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WSO Podcast | E218: Buenos Aires - US - UK - India - Madrid - Argentina for Private Equity

WSO Podcast

In this episode, Jasdeep shares his winding path from Argentina around the globe for work and school. Listen to why he attended undergrad in the US and then why he went to the UK for a Masters. How he ended up taking his time to make sure he got a high score on the GMAT to attend a top business school in Europe and how he ended up back in Argentina working at a private equity fund.

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WSO Podcast Episode 218 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.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:20] And life in general. Let's get to it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:26] In this episode, Jazz Deep shares his winding path from Argentina around.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:29] The globe for work and school.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:31] Listen to why you attended undergrad in the US and then why he went to the UK for a masters, how he ended up taking his time to make sure he got a high score to attend a top business school in Europe and how he ended up back in Argentina working at a private equity fund. Enjoy. Well, thank you so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast as you.

Jasdeep: [00:00:55] Thank you very much for having me.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:58] Now, it would be great if you could just give the listeners a short summary of your background.

Jasdeep: [00:01:02] Sure. So I did. I'm from Argentina. Buenos Aires. I went to my undergrad in the US. I completed my degree in three years, out of four years, played D1 soccer and studied business administration. After my graduation, I went and pursued a master's in business from the UK to get international exposure as well as a superior degree in terms of masters. And then I started work. I came back to what a scientist. I worked at BDO for one year. I knew I needed to study for the G, met G, Matt G. Matt. So I went back to I went to India where I got a job working in a commercial bank in the division's investment banking division. I worked there for six years, completed my Matt, applied to a bunch of business schools, got in and I went to business school in Spain, Madrid. After completing my business school and my MBA, my master's business administration from Madrid, I went to Buenos Aires and I got a job at a fund private equity fund. And since I've been currently employed at private equity Fund and I've scaled the fund for four years now since almost incorporation of the fund.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:21] Awesome. And yeah, so very winding path, very interesting path. I kind of want to start just even before your transition to undergrad in the US, I'd love to hear. Just so you're born in Argentina, were your parents in finance? Why go to school in the US? Of all places.

Jasdeep: [00:02:38] Yes. So I went to an internship.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:41] So like, why not stay? Yeah. Why not stay in Argentina and all that?

Jasdeep: [00:02:46] Yes. So Argentina, I went to an international American school, which is a privileged private school for four ambassadors, four sons of CEOs, four daughters of ambassadors, private sector, public sector, three or four year posting. So I had the privilege to go there. And everybody at once they finished their senior year would have the opportunity to go study in the US or Europe. It would all be based on your information, your credentials, your SAT scores, your cultural scores, your your your transcript, your extracurriculars. And I really wanted to pursue playing D-1 soccer. And so my objective was to target a US school, and I got the opportunity to study in the US. I got admitted I didn't do so well academically in the first few years of my high school, but I got better.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:44] So you did better kind of as you went through your is your your international school is like for high school. You mean to prep It's like a prep school for getting into either going to Europe or going to the US in Argentina.

Jasdeep: [00:03:56] Prep school in Argentina, correct? Yeah, in high school.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:00] And so when you were kind of going through there, you're struggling. The first few years, were you ever thinking like, Oh, I like business or like any of this stuff? It was like, Hey, I just want to go play soccer and I'm going to try to get into the best school I can in the US.

Jasdeep: [00:04:12] Trying to get to the best school I can in the US. I wasn't targeting Harvard, Stanford, Wharton. I was targeting more like Boston University, University of Miami, kind of those kinds of universities.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:24] And so, yeah, because you ended up at a what I'd call a non target school the name the school. But but you, you did get to play D1 soccer right? And you were able to finish a four year curriculum in three years. Correct?

Jasdeep: [00:04:38] Correct.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:39] That's correct. You push yourself pretty hard in those three years, it sounds like.

Jasdeep: [00:04:43] Yes.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:44] Was there a reason why were you in a rush to finish for some reason?

Jasdeep: [00:04:48] Well, look, I wasn't you know, I wanted to escalate my career. I gave my my math back in the day and I got a three 2350. I don't remember my score. That was my score when I was 18, 19, 20 years old. And I was like, what is going on? I want to go to a proper school in international context. The top ranked schools that I could get, get an appropriate job and kind of get to the best school I could possibly get to.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:21] Yeah. So you were you're kind of. You know, trying to get through the schooling so you could go move on to your next next school. Was there somebody like in your life, parents, family, friends, people at that university, counselors that were pointing you to the direction? Because I'm looking at your path and I'm like, this is very it is the most probably unique path I've ever seen in all the hundreds of podcasts I've done in the sense of like. Diversity of region, diversity of like schools, everything. Right. So I can see there is a heavy emphasis on education. I can see there's a heavy emphasis on international education and just being global, right. In terms of like you were in the US, then you were in the UK, then you were in India, then you are in Madrid, right? Yes. And even at one point I think you had told me you would have to stop in France. But my point is like. I want to understand a little bit more about what was driving you, where the people in your life saying this is the path, this is what you should be doing. Was it because your family was where they consulate's? Were they in Argentina representing a country or something like that? Or what was the what was the drive behind that desire.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:32] For such a global.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:34] Education?

Jasdeep: [00:06:35] The desire was global education. Look, I've kind of since my undergrad, I knew I wanted to get into INSEAD, so in Seattle was kind of my top target. A European business school, a ten month, 12 month program was was kind of in my mind. I knew that for that I needed to prep up for the GMAT. I knew that I needed to get the work experience. I needed that I need to be a profile in the top percentiles in terms of formation, distinction, diversity, so on and so forth. And to do that, I knew that I would need a lot of preparation. I would need to bump up my Excel skills, bump up my, my documentation skills. And so.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:20] Yeah, that's great. So, I mean, so you did the undergrad really fast. You got a Bachelors in Business administration and then you quickly jumped into a master's in the UK?

Jasdeep: [00:07:29] Yes. Yes.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:30] So why did you do that, if you like, in Seattle? Is your dream like, wouldn't you think that it was at an MBA?

Jasdeep: [00:07:37] Yeah. So that was a master's in business. I understand that. That a master, a standard masters does not have the same return on investment that an MBA does. You go to an MBA, you get certain return on investment, you go to a standard master's program, you get a certain return on investment. I but I knew that if in the future I wanted to pursue an MBA, I would need to compress my academic formation into a three plus one program kind of thing. You don't graduate early, get another geography.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:09] Why did you why did you feel like that? Because you're because your scores weren't as high.

Jasdeep: [00:08:13] My scores weren't the best.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:17] You mind sharing your. You said something about a 320, isn't it? Out of 800?

Jasdeep: [00:08:22] The score is out of 800. It ranges from 200 to 800. I initially started with 360. I can't remember what my score was, but I was in the upper bounds. I was in the target range for INSEAD for four European business schools, so on and so forth.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:37] So you're probably close to like 650 ish.

Jasdeep: [00:08:40] 650 ish sounds around.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:43] Yeah, Yeah. Because like, I think you need to be usually in the 600 to 700, you can be 500. If you're in the 500, you need a pretty extraordinary profile, otherwise to be admitted usually.

Jasdeep: [00:08:55] Yes. And my corn skills were amazing. I got, I think, a 49 out of 61 on the one.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:02] Wow. So your was your verbal that was bringing you down a little bit, but the quant was so strong. But unfortunately, the quantum the gap for people listening, even if you have a 49 out of 51, the verbal is the one that can move it more because there's so many actually there's so many Indian engineers taking the exam who are excellent at math that skew that upward. So it makes it harder to score a verbal grade percentile verbal. So if you get like 90, if you get for example, if you get 90 percentile on both verbal and math, your overall score will be higher than if you get. So if you get if you get the same versus like if you get a little bit higher verbal, it'll really boost you boost your overall percentile percentile score. I don't know if you knew that, but anyways, kind of an interesting tidbit. So you're you're going to get like just a general master's of global business analysis at a UK school because you felt like it would just make you more competitive. Do you feel like it did? Do you feel like you learned a lot there? Or was it more like, Hey, you're trying to find yourself? You're young.

Jasdeep: [00:10:02] Still? Well, I think I learned a lot. I definitely focused on school.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:07] I mean, living in London. In London? Is it in London or where were you living?

Jasdeep: [00:10:11] It was in Manchester.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:12] Manchester. Okay.

Jasdeep: [00:10:14] I was definitely I got a really good score, almost distinction. So I was not far away. I was class representative. You know, like, I felt like I excelled substantially at that course. I did very well academically.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:32] Okay, so you're finishing there. It's the global financial crisis is hitting.

Jasdeep: [00:10:37] Yes.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:38] And so what do you what are you thinking at this point? Were you applying for jobs during that masters of business? What were you what were you applying for? Where did you strike out? Were you applying like thousands of places? Were you networking to give me a give us a little bit of flavour? Like what was your thought process of like jobs? Because eventually for these MBA programs, usually they like to see at least a couple of years of experience before you actually jump in, right?

Jasdeep: [00:11:00] Yes, absolutely. Look, I was people I was targeting I was applying to BCG, I was applying to McKinsey, I was applying to consulting, I was applying to JPMorgan, I was applying Morgan Stanley, I was applying to Goldman Sachs. I was applying to lots of UK or anywhere. Usually I'd put geography anywhere but in the UK was was a focus because you see the prime objection of not getting employment. Not only was my, my work experience but was my nationality because, you know, as an international student inside the UK, if I don't have the appropriate work permit, I'm not allowed to work in those kinds of markets.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:41] You had to leave basically, if you don't get a job right eventually, because otherwise you're either a student or you're you have your visa, right? Your work visa, student visa, you had your student visa. But then once if you don't get a job, you have to leave, right? Eventually, yes. So that was the goal. Like get you wanted to stay in London potentially.

Jasdeep: [00:12:00] I my goal isn't to stay London. My goal was more to still target that international MBA program that I wanted to create for myself.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:12] So you had undergrad, three years you did this. Was it a one year program, The Masters of Business?

Jasdeep: [00:12:19] Yes.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:20] One year. So you had kind of your four years right there and then. I assume you were looking for a full time job like your first job at a school at that point?

Jasdeep: [00:12:29] Yes, I was.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:30] Can you tell me about that whole process and where you ended up and why?

Jasdeep: [00:12:34] Yes. So I didn't come back home because I couldn't find a I couldn't find a job. So I came home.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:39] Being one situs.

Jasdeep: [00:12:41] Yes.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:42] Cool. So you flew back to Argentina. And what are your parents saying at this point? Are your friends?

Jasdeep: [00:12:48] My parents. I'm kind of taking a one or two months kind of break at home and then figuring out what I want to do. And at the same time, you know, my parents are kind of pushing to see how I can network myself into a job. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:03] Were they supportive or were they pushing you hard? Was it, like, stressful or is it like.

Jasdeep: [00:13:07] Relaxed, supportive?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:09] So that's nice.

Jasdeep: [00:13:10] I remember I had the G-man, you know, for years had completed the formation, but I still in my mind, I had to give that test after test. So I was going to start working, but I needed to do a good job on the on the on the exam or else I wasn't going to make it to appropriate business school.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:28] Yeah. So is that what you worked on? You started studying for the guess?

Jasdeep: [00:13:33] I started studying for the GM.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:35] And then when did you take it And like. Or were you applying to jobs at the same time? Tell us how you got that first job and what it was.

Jasdeep: [00:13:41] First job is networking. You know, thanks to a partner at BDO was a client of my mother. So family, friends always help. And thanks to the network, I was able to get an interview with a corporate finance position. I was kind of the youngest in the corporate finance team. Attractive CV. I spoke English very well for Argentina Center and I got the job and I started training up in accounting and I mean in an accounting firm instead of the corporate finance division.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:19] Awesome. So how long were you there?

Jasdeep: [00:14:22] I was there for approximately 9 to 12 months before I flew back to India.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:30] You flew to India?

Jasdeep: [00:14:33] Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:33] So, like. So your home was in Argentina. You flew back from the UK there. You started at BDO. Where was that? Where was the BDO?

Jasdeep: [00:14:40] Buenos Aires is.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:41] In one side. I see. You're there for nine months. But then. You said flew back to India. Did you have a house in India, too?

Jasdeep: [00:14:47] Sorry. No. My my parents, you know, they're a couple of generations from India. They're from. They. They hail from there. So I went to India to continue building my international profile. Needed to focus on the distinction. You don't know what the admissions committee is going to come up with, you know.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:11] But you had you had the job at BDO and you at that point, did you realize, like, it's not really what I want to do. Your family had gone back to India or they were there temporarily was the thought process. I want to go be closer to family or was it more like I want I want more international presence? And that's why you started applying to banks there?

Jasdeep: [00:15:31] It was international presence. So diversity profile. However, it was also because, remember, I was I was taking some classes in Argentina. They were great. They were very helpful. It was amazing. However, I knew that India was the kind of the golden standard for GMA. You know, maybe I would learn in that context. I would kind of improve my skill set. All my sense.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:58] You move to you move to India for your G score, to improve your G score as well.

Jasdeep: [00:16:04] Diversity, international experience.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:06] Just for your profile, your business application profile.

Jasdeep: [00:16:09] You have an application.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:11] Well, I don't know. You tell me. I don't know. I'm asking, like, what was in your thought? What was your thought process like? Were your parents telling you, Hey, come back to India? You know, we have a good job here. We know people here. Were you applying online? Were you networking? Just trying to give a sense of like what the decision making was.

Jasdeep: [00:16:28] Decision making was a continue focus on standardization tests and improve my skills up there and take my time and and get a job. Get get a get a fresh job and and I got a couple offers as well.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:43] Did you move? Did you move to India before you had an offer?

Jasdeep: [00:16:47] Yes, I did. I stayed with my grandparents.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:49] And then when you're there, did you how did you kind of start doing your networking? Just was it was it like family, close family and friends from your parents? Was it was it just LinkedIn? I mean, this was 2010. It was still pretty rough economy. Were you like using LinkedIn? What tools were you using, if any, or was it more just like networking through relationships?

Jasdeep: [00:17:12] Networking through relationships. Sending out 250, 300 e-mails a day and LinkedIn.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:17] Cool. And then tell me about the hit rate on those. How many actual interviews did you learn from those thousands of e-mails you sent out? Did you get any like coffee chats from those? Was it like 1% conversion? Was it 5% or any investment?

Jasdeep: [00:17:31] I ended up with three offers.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:34] All in India, all in Mumbai.

Jasdeep: [00:17:36] Or is two in Delhi, one in Mumbai.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:39] Okay, cool. And what were they?

Jasdeep: [00:17:41] I'd love to hear this. The Nomura Investment Bank, American Express, the Standard Chartered Bank.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:48] And tell me how you decided what the right.

Jasdeep: [00:17:50] One was for you. The compensation package was a prime driver of kind of how I wanted to move the financial city. You know, the fact that Delhi is a capital, but Mumbai is the financial city of of the country. So kind of look at look at Bombay. Four, four, four, four markets. Yeah. Those were the two kind of determining factors.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:16] For I assume the pay was pretty low, though, since it was in Mumbai, even though it's the capital, they pay a little bit more. I assume it's still compared to like US standards. It's probably pretty.

Jasdeep: [00:18:26] New York is us is our states are is the US number one. Geography. The economy, the world, the dollar.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:35] Yeah. So like the pay was probably in the 20,000 USD a year or 40,000 or something like that. 20 to 40.

Jasdeep: [00:18:43] Yeah. I think I don't remember what the, the exact package was. This was a pre MBA role and this was banker role. So yeah, base bonus standard.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:59] So you were there for a long time at Standard Charter.

Jasdeep: [00:19:03] I was there for six years total five I was working and one year I took sabbatical.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:09] Cool. Yeah, that's a long time. I mean, that's a good run for basically your second job right out of school. Right. So tell me about, like, why you stayed so long, what you liked about it, what you learned. I'd love to hear about that.

Jasdeep: [00:19:21] Wow. I learned everything about legal documentation, spreadsheets. I learned everything about Excel. I took courses.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:30] What I guess, what group or what were you what groups were you in and what type of work were you doing? First, maybe just to frame it a little bit.

Jasdeep: [00:19:36] The type of work was morally, emotionally, kind of a client Service associates managing due diligence from the relationship managers for the mutual fund for clients, mutual funds, banks, insurance companies, asset managers, those kinds of clients. So it was managing a little bit more on on that front. Yeah. And, and then I broke into the corporate finance team inside the bank.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:07] How did you do that? A lot of people want to do that. They wanted to the internal transition. Was that hard to leave your big group to the corporate finance group? The investment banking group?

Jasdeep: [00:20:15] Yes, it was. It was tough. I mean, I had to prepare myself for some senior meetings. Network. Yes, but like monitor, track progress, follow up, achieve certain points. Business school still in the back of my head, my mind that I want to continue with business, school and transition. I want to break into business school. I needed to showcase that transition. That would transition was very important to me. I you know, I finally got a boss that went to IAMA with one of the top business schools I was surrounded by. You know, the floor had 40 professionals and out of 40 professionals, 35 of them had MBAs. And, you know, I searched everybody up on LinkedIn. I had the full kind of CV of each one of them. I studied their careers carefully, and I realized that that the MBA was a was important. A lot of them came from very strong undergrads as well, from IITs or in India.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:21] And so you had that against you. So you even felt more pressure to get the right experience under your belt, I'm sure.

Jasdeep: [00:21:27] Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:27] And so you said you made the transition. Were you like meeting with people in the investment banking group a lot, like in trying to develop that relationship? And how did you eventually make the jump? Like who approved it?

Jasdeep: [00:21:38] The approvals. I kept a networking with. The first of all, I made sure that the work was complete, complete by doing data monitoring, tracking, getting tasks assigned, and before my manager would kind of ask me or follow up with me, I would already follow up with a structured approach on how where we are, how this task is going to be completed, what's the deadline where we are with these clients, where we are with these term facilities, structured facilities, where we are with all these with all this work? And that kind of gave me good my operations managers, my line managers were okay. And then the managing directors also also liked me because I was always first in office early in the morning. And I was I stayed late and then I went study for the GMAT. So I was very structured.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:40] You're working hard.

Jasdeep: [00:22:42] Working hard.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:43] So tell me, it sounds like near the end of that time you took a year to either do a startup or do kind of sabbatical, but you stayed busy. Then when did you end up applying to schools and what school did you apply to? Where did you get in? I think you had mentioned before in a call with me that you had a stint with with INSEAD, but then you ended up eventually at IIE. Can you tell me about what happened there? Are you willing to share that or no?

Jasdeep: [00:23:08] Yes. So the sabbatical I took I took a sabbatical my fifth year because I already I finally got my commitment cleared through. That was part of my journey. After getting kind of cleared through, I said, Hey, let's go for it. And you say.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:24] That cleared through. I mean, it's most people, at least I know on the site, they take the gym out. It's like usually they'll do like three or four months of studying. It sounds like you were sitting for years. Yeah, actually.

Jasdeep: [00:23:35] I came in and out. In and out.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:39] You're like, getting ready for it. But then you didn't feel ready or like, you weren't scoring high enough in the practice test. Is that what was happening? And you were stopping?

Jasdeep: [00:23:46] So the test is I was scoring very high. On the one side, I had a natural evolution that that kind of made me score very well. On the one side of things, I was getting 49 to 40 8 to 40 9 to 40 sevens. And then on the verbal side, on my best days, I was getting kind of 35, 30 sixes yielding a total 700. Yeah, but that was only on my best days. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:13] Yeah. So you knew you weren't actually taking the official test, you're taking practices or you were doing official test. You just kept trying again. Again and again.

Jasdeep: [00:24:21] I kept trying. I mean, I went through how.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:26] Many like, did you how many times did you take it officially?

Jasdeep: [00:24:28] Officially, I took it a couple of times and saw like I didn't take it once and just.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:33] There was a lot of practice tests in between there and stuff.

Jasdeep: [00:24:36] In fact, I took Manhattan Gym. It had kind of come into to.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:40] Oh, I took them to I took them to way back in the day 2000 in New York. That's funny.

Jasdeep: [00:24:46] Wow. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:48] Wow. Or I think they were part of. I think Caplin ended up buying them or somebody bought them. I can't remember who got it, but. So you were taking this and finally, like, after that time, you're like, This is it. I got to get the mat done with you. Got it done. And sorry I interrupted you. You were saying you're on sabbatical and what?

Jasdeep: [00:25:06] Yeah. And then I started applying for the for business recommendation letters. I got a couple of recommendation letters. I started making the applications. I work with an admissions consulting firm as well. They charge by the hour, they do introspection, we do strategy. I worked with amazing consultants. That kind of got me into a few business schools. I didn't apply to US business schools like Harvard, Stanford, Yale, or any of those. Even with the diverse profile I had, I just I focused more on European. I wanted a ten month or a 12 month program for an MBA, and I applied Hong Kong as well. But I, I definitely Spain was the best for me because the language, the culture, the entrepreneurialism, the duration of the MBA course, the hedge with finance, because I could also I wanted to be try entrepreneurship a little bit, but still remain in finance and master's and focus on finance.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:09] And then we're going to say, I got to say, I'm just astounded by the. It's just such an interesting profile. So, like, you're so you're getting it. So you got into INSEAD, right? You got into.

Jasdeep: [00:26:21] Yeah. So actually I got. So when I applied for my MBA, I got accepted into IEEE. I went to IEEE and when and as and when I was taking the the MBA class, I was performing well academically. It was an investment competition. Then I applied to INSEAD for a master's in finance program.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:44] Oh and oh, Master's in finance. Got it. Got it, Got it. So you were doing the MBA and you wanted to stack it with a master's in finance, too?

Jasdeep: [00:26:51] Absolutely, yes.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:52] Oh, my God. Okay. So you love school.

Jasdeep: [00:26:57] It's not like I'm a collector. I just wanted to beef up this information.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:03] Don't you feel like the NBA, like most of the value in the NBA or a master's program or at least four soft, soft master's programs? A lot of it's like the network you're building and the recruiting that happens on campus. Do you feel that you agree with that or you feel like you're really learning a lot to.

Jasdeep: [00:27:20] I was learning a lot. The objection was that I sail for Spain. I don't have I don't have the the the, the residents. So without the residents, it's difficult for me to compete for a job when you have French, Spaniards and British kind of bankers and financial service people in the industry. So it's it's very difficult to get a job in those banks and you start off different roles and and it was more attractive for me to hone up on the on the INSEAD and then use that network plus the network for my MBA to to get in.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:02] Europe, i.e., yes, you're at IHI, you're kind of going through the schooling and then it's a what, a 12 month or a 14 month?

Jasdeep: [00:28:09] It was 10 to 12 months.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:10] 10 to 12 months. So you're starting that. And are you recruiting right away? You start talking. Were you looking at like consulting still, investment banking.

Jasdeep: [00:28:18] Banking, private equity?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:21] Tell me about those. Yeah, tell me about those interviews. What was it like? Was it hard? Was it unexpected? Were you ready? Were you was it a disaster? Tell me what happened.

Jasdeep: [00:28:29] You know, not not getting that much traction, then focused on the the top academic in the peer set when doing an MBA that you want the top percentile of academic performance like the Baker Scholar program, right? Yeah. So with that, they kept on going for those profiles and the objection kept kept kind of being a detriment in my profile. So, so I just focused more on, on INSEAD valuation, a lot of academic work time spent in in silence and studying valuation and Damodaran and, you know, kind of focused on. Ev You're reading some books on Excel and modeling and Quant and different from the present value to Black-Scholes to.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:20] So were you like not concerned about like you were trying for the jobs but you weren't like, panicked about not having a job.

Jasdeep: [00:29:28] I wasn't panicked. I was panicked. But, you know, I definitely the financial I was I was entrepreneurship. And I got I've got a small facility, a debt facility in the European Union for from a bank. Since I was a banker, I knew how to talk to the banks. So cost of funds was a little bit attractive. And I could try my project and and I engaged in my own project. It wasn't that successful, but it was it was it was relatively. So you're.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:04] Doing you're doing a you're doing a startup as well on the side.

Jasdeep: [00:30:07] As startup as well. Yes.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:09] And what was this startup? Do you mind just giving a quick 20 seconds?

Jasdeep: [00:30:13] Mba admissions consultancy wanted to wanted to see if I could manage some MBA clients. So it was a little transitioning from the finance. It was not the best education to the best experience I had, but it was new. It was I wanted to try it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:33] So you learned from that? It didn't go so well. Did you have to pay the bank back or was it forgiven?

Jasdeep: [00:30:39] You have to pay the bank back. Yes.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:42] Yeah. How much do you mind sharing how much the loan was for 15 K? It's not too bad. It's not like a it's not like 100,000 or something. And so you took that loan mostly to help start. Start the company up and all that stuff?

Jasdeep: [00:30:56] Yes. Incorporate.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:57] Got it. And then so that would that kind of close down. You did end up taking classes at INSEAD as well.

Jasdeep: [00:31:04] Is what you're saying? Yes, I did.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:07] You're coming out, you graduate from IIe. And again, are you in the position of you don't have a have a role coming out of graduation? And what's your thought process at this or you you had landed your role?

Jasdeep: [00:31:20] Good. I talked to my dad and I said, Well, hey, can you sponsor some of my MBA debt? My debt, my friends, yet can you pay up? So you said, I'll help you with something. So we use that and then I try to refinance myself with banks and fintechs and so on and so forth. But I couldn't leverage more. And the moratorium for the MBIA loan was also going to kind of come up to its curve. So I was I was pretty leveraged.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:47] How bad was your how's your MBA? How high was it? £100. Euros.

Jasdeep: [00:31:55] Euros dollars. Us dollars.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:57] Us dollars. It's a lot. And so what did you do? What are you thinking? Like, Oh, no, like I'm screwed or what? How are you approaching this? You just start networking and interviewing like crazy or what happened?

Jasdeep: [00:32:11] No, I still didn't. You know, I didn't pick it up so well. I dropped out of school at INSEAD. I went back.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:19] But you finish with AII right?

Jasdeep: [00:32:21] I finished. I completed my MBA.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:23] Yeah, you finished it. But INSEAD, you're like, Hey, I got to stop. I just. And why was it just like I got to find a job? It was. What was the.

Jasdeep: [00:32:30] Thought process there? Got. I've got to look for some opportunities.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:34] Some income. Yeah. Okay. And so what was the path? How long did it take?

Jasdeep: [00:32:41] So I went back to Argentina and I started networking, networking, networking and sending out emails, sending out emails, sending out emails. And I network my way to a job in finance, private equity. I broke in. I was interviewed five rounds for medical leave. I was interviewed five rounds for JPMorgan, five rounds for different positions here.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:05] And it didn't turn out.

Jasdeep: [00:33:08] It didn't turn out because the compensation was not it was in local currency. When I had opportunities to work for US clients at a different currency rates.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:21] So can you tell me what the offer was? It was again, in Buenos Aires.It was in pesos or whatever in.

Jasdeep: [00:33:25] Yes. So offers. I don't have a lot of details on that. But what I can tell you is that I started as assistant assistant of then I just prepared an investment presentation, a deck. I started working for $300 a month.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:43] And this was just at the private equity fund.

Jasdeep: [00:33:46] The private equity fund.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:47] So you're like, Just give me a chance. Whatever. Like, I'll make it. I'll do a great job. So you start out, like, helping with Dex?

Jasdeep: [00:33:53] Yeah. Financial models, investment presentations.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:57] So this is a can you tell me more about, like, the private equity fund? What's the model like in terms of, like, what the role was like initially and how it's evolved now that you've been there for a little over four years?

Jasdeep: [00:34:09] Yes. So initially, one, when we just started, we were kind of it was a small team. Headcount is low traditionally in these firms, so kind of sending out a lot of emails to investors, sending out legal documentation.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:26] You're trying to raise a fund to help raise the fund.

Jasdeep: [00:34:29] Help raise a fund. Yes.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:30] So you had you guys didn't have. So the new Startup Fund, you guys didn't have any capital? Um, it was you're just working for what, like the founders or something?

Jasdeep: [00:34:38] Yeah. Yes.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:39] And how long did it take to actually close on your first fund, or was it more family office money and you had money? You're just trying to supplement it?

Jasdeep: [00:34:47] No, I think by in three months we had closed down on three or four deals and raised a couple of million dollars.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:58] And so that so the actual deal sizes were pretty small though. Like something like.

Jasdeep: [00:35:04] Sub sub 1 million is one 2 million. Sub sub five. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:10] And so were these deals that were in mostly Buenos Aires or were they in the US or. Tell me the types of deals you guys are doing.

Jasdeep: [00:35:18] Usa and India for India. Well, one deal that we worked on was Paytm. It's a fintech company. It was its largest IPO, I believe, in the Indian market when it happened for us.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:36] So you guys were an advisor. Were you doing banking work or were you doing actual investment or were you you weren't putting money to work then you were serving as an advisor.

Jasdeep: [00:35:45] Advisor. Yes.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:46] So you're doing banking. You're kind of doing banking work. Wasn't really private equity as investment.

Jasdeep: [00:35:50] Banking advisory work. Advisor So I was doing banking work. I was the banker and I was, I was doing more, more of the banking work. Banking operations.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:03] So when did you guys raise a fund to start investing in the smaller you guys always have that you're doing both you're doing some some some work where you're actually investing out of a fund and then you had advisory work as well.

Jasdeep: [00:36:17] Yes. So I started off as assistant and then after assistant I grew up like, know, I started hiring people. A manager became a manager, continue my work, honed in on banking, honed in on operations and honed in and private equity. The more financial and investment in market credit markets, stock markets and fixed income and any markets that's taken care of by a team in the US.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:46] So what are you doing day to day? What are you evaluating? What are you managing? What are you operating now for the team?

Jasdeep: [00:36:51] So we're managing a team of ten plus people working on the banking, which entails the Treasury as well as the accounting for the company.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:05] And so like almost like a CFO type role.

Jasdeep: [00:37:12] I would say CFO type roles accurate.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:15] So it's like the support function for the private equity fund that's running out of the US. They have you and a team of ten down and a side is helping with like more like the accounting of the fund, that type of stuff.

Jasdeep: [00:37:27] Yes. Okay.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:28] So you guys aren't actually like the ones looking at deals or do you help with deal sourcing and deal evaluation as well?

Jasdeep: [00:37:34] No deal sourcing and looking at deals and deal evaluation. I don't take care of somebody.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:41] So that's up in the US mostly. Or do they have a separate team for that?

Jasdeep: [00:37:44] It's in the USA. Cool.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:48] So tell me about the do you like the role or are you learning or do you feel like there's room for growth for you?

Jasdeep: [00:37:54] I believe there's. I'm learning every day. I've held up for the last four years on my desk. I like markets. I like learning more about markets and deals and evaluation and, you know, understanding the US markets every day. And I like I enjoy enjoying my role. I want to become a strong CFO, manage liquidity mismatches, working capital, be smart at these mathematical equations to see how capital to compound for our investors.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:28] That's awesome. Well, listen, I really appreciate your time. Any any kind of final last words of wisdom, kind of looking back at your winding path we got from you eventually made it back to back home grown cities. But you're Argentina, US, UK, Madrid, India, Spain. Sorry, I already said Spain, India, Spain, back to Buenos Aires. So it's a very cool path. Very interesting. Any any kind of final words of wisdom looking back at that?

Jasdeep: [00:38:56] Oh, no, no, no. Words of wisdom, I think. I really respect Wall Street Oasis. It's really one of a nice forum. So I appreciate. I appreciate your work. I like your work.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:09] I appreciate that. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with the listeners. And let's stay in touch.

Jasdeep: [00:39:14] Let's stay in touch.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:15] 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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