. And so honestly, when I was starting, we'd get, you know, because hedge funds report Numbers in so many different formats and through different Portals, and some were just mailing their, you know, the monthly Statement directly to us. Honestly, like I'd show up and I'd have a pile of mail on my desk and I would open it with a letter Opener and plug the numbers into the computer so that at the end of the quarter, I could like build the whole report for the client. Luckily, things have progressed. This sounds like I was an analyst in like 1996, but
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:22] This was less than a decade ago. Everybody who's listening here, this is not that long ago. Ok, so yeah, why was this so archaic? Things have progressed.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:37:30] Then they now send it electronically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it was archaic because there's not a ton of ultra high net worth investment advisors out there who are investing across hedge funds, private equity venture real estate, like all these. Getting them into one investment vehicle. Yeah, getting them into one investment program was pretty hard. And there's actually there's a few different technology companies that are still trying to figure out that problem, and nobody's really solved that one problem.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): : [00:37:58] There's every there's
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:37:59] Only like probably like ten thousand
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:01] Of these ultra high net worth like people in the in the country or Whatever. If you're talking like 20 million, I don't even know
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:38:07] What you guys are. But no, I mean, there's Probably like 30 firms in the U.S. that are like that have a significant probably have more than five billion in assets under management and are focused on that like $100 million and above space, Right? So yeah, it's not like a super deep market that if you built software to do this and you kind Of have to get every hedge fund and private equity funds to like all use you as well in March to the same beat, like it's not super realistic. So. So honestly, like the two years as an analyst or three years as an analyst was just like attention to the detail over and over a thousand times like you, you get this report together and then you check every single number in it three times before you give it to your associate and they check every number in it twice and then they give it to the next person. And if you know you're doing well, if your boss is prepared enough to, you know, talk to the client about what happened over the over the last quarter and have all the information and insight that they need. So as you get a little bit more advanced than that, like building, actually building the reports becomes. More second nature than you can kind of use your free time to start digging into the portfolio a little bit more, but, you know, in Understanding the investments and understanding the asset allocation. But from the beginning it was really just just produce reports and just make sure the numbers were right.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:45] So tell me about this transition you made.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:39:47] And then there
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:48] Were some sort of private equity research type of, well, tell me about that. Yeah, so I would say
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:39:55] It's a lot Of people at the firm are trying to make a transition from the portfolio management side of the house, which is really Like the client facing Side of the house. The research Team, The research team was like twenty to twenty five Person team and their job was to scan the universe for investment funds and ideas within their asset class and either approve or not approve them for our clients to invest in.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:23] So like a fund that was kind of almost like a fund funds. Yeah, but for me,
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:40:28] Specifically PE and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:30] Growth, equity and stuff like that. Yeah, so I sat on the private equity and venture desk, so I covered everything from like big buyout shops to sort of mid-market growth equity sort of stuff all the way down to like early stage venture. Ok. We had a separate real estate team, so I didn't cover real estate, but it was global. So we were looking at venture funds and in China and Brazil and buyout funds in India.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:40:59] And I'm sure all these
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:01] All
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:41:01] These funds were happy to
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:03] Take your call and pitch you on their idea. Yeah. You know, it was an interesting transition going from a client facing function where you are, you know, you're on the side of the table where you're trying to make sure the client's happy and satisfied and has everything they need to. Going to the research side where everybody I met with is trying to raise capital and wants you to feel like the smartest person and that every question you ask is the best question they've ever been asked. And it was a
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:41:32] Real it was a real Reversal. But a comfortable and an exciting place to be. I mean, for me, it was. We probably met with one or two different private equity or Venture funds a day. For the three years I was on the research Team and every One of them had a different strategy, different approach, different geography, different take. And I just got to pick the brains of these brilliant Investors and like, learn how they invest it and learn how they saw the world. And so that felt like a really valuable place to be and to learn.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:08] So as you're kind of approaching the end of this tenure
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:42:10] Here, you're thinking
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:12] Potentially MBA, what were you thinking?
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:42:15] Know you knew your time was
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:16] Coming up, right? Like you had to move on MBA or whatnot. But were you thinking for yourself as next step? Like, were you thinking corporate development or are you thinking? Go back to a fund of funds like what was the thought process, why MBA and why? You know, yeah, you got your CFA, right? So you had already had your CFO. Yeah. So why get the MBA? I do the CFA as well. So the MBA, you know, honestly, I was I
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:42:40] Was kind of skeptical about the MBA to begin with. I kind of approached the CFA with, you know, if I can get through this, then maybe I can skip the two year MBA and just kind of keep going. But you know, the firm that I was working for made it really easy to apply to an MBA and really encouraged you to. You know, I had bosses that were like, you know, really willing to write my recommendations. And you know, there's some funds available to like, you know, take a course and all that sort of stuff. So they knew that I think they do that since they were Kicking people out the door at the end of five or six years, like they wanted to set them up for success. So I
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:22] Felt like
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:43:24] I felt like I might as well try and see if I can get into a top 10 and MBA program that I might as well might as well throw out some applications. But I also applied to jobs at the same time, like once my applications went out. I also, you know, looked throughout a couple of applications and got into some different processes. And at the end of the day, I was choosing between going to Berkeley for full time MBA and taking a role that was kind of similar to what I had been doing at the investment advisory, like very similar role covering Private equity and venture for like an investment consultancy. And so I kind of, you Know, The two Options for me were like, I can kind of keep going down this path, but I want or I can take a step back, really reevaluate, Take two years and see what it is I want to do, I think. Had I taken that other job, I probably would probably have a pretty clear line of sight to what the next twenty years of my career would be, and it probably would have been more of the same. And the MBA was a little bit more of a question mark where I don't think I would ever. I didn't think I would ever really regret getting the MBA and having that kind of stamp of approval. And it was a little bit more open ended like, let's see where this takes me and what else there might be For me because I can kind of always come back To this investment Advisory Role if I want to.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:54] How did you end up in Quinn Corp, Dev? You kind of come onto campus and you're thinking, Hey, this is great. Everyone's applying for like management, consulting and investment banking. You're like, I don't want that you. I'll tell you what, I want it. So tell me how you thought, corp dev how you narrowed that
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:45:10] Down and then and then tell me a little
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:11] Bit.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:45:12] We'll cut it off after that and just
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:14] Tell me a little bit
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:45:14] About the recruiting
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:15] Process. How do you land it in there? Yeah, so it was a little bit of a, you know, I didn't go into the NBA thinking, I want to do Corp Dev on the other end, I think what I knew I wanted to do was move from evaluating investment funds like I move from evaluating hedge funds or private equity funds, like investing in investors to actually evaluating companies. And so whether that was a, you know, direct investing type of role and venture or private equity or growth equity or something like that, or I kind of just widened the aperture to also include strategic investing, the corporate venture capital and
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:45:54] Ultimately corporate Development kind of fell into there as well. The role, you know, and you know, speaking frankly, like, I think had I been able to successfully make the jump from there into a private equity, you know, a senior associate type a role or like at a really reputable ABC like I would, I would have probably ended up there. I interviewed constantly for two years and made some headway, but ultimately wasn't able to really pull off that. That's almost
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:23] Impossible. That's almost impossible. If you don't have the principal investing experience
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:46:28] Prior to your MBA trying
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:30] To get one for a post embassy, which is super narrow like all the kids who already had private equity roles before MBA. Or, like a lot of them, don't get into the post MBA seats, like because there's just less Yeah, think going to the buy side from an MBA, it's like it's not super easy. I've seen It. I've seen it, but I'm like, It's super rare. I probably
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:46:50] There's this is like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:51] Podcast one hundred
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:46:52] And thirty something. And I've spoken, I think, to two,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): Maybe three who broke in post MBA to like AP phone. Yeah, I mean, I felt like so it can happen that I could get. Yeah, the closest I could get was if I was willing to entertain roles that were basically like associate level roles that
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:47:11] Like a really good private equity Firm. Like I was still applying to those like pre MBA type roles. And but even those like I would get to kind of like the final, like the Closing dinner of the process. And there would be like and so your post MBA, you really want to be working with like twenty six Year old kids in the same kind of position as that. And they just kind of, you know, it didn't pass the smell Test to them, I think at that point. So, you know, I kind of I Kind of widened the aperture a little bit and was talking to some corporate venture capital groups. And the way I actually found this role is I had been, you know, over the course of my MBA had been putting together Different, you know, investment Pitches for four different recruiting processes, whether it was a startup that I thought was really good for whatever reason or a public equity. I wanted to have like four or five six Different investment, well thought through investment ideas or theses to talk about and different in different interviews. And so the company I work for now is a publicly traded company, and I started approaching it by putting together an investment thesis for that company. Like, I thought this was an
Interesting it's a bank. I thought it's an interesting interest of bank that was interestingly positioned, and maybe there's something I can I can dig into Here and put together, you know, A stock pitch for this company. And the more I looked into it, the more I Thought it's actually really, really unique Company. Let's see what's open on the job board there. And I started applying to jobs and corporate strategy and corporate development at
That company And then going into the Interviews, I felt like super well prepared to talk About, you know, the Strategy of the of the company and why I thought it was well positioned and what I thought that they should do because I had done a lot of public equity research on it and In that kind of showed me navigate That recruit recruiting Process. Very cool.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:08] That's interesting. You kind of started it as like
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:49:10] Just as a pitch
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:12] And you're like, Wait, that's interesting. This company is actually really interesting and you ended up applying there and getting a job there. That's right. Kind of fascinating, kind of not. It's not the way you probably drew it up, but hey, why not? Yeah, not at all. Yeah. Cool. Before we call it anything else, any kind of final words of wisdom you'd share for either your younger self or for the listeners here. In terms of how you would have kind of gone through the same path, it sounds like you had a pretty. I'm pretty. Successful and kind of well
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:49:41] Defined path like you pretty much knew what
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:43] You were doing for most of it, it sounds like it. But yeah, I'd love to hear. I think so. Yeah, I mean, I constantly
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:49:51] Go back and think back, especially going to business school with a bunch of former bankers and former consultants and former consultants who having their MBA entirely paid for by the consulting firm. I, I definitely look back on my bike path and think, like, should I have I, you know, Investment banking wasn't even really on my radar and neither was consulting, would it? Would it have served me better to take one of those Positions that kind of preserve optionality? And that's like a little bit more universally understood experience like I felt coming out of the MBA. Like I still had to explain to people that were skeptical that I had never had banking experience.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:34] Did you have a modeling chap? Did you have the modeling chops? Did you have the principle investing chops, that type stuff? Exactly, yeah, I mean. And that was definitely like an uphill battle to try to try to, you know, at least with the transition that I was trying to make. The CFA helped a little bit because I could kind of prove to people that I could
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:50:53] Learn things and, you know, knew how to put my Head down and study through some stuff. But what if doing it over what I have preserved optionality coming out of undergrad and and taken a more tried and true path, like maybe, with something I
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:10] Feel like? Do you feel like the transition out of MBA has been tough? Like in terms of the modeling and all that stuff for the actual deals you're looking at? A little bit In my actual role now.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:51:21] No, I don't I don't think that I'm expected to do anything modeling wise that I haven't been able to pick up and figure out pretty quickly. And they've got templates for everything and someone there to teach you how to do it. But did I fail modelling Tests along the way at private Equity funds like, Oh yeah, I had a I had one where they gave me a model.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:43] They're taking our course, man.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:51:45] You should have taken our course. I said, I definitely said A
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:50] Little plug in there, a little lad right at the end of the podcast. Perfect. Yeah. No. But no, I really appreciate you taking the time. So that's interesting. I think I hear that a lot from like fund of funds. I think it can be a really fascinating position. And some people you can actually make a lot of
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:52:06] Money and be it be at a great,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:08] Great firm because. A lot of people are only wanting to go to their principal investing, so if you are a show like dedication and work hard, you can really move up at those firms. And I would say
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:52:21] I would condone can
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:23] Lock you in, right? It can. It can lock you in.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:52:27] But I think you know, the allocator space, if you can call it that know endowments, foundations, fund of funds, pensions. It's not. It's not a space that a lot of people I feel like are super aware of. And as you said, like you can do quite well. And it's If you're if you're someone who's like Very academically Minded And likes thinking like really high level about investment Trends and ideas, I'm like digging into like academic research on it, like an endowment Or a foundation Or something like that can be a really cool place to work where there's, you know, if you rise to a certain level, you can do pretty well financially without killing yourself
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:12] Or having to jump around in 20 different places or anything like that. Yeah, yeah, For sure, man.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:53:18] Very cool. I think we'll leave it at that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:20] I think that's very wise. Good advice. I'm good. Yeah. Well, I appreciate your time, and let's stay in touch.
CorpDevWestCoast: [00:53:28] Yeah, definitely appreciate your time as well, thank you.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:31] 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.
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