Dostoyevsky - went on to better things

GUEST COMMENT: The problem is, it’s too frightening to resign from a financial services job

If you still have a job in the City then you have something in common with the great novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In 1849, the writer was about to be shot by a firing squad for dissent when, at the last moment, he was pardoned by the Czar. Living with the threat of layoffs is like [...]

Slava Rabinovich

Q&A: The Russian chief executive of a $100m hedge fund says if you really want to make it, you need to work for yourself

We spoke to Slava Rabinovich, CEO of Moscow-based Diamond Age Capital Advisors, a hedge fund with $105m under management. This is what he told us about his career, and life in general. How did you come to work in the Russian hedge fund sector? In 1996, I was about to graduate from the Stern School [...]

Mike connarty, Std Life

Q&A: Mike Connarty, director of international investments at Standard Life, advocates learning Mandarin if you want to get ahead

Mike Connarty is based in Edinburgh but he’s an international figure in financial services. As director of international investments, Mike manages Standard Life’s fast-growing joint venture investments in India and China. If you want to work for him, you’ll need a genuinely international outlook – and ideally the capacity to speak Mandarin. Q: How long [...]

Overpowered by Powerpoint

GUEST COMMENT: As a junior corporate financier I am spending my life tweaking PowerPoint presentations

Many young undergraduates harbour dreams of becoming an investment banker when they finish university, but few know what the job entails. Those who know the reality have probably done an internship in the sector, be it in ECM, DCM or M&A. Some of these people have continued to bite the bullet and become full-fledged analysts, [...]

Contemplation of quitting

GUEST COMMENT: The 8 main reasons why people become investment bankers

There are different reasons why individuals become investment bankers.  Chance plays a role, but deep-seated motivations are usually the determining factor. These motivations explain why so many bankers agree to work unusually long hours, put up with abnormally high levels of stress and sacrifice personal and leisure time.  Take a look at the faces of [...]

(credit: markhillary)

GUEST COMMENT: I have attended a positively mind-blowing class as part of my Masters at the London Business School

Gabriel Chen is a Singaporean student at London Busines School and a former financial journalist for Singapore’s Straits Times.  I recently wrapped up one of the best courses of my Masters in Finance at London Business School (LBS). Called Topics in Asset Management, it was taught by Robert Jenkins, an external member of the Interim [...]

Anil Hansjee

A Q&A with Anil Hansjee, the former investment bank software engineer who became Google’s main M&A man in EMEA

Anil Hansjee has had quite a career. Having started out as a programmer at Swiss Bank Corp, now Union Bank of Switzerland, he moved into a risk-product role at Chemical/Chase (now JPMorgan) before making an unusual move into corporate finance. From there, he moved to the buyside and venture capital, and from there he moved [...]

goldman-sachs-logo

An illuminating Q&A with an ex-Goldman Sachs quant from Russia, who warns: think before you go into banking

How do you get hired by Goldman Sachs? How do you get a transfer from Goldman Sachs’ Moscow to its London office? What gets you noticed during job interviews? An ex-Goldman employee who’s worked in Moscow and in London offers his advice – and a warning. Q: How did you get hired by Goldman? While [...]

Lost treasure

The forgotten interview with the man who could get you the best job at Barclays

In the wake of the excitement about Bruno Iksil and then Achilles Macris, banks’ treasury departments are becoming the places to be if you’re a trader. Replete with ex-hedge fund professionals, seemingly immune to the Volcker Rule, and free to hedge risks and trade prop for the bank as a whole, their importance is indisputable. [...]

What it's like in M&A

GUEST COMMENT: At what point does it make more sense to fire one notoriously difficult VP instead of burning out multiple junior M&A bankers?

When I worked in M&A, there were two topics that persistently occupied my junior colleague and me during the brief period from 19:15 to 19:35, whilst we quickly ate dinner before getting straight back to work. [Most of us had spent the past ten hours chained to our desks and had just received the dreaded [...]