WSO Podcast | E142: Investment Banking from Prague to Munich
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In this episode, Jakub shares his winding path going to university in Prague and leveraging multiple internships including at KPMG and Accenture to get important experience. Learn why he went to Seoul, how he landed a full time offer at an investment bank in Vienna, why he transitioned to Munich and some sacrifices he made along the way for family.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 142) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me! As I talked to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, Jakub shares his winding path, going to university in Prague and leveraging multiple internships, including at KPMG and Accenture, to get important experience. Learn why he went to Seoul, how he landed a full time offer at an investment bank in Vienna, why he transitioned to Munich and some sacrifices he made along the way for family. Enjoy. All right, Jacob, thanks so much for taking the time to join the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Hi, pleasure to be here. So it'd be awesome if you could just give the listeners a short summary of your bio.
Jakub: [00:01:04] Yeah, so I started an investment banking in 2014, a bit of took a bit of an unusual route, joined UniCredit in Czech Republic, then transferred through the bank
into the Austrian C office. And then I went into a tech boutique called Bryan Garnier and Co. for a few years. And actually, now I'm back at UniCredit, But in the German office covering the German market. Very cool. So you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:32] Were. You're from the Czech Republic, from Prague or.
Jakub: [00:01:37] Yes, I'm from a small village in the middle of nowhere. But I did to my university in Prague.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:45] And tell me a little bit about that. So in Prague, is there? Is there a lot of I assume there's not a lot of recruiting for investment banking. Tell me, when do you think finance was something that you were interested in? Tell me about. Like, did you do? Is there on campus? Recruiting there at the University of Prague is there? What's the what's the process like of landing a job in finance from there?
Jakub: [00:02:08] For finance, there is recruiting from the big four and the local lenders. I would say there's not much investment banking, you know. There is a stock exchange in Prague with about 11 stocks being traded. So there's there's no equity capital market, basically. So what I was aware of at university, I studied international trade. And before going into that direction, I also considered the finance program. But it seemed to me like, you know, it's kind of geared towards people becoming accountants. And that sounded boring to me
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:42] At the big screen at the big four, mostly so people did finance they were or in, you know, in the finance team of a corporate, not necessarily finance in the sense of, you know, investment banking or private equity or that kind of direction. So I know what those were. Did you even know what investment banking was and stuff when you were an undergrad?
Jakub: [00:03:02] Not really. I mean, you know, I had the vague idea of the there's, you know, people who buy companies, but the advisory part I didn't really had on my radar.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:13] So you kind of knew what M&A was, but did you
when did you kind of think, OK, I'm going to I'm going to do this international trade thing? And then specifically, were you doing internships kind of during the summer?
Jakub: [00:03:27] Yes, exactly not. Also, I was just kind of working part time as a kind of working student in different companies. And then, you know, actually, I did the most logical experience for working in international trade. I went to a consumer goods company and I worked in their marketing department. And then after some months, I realized this is definitely not for me. So let's change tracks and I why?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:52] Why was that? Why was it not for you?
Jakub: [00:03:54] It was a nine to five job where it had certain cycles, you know, monthly quarterly annual cycles of things that repeat, you know, also the brands the company had, where those kind of staples that you grab in the supermarket, you don't really care whether it's that brand or this brand. And so even the promotion, you know, I wasn't sure that all the marketing activities that the company were doing, whether it's really actually makes any difference to the customers or whether it's just kind of to the randomness of how do you choose, you know, like a household product. I don't really think about it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:34] The positioning on the shelf is probably lot more important than the marketing.
Jakub: [00:04:37] Yeah, exactly. Or whatever is still there and the others are sold out. And I grew up. What's the nearest tomb to my line of sight?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:46] So was it wasn't for you seem too predictable. It wasn't that you didn't see. There was a lot of value being added by the marketing team. So you said, I don't want this. Did you get a full time offer or an offer to come back or what was that like?
Jakub: [00:04:56] I was in the second year of university, so probably like what you would call a sophomore in there in the in the U.S. Slingo. And I thought, you know, I could continue doing this throughout university and then probably join us full time, but it doesn't seem that interesting. Let's try something else. Mm hmm. So I did an audit internship in KPMG. That was very good for, you know, getting more insights into how finance actually works. Learning more about accounting because my university definitely did not. I mean, it wasn't the focus of the program. So I get a bit more practical experience and also insights how companies actually work and what's important. What are the different teams? Who's doing what and what? What could be more interesting?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:46] So did you have any family you went from, came from a small village? Does that mean nobody worked in finance or accounting or any of the stuff? What are your parents do? Tell me a little bit more about your background. Do you have siblings or are you the oldest?
Jakub: [00:05:58] I'm the youngest of five. Oh, wow. My father is a car mechanic and my mother is, I would say, an administrator of a music school where there is a certain accounting element to it. But what I do has nothing to do with what she does. But, you know, maybe there was a bit of a genetic predisposition to dealing with numbers. But apart from that, no particular family tradition of investment banking.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:29] Ok, so you're so you're kind of coming through your university, you've done the marketing internship, you've done the big four audit internship. And then so at this point, are you getting more exposure, you learning more during those internships from talking to people? What's it like? Is it a small office there? Are you networking? Do you know anything about any of this stuff?
Jakub: [00:06:50] Yeah, I mean, I was I was at a, you know, the big four and Czech Republic. It's still a couple of hundred people in the different teams. Yeah. And then the clients are still, you know, the local subsidiaries of multinational corporations that you would audit. So it's a pretty good exposure. And I would say everyone from my kind of class in that in that year of people who are doing internships, some of them are in high positions in corporates and controlling or general kind of corporate finance. Some people went into banking, you know, so it's very much spread out. But the network was pretty good. And I also, even though I wasn't working in that area, I also got to know what the consulting part is doing what, what, what the kind of corporate finance advisory part is doing. So I met those people in the hallway and I had lunch with them and through that, I learned a bit more.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:43] That's awesome. Did you wear a lot of people like, were there certain people that were really trying to get out of the Czech Republic, to get to London, to get to Munich, to get to these other larger kind of cities that have more of a finance hub? Or what was that? What was the thought process of like location? Did you feel like did people feel like they were stuck because language barrier or regional? Or did they feel like was there a lot of mobility from these internships to the London to the world in Munich to the world?
Jakub: [00:08:14] He I would say a lot of people for them, it was a kind of stepping stone. I knew some people who transferred through the company to other offices, but then also some people also came from a similar university background and then, you know, just got on the back of having worked for an international brand, going to a similar thing abroad to London to different cities across Germany, Paris, different things. One of my colleagues from the from the KPMG Audit Internship then went on to a restructuring firm in New York, getting a full time offer there. So I would say there's a mix of different things and what
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:54] Was on was that on your radar? Were you like, Hey, I want to do this? I eventually want to get to Germany? Or was that ever? Like what was?
Jakub: [00:09:02] It wasn't like that at that time. It wasn't.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:04] Why do you think and why do you think you weren't thinking of like going abroad? Did you want to stay close to home? Did you have a group of friends you wanted to stay close to? What was the thought process? And there was just no thought process?
Jakub: [00:09:13] Not necessarily. It was just, you know, it still had a bit of university in front of me. So I didn't really think about it at that time. I thought, you know, let me see you when I graduate, I'll think about it. Yeah. And then I wasn't really sure about the direction, either. So after this ordered thing, I went into strategic consulting with Accenture, and there I did also very different things than before. It was kind of this classical what you would see in movies about consultants having projects where the assignment is just we need to save costs. Find out where. And that was the whole job. Very kind of creative doing, doing whatever you can figure out to help the company save money.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:56] So were you doing a lot of analysis in Excel, looking at the numbers, trying to figure out where they could cut costs? Or were you doing a lot of work at the actual companies in the clients?
Jakub: [00:10:05] The both, I mean, some of the initiatives were, you know, kind of the accounting trickery. How can you present things in a different way so that the company looks better? Some of it was making actual changes in their processes and figure out how those processes works. Who decides? What can it be done faster? Sometimes, you know, it was just it was a company that did a lot of procurement. So with a lot of them, they had to establish suppliers. No one ever questioned the terms. So it was just, let's step in and question things. Yeah. And as it turns out, when you do that, a lot of things are actually quite flexible. And if you exercise the pressure at the right point, people, people.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:43] But yeah, for sure. Ok, so you're it sounds like you had a lot of great internships. You had the marketing. You realize it's not for me. You had the big four, the KPMG audit internship. You kind of got a little bit more of a broad exposure in the network and then you get a management consulting Accenture.
So and nowhere here, though, are we hitting really a true finance banking internship, which is interesting. So tell me a little bit about so in. These internships are long there during their during university right there, almost for the full year. We were working
Jakub: [00:11:11] Doing projects directly. So it was it was, you know, the it was technically meant as to be done part time outside of your university schedule. But at least it the university that I went to the it's called now Prague University of Economics and Business. You know, there's lectures and there seminars, lectures you can attend, you don't have to do. Seminars are usually mandatory, but you are the master of your schedule. And usually there's three available slots in a week, so you can pack them in one day into a tough day where you need to pay a lot of attention. Yeah. And then you have the rest of the week to be designed on your own. So. So I did that and I worked three, sometimes four days a week. And then, you know, three days in a in a consulting firm, already a full time job in other industries .Mm-hmm. So you were
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:05] Doing probably like 60 to 80 hours a week at the end consulting, you think, and then another 10 to 15 at school?
Jakub: [00:12:13] Yes, I would say it was like, you know, 12, 14 hour days in consulting. And then, you know, the university kind of spilling into the weekend and spending maybe one or two days on it, actually during the week.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:27] Why were you so motivated?
Jakub: [00:12:31] One thing was, you know, it certainly helped with the budget. And actually, I would say, unlike in Western Europe, in the US, the internships are actually pretty well paid.so even. As a as a as a consultant in Accenture on this kind of student contract, I would say I was already at that time making more than the average is in the Czech Republic. So just like. 1500 year olds across a month, and I'll say the country averages like hundred.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:02] Fifteen hundred euros a month, which is almost like what, almost like two thousand five hundred bucks USD per month for somebody living in low cost of living in the Czech Republic, that goes very far.
Jakub: [00:13:13] Exactly, so I mean, you know, that was also kind of motivated by a certain standard of living I wanted to have in our flats where I would be. So as a matter of my kingdom, do
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:24] You have any time to party or enjoy it, though or no?
Jakub: [00:13:27] Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, certainly felt nice. You know, when, when, after a party my friends would go back with the subway and I would go in a taxi. Yeah, just, you know, having that kind of having that kind of freedom certainly was nice. But, you know, it also allowed me to move kind of socially and in my in my kind of circle more to interact with people who were already in the work life and not students. And it completely changed my mindset one at once. I saw, you know, there are some people who have actually stuff going on. They don't just, you know, attend lectures and submit papers. And then from then,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:07] I mean, you're also you're a group of social friends was started becoming more professional actual people who are working because you were going out to these clubs. Was it dinners? What was it that you mostly met some of these people? Yeah.
Jakub: [00:14:20] But also sometimes it's just, you know, you know, the drink of choice in the Czech Republic is beer, and then you get introduced to other people that other people know that actually turned out later to be very valuable business context for various things, you know, because it's also there's a certain lifestyle to people who finish a nine to five job. And then there's, you know, the other people who finish at 11 and then go out. Yeah. So at that time you meet, uh, similar like minded people, and that was those also kind of became actually invaluable network. And then, of course, you know, through those internships and various experiences, you also find out which directions are other people taking. What are they interested in?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:03] Mm hmm. And so when did you first really realize, oh, investment banking, this might be kind of interesting. One was that conversation, do you remember, was it over a beer with somebody?
Jakub: [00:15:13] Yeah, it was at the beginning of my Accenture experience, I kind of became aware that banks are hiring way ahead of schedule for summer internships. So in that fall of. 2012. I applied for some summer internships in with banks in London, and
I didn't get any, but it was an interesting experience.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:38] You get amenities or just got shut down.
Jakub: [00:15:40] Yes, I got interviews. Oh, good. And also, I got impressed by the style of how banks do it, that you know, they fly you in. They let you stay in a fancy hotel in the city centre of London. They they waste time on you to ask you so many questions. This quantitative test psychology to analyze you’re your mind to the
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:02] Great, you're impressed, he said. Oh, I want to do this. So but tell me, first of all, how many places do you actually submit your resume for this interest, these summer internships? How many places like was it 10, was it 20 and then how many actual interviews did you get first round interviews and do you do those over the phone? And then they flew you in and you made it to some super days? Or tell me a little bit more about that because I think that's interesting to people coming from potentially other European other European.
Jakub: [00:16:28] I think I applied for like four or five. Oh, it's not that many. I did the I did the online test, maybe two or three, and I had one in-person interview.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:37] Got it where they flew into London. What exactly do you remember what bank you were?
Jakub: [00:16:44] The interview was with HSBC. And that was certainly interesting also. I mean, for me, it was the first time actually being in London and, you know, going into a skyscraper and having actually something to do there, not just not just seeing them from the outside. It was that was a, you know, a totally new experience. But then, you know, the personal experience I got from talking to people who are actual bankers was hugely unpleasant. I mean, I thought the way they would, you know, kind of stressful and look out, look at their phone in between questions being completely distracted not not really following what I was saying half of the time, then then then asking questions that seemingly had no connection to one another and then rushing off even a few minutes before the interview was scheduled to end. So that was a bit of a mixed experience, but it got me intrigued into, you know what, the way they described what they were doing. It sounded interesting and I thought, OK, maybe I can do something in this direction
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:51] Where the interviews for like just a generalist program or was it for like M&A specifically live, Finn, do you remember?
Jakub: [00:17:58] I think this is what I actually applied for was project finance. Ok. Because it had this kind of angle, you know, it's international projects. I thought that my international trade background that would be hugely relevant for them. Mm hmm. Well, at least that's what I thought at the time. But, you know, I got I got shut down, but you know, I get to see London a I think I state for three days. I did sightseeing around the interview on the at the expense of HSBC. So overall, it was it was a nice experience and I thought, you know, OK, let's table it for now. I didn't get the summer internship. It would have anyway been kind of a cost stretch for me to move to London for two months just to do the internship. So I was like ok, if I if I don't get it, I'll just why they
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:47] Don't pay anything else. They don't pay you. They do pay, but
Jakub: [00:18:51] The pay was, you know, something that would cover a room in a shared flat and have nothing left over. I mean, the pay was actually miserable and given the fact that I had a somewhat well-paid job in Czech Republic, I thought, OK, there's no reason to compromise for this.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:06] Now looking back, do you do you agree with that? Would you have still been happy to get the banking job earlier? Do you feel like it would have been worth it just to live in that shared, but somehow scrape together enough to eat? Well, it certainly would have taken me in a different direction, yeah, but you know, now when i see kids
Jakub: [00:19:25] Who are doing, you know, kind of M&A internships or investment banking internships, you know, a lot of those you get squeezed to your bone on on, on doing stuff around the clock. And it's not necessarily a requirement to get a full time job to have done previous internships in that field. At least that was my experience.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:45] So this was this was this whole process where you went to London and did all this. This is kind of near the beginning of your adventure in 10 month kind of internship in Prague.
Jakub: [00:19:54] Exactly, so I was kind of halfway through that. It was, I think, February and then, you know, I had intended to finish university kind of in the in the summer following that or in the fall following that, I thought, OK, if I don't get it, I'll continue it. The university continued doing something work wise in in Prague. And then when I graduate, I can still kind of apply again for a full time job in this or that direction.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:19] Did you have any idea that most of the positions were filled typically with interns and that there weren't many full time slots? You have no idea about that.
Jakub: [00:20:29] No. And I also didn't kind of feel whether, you know, it's a good time to go into banking or not. I kind of got the vibe from people or a few years older that, you know, around 2008 09,There was some sort of financial crisis that that were that was bad for finance jobs, but I didn't really experience it as something very bad. I mean, it didn't affect you personally.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:50] You were coming out at like the time when things had finally not, I won't say, healed, but it was finally headed back, getting better because even from 08 09, 2010, 2011, it was still kind of just like just starting to kind of crest and come back up in terms of like hiring and stuff like that.
Jakub: [00:21:10] And that's maybe a bit more of a U.S. perspective. I mean, in Europe, you know, there was that was the time of the debt crisis with Greece. And I'm not sure that the labor market was at a much better shape than it did after the financial crisis. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:26] So tell me a little bit about what happened. So you're finished up in that that august with Accenture, where you starting to kind of recruit for full time roles around there, like before your graduation and tell me how you went to my?
Jakub: [00:21:41] My last semester at university was an exchange semester in South Korea, which is kind of a do you see the growth, personal growth experience? I wanted to go as far as I could, and I got the scholarship from from the Korean government. They paid for literally everything and, you know, living in an inner city of whatever, 20 million or more. I was also studying in an eye opening experience of what the options are and what other people are doing. You know, had, you know, even though it's a remote Asian country, the mix of students was really global. And then I also asked everyone who was who went there, what they're carrying, their plans are what they've been doing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:23] And they all said in. Just kidding, I'm going to do making to private equity. They all said, right now, just kidding.
Jakub: [00:22:33] No, no, no. But there are a few people that were doing kind of similar things and we kind of talked about, you know, and in my mind, there was kind of two areas to go into something that's more like project work and structured creative, but demining time schedule or a more predictable, boring job nine to five. And after those experiences, you know, having seen both, I was certain that I want to do in kind of an unstructured project, creative work. You know, and after actually finishing the university, I applied, you know, for consulting companies and for banks and for some, like you weren't even applying,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:14] You weren't even applying. While you're still in university, you're in South Korea, you're exploring your you're probably partying, having a good time like having making new friends. And tell me a little bit about just your thought process, your thought process is always is like it'll work out, I'll just go home after this and I'll just start applying to places and get a job.
Jakub: [00:23:33] Actually, I applied to a few positions from there, but then I got this time suggestions assuming I'm in Europe, so I did a few interviews in like the middle of the night or at midnight with the interviewer being at the other side of the road. So I thought, OK, that's that doesn't make sense. Let's just wait and see. And then I came back and I really had nothing going on, you know, it was like I had finished up all of my duties at university and I had already quit the position at the Accenture before. So I didn't, didn't have didn't have that. And I was just, you know, I was in a flat and just scrolling through all the opportunities of what one can do professionally and applying for for everything possible. Did you get nervous
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:23] At all at that point when you came back and you realize I don't have the income anymore and I have this lot? How much was the flat? So you were you were previously making think you said like fifteen hundred euros a month?
Jakub: [00:24:37] And the flight was not very expensive, but it was the radar, the fact that I had literally splurged everything on my and my foreign exchange and then when I came back
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:46] To the area I
Jakub: [00:24:47] Had, I had an income of zero and a much, much less than the back income. I was like, OK, let's
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:54] Remember how much you had, like five thousand euros or three thousand euros or something.
Jakub: [00:24:59] Not even that is because in the hundreds,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:04] The hundreds of euros, probably only a few months left before the rent. You can't pay the rent
Jakub: [00:25:08] And you have to remember, you know, it's on the US. I didn't have a credit card, so it was like, whatever there is in cash, that's it. That's what you get. And I was hoping I wouldn't have to, you know, go stay with my parents for two months while I'm looking for a job. So I was like, Let's focus and find something.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:24] Yeah. So tell me how you went about that search and you know you're in Prague. How are you doing that search? How are you doing that global search and then tell, tell, tell us how you ended up with the interviews, how many times you applied, how many rejections, as much as you can get in about that, I think it's interesting to hear like the struggle.
Jakub: [00:25:39] I think I must have sent hundreds of CVS to various stops, you know, locally and then also something that would be interesting internationally. I applied for some positions in London. I didn't really think of going into the German speaking region at the time, even though I learned German for many years before. So, you know, English,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:05] You know, English, Czech and German.
Jakub: [00:26:08] Yes, exactly those three languages. And I also learned a bit of Spanish, but, you know, I could quickly throughout university realize that that's not the language that's much relevant for business if you want to stay in Europe. Yeah. So I thought, OK, I'll work either in Czech Republic or in an English speaking environment. Maybe, you know, in some other place, but in a global company where the working language would anyway be English. Mm hmm. And I'm sending all these sending all these theories, having some interviews. I got a few offers that kind of lined up in parallel. And some of them, you know, I just, you know, the company wanted to hire me and I just got a strange vibe that maybe that's not the direction that I want to go. So I actually declined offers while I had nothing really. Tell me
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:54] What? But tell me who these come to the garden. Why did you get a strange vibe? Be more specific. Why were they small companies? Like were you worried nervous? They were they local one?
Jakub: [00:27:04] One of them was into a structured finance position of a
local bank, and I just thought, OK, that's going to be, you know, it sounds on paper like it might be interesting, but it seems very repetitive number crunching. So I was like, that's going to be a dead end for me. And I also got a. Of an offer from the Boston Consulting Group to join them in the Prague office, but they said the projects are in a lot of cases abroad and in a in many of them in countries further east in Eastern Europe. You know, helping some public companies or energy conglomerates on their on their processes and cost saving and all that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:52] So you'd be sent out to middle of nowhere, basically. Exactly. I thought I'm entitled to
Jakub: [00:27:57] To Belgrade or Bucharest or whatever it might be where I don't speak the language, I'll be the supposed expert and I'll just be producing slides around the clock on topics that don't really interest me. So I would say they probably did a bad job describing for the what job would be.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:17] That was lucky that you yeah, because you could end it up there on these long engagements in the middle of nowhere. And then also
Jakub: [00:28:24] My experience from consulting was, you know, the work seem interesting, and we really brought some good ideas to the client, but then I never got to see whether they actually implemented any of that. So I had the idea, OK, let's do something that, you know, if I finish the work, it will have some Real-World impact. And it was at that time that I had the interview from UniCredit. They were looking for someone for the M&A team. And you know what, I did? I certainly didn't ace the interview, but they got the impression that I had some, some real work experience and I got hired directly as an analyst. Even though the company had kind of a graduate program, I was allowed to kind of skip it and join in as a kind of, let's call it, second year analyst, if you will,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:14] Because you had all that experience from Accenture and whatnot. They let you come in as a second year analyst. When you say you didn't ace it, do you mean like you had some of the technical like DCF and valuation questions wrong or something like that?
Jakub: [00:29:25] They didn't really even ask me that there was there was, I would say, some general finance topics accounting that I guess I answered kind of OK. But then there was a practical case study of producing a company profile, and they left me with a laptop. And some financial statements of the company has come out of the database. But it was a non consolidated annual report, and I was supposed to just to check in the publicly available database for the consolidated report and include that in the profile, which I didn't think of. Uh, so that kind of gave me gave me the impression that interview was interesting, I would like to get this, but I may not because of I didn't interview.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:07] Hmm. But they still gave the offer and the offer was in was where
Jakub: [00:30:11] The offer was in Prague. Mm hmm. And actually did start working there. But as part of the interview already, they told me a part of the kind of induction would be to be sent into their regional headquarters in Vienna, which covers all of the Central and Eastern Europe for a kind of a short term work experience to get to know the team and then come back and be able to do the job. Sounds pretty cool. And. And this was started in February, and this was kind of the rotation started in the summer and then I worked there for a few months and I really liked it and I just asked the manager of the regional office if I can stay there. And he said, yes, that works very well. And I never came back.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:57] Never like to actually stay in Vienna. What was it like? What was the difference? Prague to Vienna. What was it? Did it feel that much different? Why? Why stay in Vienna? Just because it was the headquarters, you felt like you're getting more exposure?
Jakub: [00:31:10] Well, it was to step from, I would say, a boutique to a real investment bank. I mean, the projects that that the office was working on were much bigger. I got to work on some multibillion euro transactions on, on, on different sides. You know, I the kind of sponsor coverage and leveraged finance for the region was also based there. The people are sitting next to me, so I got to also kind of through networking. I got to see what are the things that people are doing? And I thought, OK, if I if I go back to Prague, I'm never going to get to work on those things and see this.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:49] So you were there for almost two years.
Jakub: [00:31:52] Exactly, I stayed there for almost two years. Did you know, touch maybe 10 15 transactions in different capacities across sectors, across countries? You know, I threw the job. I got to travel to all those countries that I've haven't been to previously across Eastern Europe and see how it goes. Got to meet people. Got to find out how the industry works. You know, it was really at that time that I really found out, OK, what are the kind of subtleties and differences between pure investment banks, the lenders, the boutiques, you know, some of those kind of.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:30] Did you come to pick a name? Did you find Wall Street Oasis at that point or no?
Jakub: [00:32:35] Later. No, I don't think so, yeah. Uh, I may have had it kind of on the radar on in terms of in terms of, you know, there's some platforms that exist for people who want to go into the industry. But since I already had a job, I didn't really think of that being relevant to me, actually a lot of my kind of job search concentrated around LinkedIn. And then some of those country specific platforms to apply through or just kind of doing my own research thing, who is who is where and applying kind of directly or looking through those awful portals, you know, SuccessFactors, stereo and all this where you fill out everything since birth, where you've been and what you've done to the to the precision with the precision of the
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:30] Day. Your five previous addresses 15 references. Yeah, it's a nightmare. To tell me a little bit about just the progression there. So you were you were kind of almost like an elephant, it sounds like or Corp Fin Advisory, but you're basically working with sponsors to help them do deals.
Jakub: [00:33:48] Well, the team was purely M&a advisory, but you know, since the bank has a big lending business, it was a lot of kind of p by site work and then typical kind of corporate cell sites. And then a few special topics in here and there that kind of came about from the from the network of the bank. But you know, through this time, I got to learn how to write an info memo, how to how to build a financial model. I got pretty confident on those kind of essentials of investment banking. Mm hmm.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:25] Uh, then what? Why? Why leave? Why not just stick around there in Vienna forever and write up the chain that at UniCredit? What was your thought process of starting to look elsewhere?
Jakub: [00:34:39] And actually, during my time at Bain, I met my wife and then she was there temporarily and got a full time offer to start in Munich and then I kind of wanted to be with her, so I thought, OK, let's find something else in Munich. At that time, there was there was an opportunity to switch within the company, even though there was a Munich office. So I just thought, OK, fuck it, let me, let me move somewhere else. Yeah. And so tell me
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:09] How those interviews went while you were working full time. Was it hard or was it pretty easy?
Jakub: [00:35:13] I only went for one interview and then I got the offer, and I didn't bother applying elsewhere. I didn't really gave it much thought it was. It was a boutique at the time which had a different came, but to go to rebrand it on the first day that I joined as Brian Gurney and Co.. and so the TMT, a lot of the venture capital scene kind of growth, equity transactions, capital raising and then also M&A, which was a lot of those things were new to me. So I thought, OK, let me let me see what it's going to be about. The geographic focus was more across Western Europe. I also thought make sense to try something else, to also continue doing international transactions as I did before. But in different markets, let me get to know how it works and built a bit of a network was there.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:08] I see you're hired in as a senior analyst. Exactly. And again, like a second, you're given the same kind of title you had started from two years before. So do you feel like you're taking a step back, but you didn't really take a step back because pay increased or what? What was that?
Jakub: [00:36:22] No, I kind of had had the idea that that people should do three years as an analyst. So I thought, Okay, Let me join as an analyst and then we'll see. And then basically right after my trial period expired, I said, Okay, I'm already doing the work of an associate. Let me have the title and they gave it to me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:41] Ok, and then how about your pay at this point? Coming through UniCredit at Vienna? What was the lifestyle like and then how did it like shift with that move to Munich? Obviously, it's I think it's more. Is it more expensive in Munich?
Jakub: [00:36:53] It's a little bit more expensive, but also the bank that I move towards more kind of entrepreneurial driven. So there was a maybe a more significant variable component, but you know, in that regard, I would say roughly in line with what you would expect to get in London in pounds. So what with the exchange different? It seemed like a like an umpire salary with the rest of the world.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:20] Yeah, that's fair. Ok, so you're there, you're doing some TMT, some growth equity. You're there for a pretty long run, two and a half years. Tell me how you know you got that promotion to associate. Do you feel like at any stage you were at risk or you were on enough deal that you were working long hours? I assume still like 60 80 hour weeks, one hundred hour weeks? What was it like?
Jakub: [00:37:43] Yes, I would say 70 to 80 hour a week at work elsewhere. The weekends were usually free, but the week was pretty much booked for work. There was not much time for anything else. Yeah, it was, you know, a lot of the times coming in before 9:00 to have the first call at 9:00 and then going home with Uber at 11 12, depending on depending on projects. But it was a busy period. And then I also spent quite a bit of energy into travelling back and forth because I had, you know, parallel projects in Belgium, in Sweden and in Finland. So, you know, sometimes having management presentations on a on a deal three days in a row and then, you know, when you finish, there's no more flight home on that day. So you fly the next day and then in parallel, you still get email traffic on the on the on the other things that that you need to deal with from the hotel when you're done.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:41] Oh my gosh, you're exhausted. Tell me about it was it was intense,
Jakub: [00:38:46] But it was also a huge learning curve. I mean, I was an associate, but I got a lot of flexibility on many of the deals I worked, you know, kind of in a tandem with an intern and an MD or a partner. And I was basically the one doing everything. Yeah. So it was a very, very good experience from that regard.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:06] Yeah. And tell me a little bit about just with that with those work hours, was your wife working long hours too? So was that easy to balance, like relationship wise? Or was she like, This is horrible. You got to stop or you got to get out? Or is it easier because I know it can be tough, you know, for people who have boyfriends or girlfriends during their analyst stints, but for having a wife, it could be even more because there's maybe more of an expectation. Or was she very understanding? Does she understand what was kind of going in?
Jakub: [00:39:30] Well, she had a I would say, a normal job, so we were able to kind of balance that out, but you know, she was also very understanding of, you know, it's also, you know, it's intense, but it's also along a growth curve where at some point it should normalize in a career. And that actually did materialise, though as I progressed through the ranks, the hours became more manageable and we also got used to the rhythm. So from that regard, it's very important to have the right person next to you. I certainly wouldn't recommend to for a couple to both pursue this, this kind of lifestyle.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:12] She was like, almost like helping support you a little bit too, while you're probably going through all this.
Jakub: [00:40:18] Yes and no. We also had our first chats during those years.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:21] Oh my gosh, you had a kid too. She was helping the kid busy
Jakub: [00:40:25] With other things, and I was not there for a lot of the things that I maybe could have helped with, though it was a challenging period from that perspective as well. Yeah, for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:38] Yeah, I have people asking about, you know, during their analyst stance, should they have a girlfriend or how do you date and some of that, imagine having a wife and a kid to on top of that, I can imagine. Not easy. So tell me a little bit about the decision to kind of go ballistic and I need to I need to plug in my computer otherwise.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:57] Ok, so you're basically you're at this new boutique in Munich, you know, for two plus years, when was the thought process of like paper for a change? I mean, you were working on great deals, getting great experience. Obviously, you were traveling a lot. So it was hard. But tell me a little bit about the thought process of going back. To the previous term, he.
Jakub: [00:41:19] Yeah, so it was actually just the trigger was taking time off to spend time with the family, you know, and then you have kind of a few summer weeks that you will get to shut down. You know, you get your projects, get restart and your phone doesn't ring all the time and you don't have to be online or everything, and then you have to kind of time to reconsider. So I get that now that a lot of people who are in that rhythm, you know that it can be very bad for companies when people take a holiday because they get to reconsider their life. And I thought, OK, let me let me do something where at least I don't have to be on the road or in hotels or on overnight stays away. So I thought, OK, let me continue something in the industry. But with the being less spread out across multiple countries going back and forth,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:13] Was that a potential option at the firm you were at or there was just too much of international work where you were, you were going to have to be forced to. There wasn't enough work in Germany.
Jakub: [00:42:23] That wasn't really the setup, because it was rather, you know, the slector focus and let us, you know, get deals in the sector wherever those companies may be. Yeah. And then if you pursue that strategy, you cannot really limit yourself geographically. So, you know, from that perspective, the firm was clearly set up in a different way and there was nothing I could have done to change that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:47] So you had your vacation, you thought about your life so that one more time with family, more at least be home every night. So tell me how
you went about doing this. You just called up your old boss and said, Hey, can I have my job back? What did you like?
Jakub: [00:43:01] I mean, the people have changed and also the previous company was kind of originally set up. So the people from the Minick office didn't necessarily know the people from the Vienna office very well, and I wouldn't describe it as being the same company. It was kind of two, uh, subsidiaries of the same parent that don't necessarily have much in common in terms of in terms of individual teams. I mean, I'm sure the top managers of both banks in Germany and Austria are in close contact. But individual teams, you know, kind of they're each pursuing their their local M&A opportunities.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:39] How did you do it? How did you get the jump back? Was it pretty easy? Was it just kind of you talk to a few people or were you looking at other banks and did other interviews there?
Jakub: [00:43:46] I talked with a few headhunter in terms of kind of to find out to find out what the options are. You know, at that level, I would say, you know, the. The jobs being published is not necessarily in business is not necessarily the way to go, so I would say once you have a few years of experience, it's more kind of being introduced by headhunters directly to people who are considering hiring someone. The profile may not be very clear or in that regard, you know, just kind of a personal connection. Or then, you know, a more much more narrow platforms for job opportunities like Chief Financial and whatever it might be. There's also a few kind of specialized firms in Germany hat kind of published jobs not on the internet, but you need to get on their newsletter and then you get to see what they have going on. So through those years, I kind of find out that there is this opportunity that's not really visible to the general public and it's not really accessible unless you have a few years of experience to even be considered through that track. And you know, I thought what the what the options might be? I didn't want to do a lateral move to go into another boutique that would have similar setup and similar issues. Mm hmm. But you know, in the end, there was there was no job posting or opportunity. I just I just met up with the people from the team where I wanted to go and I just had lunch with one of the guys there. I explained to him my situation. I asked is, is there something? Is there a possibility? He said, You know, let me look into it and then, you know, I got the interview that way. So there was there was there was never any job posting to apply to.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:31] Yeah. So you kind of. But that lunch, how did you set up that lunch?
Jakub: [00:45:36] I just contacted him it and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:39] Just said, Hey, can we grab some time to chat and whatever and say, because you need a company, you do that. It was previously worked there. And so he said, yes, you've met. You had a discussion about what you were up to and just you basically asked them, look like, I'm here, I have a family
Jakub: [00:45:54] I'm looking for. I didn't even say that. I just described my situation and he kind of, you know, kind of connected the dots and said, Would you consider moving to our team? Got it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:05] So do you think they were looking or he just saw that you potentially would be valuable?
Jakub: [00:46:10] Well, it's the typical problem of investment banks. You know, the middle tier is usually pretty thin because at that time, you know, people have a lot of opportunities. And there's also, you know, associates in your associates switching into PE or going into a new direction,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:26] A major attrition problem.
Jakub: [00:46:27] Yeah, that's the attrition problem. And then also, you know, the pay difference between the top names and the middle tier becomes much bigger. So at that time, you know, if you're if you're happy working in 100 hour week, you can go to Rothschild or one of the bulge brackets and double your pay. But you know, there is there's also a price to pay. So a lot of people at that experience level think, OK, am I? Am I willing to invest all of my time for another five to 10 years to, you know, so that my hours may be normalized in my first year and MD? Or do I want to kind of pursue a more reasonable job path earlier on and kind of, you know, make some compromise on what kind of deals I'm going to be working on.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:16] So that's the path that you chose.
Jakub: [00:47:18] Exactly. You know, at UniCredit in Germany, and it's kind of an established mid-cap M&A advisory team, which focuses pretty much on its existing client base in the lending business, but it doesn't necessarily compete directly with a lot of those that are, you know, pursuing opportunities in the open
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:39] Market or doing like 10000 pitches a year, like trying to land new deals.
Jakub: [00:47:43] Well, there are still pitches, but it's not necessarily, you know, in a in a beauty contest against two other banks on every occasion. Some of those are, you know, existing clients that know us, trust us. And when they decide to sell the company, they only talk to us.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:57] Yeah, it makes sense.
Jakub: [00:47:59] So it was a very different profile from the boutique where I, you know, organized conferences, scheduled hundreds of meetings, handed out business cards, was travelling internationally to meet a lot of potential clients or even just introducing myself and the firm to to to hundreds of contacts to to get some of it going into into even a mandate.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:21] So your story is very, very international. So Prague, Munich, even a little a little interview in London there. Tell me. Tell me, looking back, I'm like all of the path that you took. And I think, I think something that really probably helped you for looking at looking back at your whole store as really was. Those internships were critical, especially the KPMG and the Accenture one really kind of grounded you and kind of gave you a little bit more of a broad perspective of the options out there and kind of started educating you, even though you still decided, Hey, I'm going to go to school my senior year and come back and figure it out and ended up working out because I think you had that those experiences, those kind of long term internships with actual deals under your belt and or engagements under your belt. So tell me, like just looking back, what's your perspective? Do you feel like you would have changed certain things? Looking back, do you feel like? The path that you chose was a great one, a good one, and any kind of regrets on how you would change things.
Jakub: [00:49:20] Well, you know, looking back, some of some of my classmates, you know, spent the university years doing nothing professionally, and some of them still ended up having, you know, similar job opportunities lined up for them afterwards. You know, some of them also focused more on excelling academically and then, you know, getting the job at McKinsey or whatever it might be. You know, some of those kind of seemingly top brand names in the professional world. Mm hmm. So, you know, in that perspective, I certainly felt that, you know? Especially if you do business school, it's not meant to be a theoretical subject, it's meant to be applied. So I thought it makes sense to also kind of cross-check my theoretical knowledge with the real world. And actually, this also helped me like when I needed to write a paper for the university and some strategy topic of a company. I actually knew how people deal with it in the real world, and I could kind of reflect back. So that was that was very helpful. And then at the time when I graduated, I certainly didn't have any worries that I'm not going to find a job because I already knew how the job market work to where to go, what the opportunities are at a much better view than most graduates on, on what to do and where to go. Of course, it took a lot of time and energy to do those things in parallel. But it was very interesting for me. I certainly didn't have to do lifestyle compromises in that sense, as I know a lot of people kind of during university, they eat the Chinese soup from a package and the ramen noodles, and that's it. And they focus their energy. And then also, you know, comparing to people who spent tens or hundreds of thousands on on a on a on a premium degree from whatever Ivy League school or INSEAD or business school. You know, with a lot of them, I ended up doing kind of similar things professionally, and I never felt like I was at a disadvantage kind of judging my work against theirs. So from that perspective, the advice I would give to people deciding what to do is to kind of double down on professional experience and not waste your money on, premium academics.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:49] Yeah, it's really interesting. It's like getting the right experience is so much more valuable than like the brand name of the school. Potentially like if you get a couple of strong brand name companies with the right project and engagements people are going to value, the real world is going to value that a lot more.
Jakub: [00:52:06] Exactly. And then once you have some professional experience, the academic background becomes, you know, on the line you don't really get to when you present your CV.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:16] Yeah, fair enough. Well, listen, Jacob, thanks so much for taking the time and sharing your story and all of your wisdom. Anything else you want to share before we call it? Or is that it?
Jakub: [00:52:25] And it's been a pleasure talking to you, and I hope you know, to those who I get to see my story, that it helps them decide on which direction to go and from that perspective. Happy to help.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:42] Awesome. Thanks so much, Jacob. Thank you. 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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