When you screw up, and you will screw up. It's going to happen.

Like you, I thought, "That's it. That's the end of my career.

I've only just arrived, and it's going to be over before it started." I was screwing stuff up from day one at Lehman Brothers.

Why do you think Lehman Brothers collapsed? I think the assumption is that if you're in investment banking, you have to have really sharp elbows and try and prove that you're the best as soon as you arrive, and that's really not the case.

So let's just dive straight in. What do you want to talk about this week that you think new starters in finance can learn from? But we've both been around the block a few times.

So based on we are both, Debs and I are knee-deep, neck deep in summer training, both for first-year analysts, first-year associates, summer analysts.

Actually, it's crazy. So I spent a decade at Ares Management, and I assume, Debs, you kind of lived through a lot of the same finance progression as I did.

When I joined in 2005, I joined a firm that, I was probably employee 100 or so. The London office was 10-ish people when I joined. And there was no summer training program. There was no summer analyst program.

There was no full-time analyst program.

You had to go, in essence, get trained at an investment bank, and then you had the opportunity to move to a different kind of place. So it's an interesting full circle moment because I was back at Ares training in New York last week, and Ares has, I want to say, and someone is going to correct me if I'm wrong in the comments, but 65 summer analysts.

So many that it wasn't even held in their office.

It was held at one of those conference center things.

And I'm like, "What is this place?" It's crazy.

So everyone is just neck deep in summer training.

I think it's a really interesting time to be looking for a job or starting a job in this space now, just because you have so many more opportunities than us dinosaurs had when we were looking for a job like this.

Just because you can join in Ares, you can join an asset manager straight out of school as a summer analyst. I think it's a really interesting, exciting time. And yeah, we've both been around the block a few times, so I figured try to share a little bit of insight into what worked, what didn't work, a few things about what not to do. But I know it can be overwhelming as you're starting a new job, and maybe you can pepper in a few topics about a few dos and don'ts as you head into summer to start either your analyst program or if you're just doing a summer internship.

And Graham, I'm keen to stick with you because I kind of want to throw you under the bus first. So I thought it'd be really good if you share experiences from maybe your first year or so working at Ares. Anything that you did wrong that, at the time, maybe you thought was career limiting.

Clearly it wasn't, because you've been really successful.

So what did you learn from that? Oh, okay. Let's rewind even before Ares, because I was screwing stuff up from day one at Lehman Brothers. Why do you think Lehman Brothers collapsed, Debs? God.

Maybe because of Graham Henry.

It's been a while.

So obviously, I actually take the view that Lehman just couldn't survive without me, and after I left in January 2008- Sure ... that's why it collapsed, but you know what? That's one person's opinion.

Okay. First things first is in any job like this, okay, I think taking a big step back, banking, finance, whatever specific field you're going into, is not rocket science.

Hmm.

Debs and I do all the training here.

Finance math is not hard. It's simple multiplication, division. I think the hardest finance math gets, Debs, is probably the time value of money, where you're discounting stuff back or growing it forward.

Even that is not complicated.

The thing that is important, one of the things, I think if I distill the skills I got in my investment banking career.

I say investment banking career. I mean, I was an analyst for two and a half years.

But if you distill that into one thing or one set of skills, it's the ability to get stuff done, get stuff done quickly, get stuff done efficiently.

You're hired to do a job and to do it really well.

And ultimately, the cost of screwing up can be pretty high.

So the first thing, you're going to hear this from a bunch of people, but the first thing is just attention to detail.

I know, Deb, we've talked about the Warner Brothers, Paramount, Skydance situation. You see the kind of crazy, what seem like crazy fees that are paid just to give a fairness opinion on a deal.

If you're getting paid the 50, 90, $100 million, whatever it was, to give a fairness opinion on a big public M&A transaction, you better be right about everything.

You can't have a mistake in something that goes out to millions and millions of people, and they're using as a basis to make an investment decision on.

So attention to detail is, first and foremost, one of the most important things I think you need to learn really early on.

And I remember, by the way, there are different levels of importance as well.

Yeah.

And this is something that I think a lot of people kind of forget and lose track of and lose sight of. Because if you think about, say, every single aspect of the job being as important as everything else, I actually think you'll burn out and you'll drive yourself totally crazy.

But there's one thing I remember when I was a first-year.

I definitely was a first-year analyst because I was still in LA.

I only did a year at Lehman in LA. And I remember I was putting a pitch book together and you know what? I think this was a pitch book for the biggest M&A deal that I worked on when I was at Lehman Brothers.

So a bank called Wachovia, which no longer exists- Oh, wow ... bought a bank called Golden West Financial, which no longer exists. And it was a $26 billion deal.

I still have this glass Lehman Brothers big deal award for it.

It was kind of fun back in the day. It was first page of Wall Street Journal, and I remember when I was 21 or whatever, I'm like, "Oh, this is so cool." But in the months leading up to that deal, you do a bunch of pitching and whatnot. So I remember it was a pitch.

We were going to pitch for some kind of engagement, I don't remember exactly what, to Golden West Financial, and before the pitch went out, I had sent the book to a VP who, by the way, is an awesome dude. We're still in touch. I get his family Christmas card every year.

But I had screwed up the dates over a table.

One, if this was 2005, it was 2004, about 2005, and vice versa.

And I s**t you not, he yelled at me for it felt like an hour.

And he's like, "How could you be so f*****g stupid?" And I'm like, "Oh my God, am I getting fired?" And I'm like, "It's just a pitch book." But even though that it's just a pitch, it's not a real deal, it's still something that's going out externally. You want to make sure it's right.

And I think those kind of early reminders about check your work a few times before you- Yeah ... before you send it over. Just don't assume it's going to be right.

By the way, I think that's extra important now in the days of AI, where we're going to rely on these tools to do a lot of our jobs for us, at least from a first pass perspective.

Don't just prompt Claude or GPT and assume it's right. You better check it. Make sure it's right before you hand it up to the next level.

So attention to detail is a massively important part of this job.

Again, the job is not-- I'm not trying to undersell it, but technically speaking, it's not hard. It is really not that difficult.

But be there, be ready to do the job, be ready to do it well, and check your work a few times before you send it, even up to your associate. Because ultimately, stupid mistakes make you look kind of dumb.

Yeah.

So that's one. And how about you, Debs? Weirdly enough, my own experience is kind of similar. So as a bit of background, a bit of context, so I also didn't do a full-time program joining an investment bank because I'd already qualified as an accountant.

So I went straight in as kind of an associate when I joined equity research. And so the assumption was I already knew stuff, and I think I made that assumption as well.

And was- Right ... immediately involved in publishing research.

As soon as I had my kind of regulatory qualification, I was kind of unleashed and able to start publishing research.

And so I contributed to a note that was published about companies that had been-- I think they were at risk of recognizing impairments because of some of the acquisitions they'd made.

And we used to run these things called screens, which are basically analysis of company metrics across a whole number of companies.

And we identified companies which we thought were particularly at risk.

And these are kind of potentially negative signals to the market.

So it's quite a bearish research note to write.

And I ran my screen, I ran my analysis, included it on the front page of the research note, published to the market, pretty chuffed with myself.

And then immediately started getting calls from companies saying: "Why are we on this screen? These numbers aren't correct." So like you, I thought, "That's it. That's the end of my career.

I've only just arrived and it's going to be over before I've started." Yeah, you're like, "I'm toast. I'm done." Yeah.

So I spoke to my boss who, actually, weirdly enough, like you, is still a good friend of mine. I'm meeting him for drinks later this week, actually. He ended up as head of research as well.

But he was so brilliant about it, and he was like: "Listen, you need to get your numbers right. We need to update the screen.

We need to refresh the numbers, republish.

There are ways and means that you can manage this error.

But the key thing is don't do it again.

Do not do that again." Because- Yeah ... trust, once it's lost, and that's both internally within the bank, but also with clients, it takes a really long time to get that back.

So you have to absolutely learn from it.

So that, for me, was my very first mistake that I kind of experienced. I think another mistake that I didn't make, but I was working with someone who did this, initiated on a company in research, and when they were calculating their target price, you calculate the value of operations, you subtract the net debt to get to the equity value and derive your target price.

Instead of subtracting net debt, they added it.

They then published the research note, and again, immediately clients started calling. Now, at that point, I myself thought that was career limiting for this other person.

But what they did was brilliant. They basically very swiftly updated their model, somehow miraculously came up with the same target price, but corrected the net debt error, republished within an hour. And that person, they were also at the beginning of their career, but because they owned it, because they responded really well in a crisis, they went on to do brilliant things.

I'm not going to name who they are. But they went on to do really good things in research. But a bit like you were saying, the key takeaway for me is check your work. Yeah, sense check it. Don't just check the formulas. Sense check it.

What you're highlighting, does it actually make sense to you? But yeah, that attention to detail is really important.

And once you've made that a mistake, never make that mistake again.

Agreed.

And then also, yeah, like you were saying, there is a difference between errors which you can recover from if you own them, and genuinely career-limiting ones, which for me, anything to do with compliance or regulation, that is much more a line that you just never want to cross.

Yeah.

When you join a bank, you'll do so much compliance training.

They will tell you situations where you should be flagging concerns, where you shouldn't take any action, where you should take action.

That is actually really important training because that protects you against losing your job. So fundamentally, if you make an error at your desk, an administrative error, you can recover from it. But if it's something that's potentially career limiting, think twice before you take action, to do with compliance or regulation.

Yeah. And actually, a couple things that brings up.

One is when you screw up, and you will screw up, right, it's going to happen. Actually, it was interesting.

I was at one of the investment banks last summer, and it was kind of fun because I was doing their A to A promote training just for a couple of days, and the guy said, "All right. We've all done this for a little bit now. All right.

Tell me about your biggest screw-up," and I told him about some of mine.

It was actually just kind of fun. And everyone had one.

I sent that email to the wrong person, made myself look like an idiot.

Mm-hmm.

It's going to happen. You're working long hours. You're tired.

Still always check stuff. Don't do anything stupid, but accept the fact that at some point you're probably going to make some kind of mistake.

I think, Debs, you make the right point.

Owning that mistake- Mm ... and dealing with it in the correct professional manner is really important to resolving it correctly.

The last thing you want to do is try to hide from it and pretend like it wasn't you, or pass the buck. You look a lot more professional if you say, "I'm sorry. I screwed up. Here's how I'm going to fix it," or, "If I don't know how to fix it, let's talk about how to fix it.

I want to fix it." Just own it and resolve it the right way.

Don't try to hide it. If you do that, I actually do think that is genuinely career limiting because- Mm-hmm ... people just aren't going to trust you.

Absolutely.

Any other top tips for new recruits? Another just on a note of something not to do, actually. Okay.

So on that A to A training we were all talking about, what's the biggest screw-up you had? I think this was early days at Ares and not at Lehman, but it happened such a long time ago, and I think I've just blocked it out of my memory.

I don't remember which firm it was at.

I want to say the setup was I was calling someone at another investment bank to try to get a bit of information on a company. And of course, I'm not a trader. I've never been a trader.

I don't speak trader lingo, and there is a trading language. Long story short, just calling up to have a casual conversation, managed to execute some kind of trade on behalf of the firm, and they got a trade order, and they're like, "Hey, did you buy this or sell this?" And I'm like, "No.

What are you talking about?" And they're like, "Oh, no, you can't talk like that." You basically smile and nod, and that's executing. That's enough for them to execute the trade.

And I'm like, "Oh, s**t, no one told me that." And it all got unwound and reversed. But that was one where I think for a day or two, I'm like, "Okay, this might actually be the end." Again, I think another note on that kind of attention to detail.

Debs, you make the right point about compliance training.

Yeah.

I'd say as an overarching theme, just start from basic principles, like does something feel right or feel wrong? And if it feels wrong, it probably is. So start from your basic, does this feel right or wrong? And then layer on all the compliance training, all the really specific stuff for both the finance market and the particular firm you're at.

Great. So Graeme, we have just really drilled down there into some of our past experiences that still haunt us on where we've made big mistakes.

Let's flip it now and talk about things that we think have either gone well for us or we've seen others do really well that makes new hires stand out in a really positive way. What can we learn? So I think you kind of have to think about these jobs in two components. You have to think about the actual job itself and some of the technical stuff, attention to detail we've just been talking about, and you also have to think about the team component and to some extent, the social component as well.

And first and foremost, I think as, say, a new starter or as a summer analyst, just taking advantage of every opportunity you're given is first and foremost the most important thing you can do.

And I say that because literally in the summer intern training I was doing last week, the interns that I was teaching were getting invites to their weekly investment committees or to some other team's investment committees, and I kind of overheard them saying, "Should I accept all these? What do I do?" And I just looked at them and like, "Yes.

You accept all of them, and you go to each one of those that you possibly can." Assuming you don't have a direct boss saying, "Hey, you can't go to investment committee this week because you've got something else to do." But let's take an investing job as an example. Those are the formats where you're going to learn the most about just how people think, how the firm invests, what its attitude toward various companies, various industries are.

Ultimately, all the work that you're doing in your day job So you're a junior person at some kind of investment shop, whether it's private equity, private credit, whatever.

You're doing a bunch of first-hand diligence on a company.

It's really important not just to do the work, but to be able to understand why that work's important and what questions your firm is going to have on it.

So taking advantage of every learning opportunity, not just the learning that, say, we're providing through a training course, but just participating in as many of those venues as you possibly can. I'd also say, speak up and ask questions where you think those questions are going to add some kind of value. No one likes the person who's just talking for the sake of talking. So don't ask a question just for question's sake, but if you have a question where you say, "Hey, I'm trying to understand this trend here.

Can someone help me understand it?" That's a lot more useful than just saying, "Can someone explain to me what this whole analysis is?" Or, "I don't really know what's going on." I know people say there are no stupid questions.

I think sometimes there are stupid questions.

Don't ask a question that these days you could quickly go to Google or GPT and just learn real basic. What's an EV to EBITDA valuation multiple? So don't ask someone in a firm that. You should know that already.

You've been with me or Debs and you've gotten a job already.

But if you're trying to understand, say, "All right.

I'm looking at this comp set and I'm really trying to understand why this company has a different multiple than this one.

I've done some work trying to figure it out, but I can't.

Does anyone know what's going on?" Asking questions that demonstrate that you have some kind of understanding about what's happening and also some genuine interest, I think is really important.

So saying yes to stuff, being available, being reliable.

If someone asks you to do something, do it.

Don't say you're going to do something and then not.

That's the fastest way to just, not make enemies, but just not get the return offer.

Let's see. What have you got on your list, Debs? I've got other stuff, but keen to get your take, too.

Yeah. So I think my favorite tip, and it's kind of an obvious one, is if you're going in for meetings with clients or even internal meetings, prep before you go, because it shows you're taking the meeting seriously and you're not wasting people's time.

I think there is an assumption that as an analyst, you should be able to blag your way through a situation, that you can just make stuff up if you're not sure.

It is a really quick way to erode trust if you do that.

So I really valued it when I had meetings with new analysts, or I took them to client meetings, and they had really prepared for it.

It showed a bit like what you were saying, that they were interesting, they were engaged, but that also they were kind of investing their own time in getting the most out of the situation or the meeting.

And I can think of quite a few people who I've worked with who have demonstrated that, and that carried them very quickly up the career ladder. So that, for me, is a really easy way to stand out in a good way as a new analyst.

Yeah. No, I agree. Actually, one of the interesting things about a job like this is you get some pretty high-level early exposure. In my first year out of school working, I was sitting in boardrooms meeting chief executives of real companies. There aren't that many industries where you get that kind of exposure that early.

So make the most of it. Don't just be- Yeah ... dead weight in a meeting room. But again, don't be the annoying person in the meeting room either. Speak up only when it makes sense to do so, when you've got a genuine question, genuine insight to add.

But be the person that you're the one demonstrating you're interested, you're engaged, and yeah, ultimately just be helpful.

A lot of this advice I know is pretty basic, but it's also pretty important. The flip side for me, not the flip side, I think that as important or thing that you need to do in addition is... Actually, I'm staying with one of my friends right now.

We both worked at Ares for a decade together, and I was telling him about some of the stuff I'm doing now.

I was telling him about some of the topics we were just talking about on the podcast today, and we were talking about, okay, what do you think you need to do to be successful early on? Especially because places are so big now, analyst classes are so big.

I do think it's pretty easy to just get kind of lost in the sauce and not really stand out. And I think you stand out both by doing a really good job in the actual job and also just being the person who is there and present and kind of adding to team culture and team values. So I was talking to my buddy, and the example he gave is he's like, because he was at Ares even before I was, and he's like, "We were 30 people in LA, and new people were joining every week." And he's like, "Once a month, I would go down, and I'd grab some beer and some wine, and I was kind of responsible for starting this office social hour just to get new people meeting." And he's like, "That was the thing for me that solidified me as a really important part of the team and not just another associate." So I'm not saying go buy a bunch of drinks for everyone in your office, but at the same time, if you're out at, say, some kind of team event, don't be the person to go home early.

Mm-hmm.

I'm not saying get the drunkest or anything like that, but stay till the end. Be there, be engaged, be up for hanging out with people, because ultimately, these are people that whatever job you're in, you're going to spend a lot of time with, and you kind of want people you can just go out and have a good time with as well. So engaging in some of the extracurricular stuff I really think is as important as the actual job stuff, too.

For sure. And actually, we used to have a no jerk policy because you're working with these people for such long hours, it is intensive.

But fundamentally, you need to get on with each other, and you need the technical skills for sure, but that's kind of expected that if you've been hired, those technical skills are your ticket to the job.

Actually, in terms of progressing, you need to be able to get on with the other people. You need to be a team player.

People need to enjoy spending time with you.

Now, obviously, you have to be yourself, but- Yeah ... you have to also be a little bit humble, recognize the fact that you're joining as the junior in the team. You don't know more than everyone else.

You can definitely bring something to the party, but just being personable, being warm, being enthusiastic gets you so far. I think the assumption is that if you're in investment banking, you have to have really sharp elbows and try and prove that you're the best as soon as you arrive. And that's really not the case.

You've got to prove that you can work in a team, that you can coordinate with them, that they can delegate to you.

So don't underestimate that part of the job, in my view.

Indeed.

Okay, Graham. Top tips, top hacks, how to survive your first year in investment banking. Go for it.

Okay.

For me, I always needed to find some kind of, in terms of hacks, how do you survive? I need to find some kind of way to maintain my physical, mental balance and sanity. So I would always try to do some kind of physical activity. Admittedly, I think my first year, my actual first year in investment banking, I probably did very little, but you can do a lot when you're 21 and sleep deprive yourself and whatnot.

Although I do feel like that aspect of the job is getting a little bit better.

Uh-huh.

So find time to go to the gym. So when I was at Lehman in London, at least there was a gym.

There was a Lehman gym in the office, and even if it was going down to do a 20-minute run, you know what? That's something. It's better than nothing. So maintain physical sanity.

Just be available. Make sure you are available, responsive. It's not necessarily the most fun part of the job, but especially at a junior level, your job is to be available and to help get stuff done. And sometimes that does mean getting on calls late at night, responding to emails.

I remember at one point I was responding to emails in a handful nightclubs in Ibiza one year because a deal was happening.

That's right. And I'm like: You know what? I don't necessarily want to be doing this right now, but it's important that I at least do my part to keep the process moving.

So don't sit on emails forever that people are relying on you for. Just make sure you're getting your stuff done.

I don't know. What else, Debs? What do you got? It's funny when you're saying that.

I remember replying to a client email on a chairlift somewhere in Austria one last year. It's not what I'm saying, but you- You know what? Skiing is great for work because you have so much chairlift time.

Yeah.

It really is. You can do a call from a chairlift.

Yeah. I'm not saying you should give up all your holidays and be working the whole time, but yeah, there is a balance.

And actually, with that in mind, my other top tip is sleep. For me, it's really important I get sleep.

There are going to be times when you're working to deadlines, and you'll be working very, very late. As soon as you have the opportunity, stock up on that sleep. It's part of looking after your mental health, but it's also, it allows you to recharge before you get back to the next block of work, and it reduces your risk of making mistakes.

So I would always prioritize sleep.

Obviously, you want to enjoy yourself, go out and socialize.

But weekends, sleep, sleep, sleep if you can.

Yep. Okay, something else just came to mind.

Make use of your calendar in a real way.

I remember when I was in college, I didn't really use one.

I just thought to myself, "I don't need an actual calendar.

I know what I'm doing." And then you pretty quickly get overwhelmed with meetings and trips and whatever else you got going on. So literally from day one, make sure you are properly using your calendar.

It'll probably be in Outlook or whatever.

But make sure you're staying on top of everything that's in there, using that properly. If you have an assistant or PA, working with them to make sure everyone's on the same page and coordinated. Just being really focused with that kind of stuff from an early point is actually quite important and quite helpful.

It's easy for stuff to slip through the cracks if you don't stay on top of it.

Excellent.

So I think those are our top tips for success, aren't they? That's all you need to do to progress in your first year in investment banking.

That's it. There's literally nothing else.

Really, the advice for me is pretty basic, and it kind of goes back to what I was saying a few minutes ago.

Just follow your gut for a lot of stuff, and if something feels like the right thing to do, like, should I respond to this email this late at night when I want to go to bed because it's important? Yes, do it. If it feels a little bit funny sending something out that you don't think you're supposed to, check.

By the way, it's okay to ask people for help in a way that doesn't require too much from them.

Don't ask someone to do something for you, but it's okay to check.

"Hey, am I sending this to the right person? I noticed they're external.

I just want to validate before I send it out." Do that. That's completely fine. People appreciate that kind of question, that kind of assistance way more than having to undo some kind of mistake. So just follow your gut, be available, be a team player, participate in team activities as part of your group, as part of your firm.

Show up to everything, and whether you're a summer intern or you're starting a full-time position, just take every opportunity to learn as much as you possibly can. Join the investment committees, join the discussions, go to whatever meetings you get invited to.

Don't sit there and say, "Should I? Shouldn't I?" No, you should.

You should. If you're not putting something else important off, then take those opportunities, go to the meetings, and learn as much as you can. And I also think that's kind of the fun part of the job anyway.

Absolutely agree. Wise words there from Graham, and thanks for listening.

All right, everyone. We will see you next week. Take care.