I spent twenty years inside it. Then I left.
Four banks, deals on the desk every week, the whole ladder. Now I teach people to skip it.
Twenty years in finance. Four banks. Deals across my desk every week. I did the degree, the CPA, the analyst years, the whole climb.
Here's what nobody tells you on the way up. The skill that gets a deal done is a process. Find the business, read the numbers properly, work out what the seller isn't saying, structure it so the buyer doesn't get hurt, and get it to settlement. It takes months to learn, not fifteen years.
The fifteen years isn't for learning. It's for waiting your turn.
And the whole time I was in there, I could see the deals nobody would touch. Businesses selling for eight hundred grand, one and a half million, three million. Real owners, real money, and not one decent adviser near them. Too small for the bank to bother with.
So I left. I've been doing those deals ever since, and now I teach it. Not theory, the actual work, the way it's actually done.
You don't need my twenty years. You need about twelve weeks and the nerve to start.
Twenty years, four banks.
- Head of Strategy, Asia PacificCiti
- Head of FinanceMacquarie
- Head of Performance AnalyticsLloyds
- Executive Manager, Corporate BankingCommonwealth Bank