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In a recent episode of The Investment Bankers Leaders Podcast, Turner Bredrup talks about his trajectory from investment banking analyst to senior advisor. Turner, who has more than 35 years of experience in banking and works in the Harris Williams Healthcare & Life Sciences Group, provides some excellent advice for bankers at various stages of their careers, offering insights on specializing vs. working as a generalist, career transitions, communication skills, gaining the trust of clients, and more. Below, you’ll find a recap of Turner’s advice.
1. M&A vs Generalist: Which Banking Career Is Right for You?
According to Turner, the decision between working in banking as a specialist, such as working exclusively on mergers and acquisitions, as opposed to working more as a generalist, such as at a full-service investment bank, comes down to whether you like focus or variety—and, he notes, this can change throughout your career.
Turner, who began his banking career as an analyst working for Paine Webber and then as an associate at J.P. Morgan, has spent the vast majority of his career at Harris Williams, an investment bank that specializes in M&A and private capital advisory services. He says that one of the things he likes most about working in M&A is that it tests all your skillsets across financial analysis, writing skills, and negotiation skills. He adds that there aren’t many other areas of investment banking where all those skills are constantly in use on behalf of serving clients.
Turner goes on to say that M&A bankers generally have the full attention of their clients’ senior professionals, including CEOs, CFOs, and partners at private equity firms. And he says this aspect of working in M&A can be especially gratifying when you’re working with family-owned businesses selling themselves. In those cases, the work you do for your clients can be both emotional and financially rewarding—you’re working on what could be the most consequential deals in your clients’ lives. The result is you’re developing a different level of friendship with clients based on that intensity. At the end of the day, Turner notes, investment banking is a people business.
So, he concludes, if your personality aligns with focus, then M&A might be best for you. On the other hand, if you align with variety, then working for a full-service bank makes a lot of sense. The question to ask yourself is this: Do you see yourself as an advisory-related professional or a more transactional-oriented professional?
2. Choosing a Work Environment: The Benefits of a Collaborative Culture
Equally as important as deciding which area of investment banking is right for you is determining the type of workplace culture that best suits you. To that end, one of the big pluses of working for Harris Williams is its collaborative, team-like, “One Firm” culture. Turner explains that Harris Williams cultivates a culture that’s oriented toward both clients and employees, ensuring that all professionals have good working relationships within the firm. Turner explains that you’re going to get much better work out of people if they know they’re a part of a culture that really cares about them—when everyone feels like they’re “in it together.”
Underscoring the firm’s team-oriented culture, senior bankers commonly ask junior bankers for their input. Turner explains that when you have a culture where people are expected to not only understand their lanes but also to begin to think about the broader client relationship and what you're trying to accomplish, that benefits not only the work product but the people at every level, especially at the junior level.
The firm’s collaborative environment is also evident in its encouragement of cross-team collaboration. Many client engagements involve cross-industry or cross-office teams. And perhaps most emblematic of the “in it together” culture at Harris Williams is its focus on promoting from within. In fact, more than 80 percent of its managing directors have been promoted internally. And this, according to Turner, is the key to maintaining a strong and consistent culture.
3. Next Level: How to Build Judgment and Deepen Client Relationships
Banking is an apprenticeship business, so it takes time to develop judgment, says Turner, but there is a way to accelerate your development—mainly by taking risks in safe environments. For example, early in your career, start diving into deal documents ahead of negotiations and coming up with ideas that you can then run by your team internally. Your internal teams are “safe environments.” Given that senior professionals are invested in your development, you’ll get feedback. This will allow you to start building judgment, which you’ll need when you’re a VP and director and on the “front lines” with clients.
In addition, early on in your career, start building a reputation for having a solid understanding of your product (in Harris Williams’ case, that could be M&A, private capital solutions, or primary fund placement) and for the broader market or industry. This is key because when you start dealing directly with clients later in your career, this reputation will allow you to start building trust. You not only want to convey information to clients but also help them solve problems. And once clients see you as someone who solves problems and offers advice in their best interest, then you build great trust that lasts.
Turner emphasizes that building trust is important to go beyond “strictly-business” relationships. The best client relationships go through a transition from business-only to business and friendship. Turner adds that if you only let your advisory deals be business transactions, you miss opportunities to take your client relationships to the next level.
One recommendation he has for helping you take it to that next level is to figure out what your clients like. For example, do they like outdoor activities (like certain athletic activities) or indoor, cultural activities (such as museums, concerts, etc.)? The point is to figure out what they like to get to know them in a different way, so the first parts of your conversations with them are not about the market (which can be a little cold) but about personal issues. When you start your conversation with the personal, that’s when you’ve reached a different level of relationship.
Turner stresses that you don’t have to wait until you reach the senior ranks to start building these types of relationships; you can start doing it early in your career with the client company’s junior-level professionals across the table. One day, they’ll be in senior positions—and they’ll remember you.
For more advice from Turner Bredrup, you can listen to the entire podcast episode. And to learn more about what it’s like to work for Harris Williams and how to apply, you can check out their Vault profile.
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