What have been the highlights of your time with Greenhill so far?

Since joining Greenhill, I have been fortunate enough to be involved in a broad range of transactions. These have spanned M&A (both buy-side and sell-side) and a debt financing. The highlight throughout these transactions has been the holistic involvement and ownership I have been given even as a recent recruit and newly promoted Associate. At Greenhill, one gets the unique opportunity to be involved in a range of opportunities across all aspects of the transactions due to the lean deal team structure. Granted, this can mean busy periods, but the learning is second-to-none and this was a major factor for me joining. My favourite deal so far has been to help brsk, a young UK alt-net fibre optic cable company, raise a substantial amount of debt to help fund the next stage of its growth. During this project I was given full autonomy to lead the deal, manage the client relationship and oversee the transaction from beginning to end. I also built some great client relationships, and friendships, along the way. The opportunity to be actively and deeply involved, albeit not completely unique to Greenhill, is one of its competitive advantages vs. other larger bulge bracket banks – if you want to jump in the deep end and accelerate your learning and growth I’d recommend applying for a role at the firm!

What are the qualities that can make someone successful in the long-term at Greenhill?

Greenhill has a rigorous interview process through which I got to meet and connect with a substantial number of the London team. It struck me how open, friendly and down-to-earth the people were. Hence, I believe in order to be successful at the firm one must possess these qualities yourself. In addition to this, although there is support when needed, it is expected that you take initiative in your day-to-day, ownership over your workstreams and can successfully drive tasks through to completion. This requires a high level of initiative and entrepreneurialism and creates a lot of white space to make your mark.

What is an aspect of your job that is often misunderstood by those outside of your field?

The most common misconception about investment banking is that it is all about the numbers or investing in the financial markets – neither of which are true. The heart of our role at Greenhill is offering strategic corporate finance advice to clients during their most critical moments. It is important to remember that behind all of these clients are people and, as a result, the core of our job is advising, managing and connecting with people. Undoubtedly, there is a fair amount of number crunching, particularly as a junior, however the end goal is to give sound counsel to our clients – I think it is important to always keep this in mind.