Interview with a Private Equity MD

Every now and then Bateman Begins conducts interviews with professionals working in finance in India, but for this interview, we are going to switch things around a little. Today’s interviewee is a Managing Director at a major private equity fund in the US, and has worked on investments in India in the past. He was kind enough to have a wide-ranging conversation with me and some of his insights are absolutely fascinating.

Read on to find out what an MD has to say investing and business in India in the most detailed interview ever conducted by Bateman Begins. He’s an American, so you get the added bonus of getting to know an outsider’s perspective of doing business in India.

Bateman Begins: Genesis

Bateman Returns.

After a considerable gap, Bateman Begins is back online and ready to bring you more on the select world of finance. But now, Bateman Begins will be expanding its mandate to a much broader territory. Instead of articles on just breaking into finance and interviews, you will now also get to know about personal experiences in finance – both mine as well as of those whom I’ve spoken with, along with a little bit of this and that.

It’s been over a year since I started my current private equity gig as well as Bateman Begins, and it feels like it’s been forever. I’ve talked about endless networking, cold-calling and about a guy who broke into finance from an IT internship, but I haven’t talked about how I broke in. I once mentioned how sometimes even someone you meet in a train can get you a job. Now while I didn’t stalk some poor guy during his daily commute, the way I got my job is just as bizarre.

Instead of telling you my whole story here, I’ll point you to the very inspiration of this website, Brian DeChesare’s M&I. Brian was considerate enough to run an interview with me on his website, so you can head on over there for a complete run down on how I broke in, what’s the industry like in India and what it is that I do at my job.

Read my interview here.

Enjoy, and as always, feel free to comment any questions that you have below! 

Bateman Interviews: CEO - "I'm a guy who gets things done"

It’s been a while since I posted a new interview, so I thought what better way to get back to the job than an interview with the top guy in a company? I recently got a chance to have a lengthy one-on-one conversation with CEO of the biggest flower company in India. He is a person who has reached where he is today, solely on the basis of sheer hard work and a determination to move ahead. In today’s plethora of MBA-wielding C-level executives, it’s hard to believe that he is not even a graduate. Today, he has over 27 years of experience and is considered an authority in the retail and e-commerce segments.

Read on if you are interested in a wealth of free information in an uninhibited conversation, with the sort of person most of us don’t even get to meet. Without further ado, presenting Mr. Pawan Gadia, CEO, Ferns N Petals.

Bateman Interviews: "A day in IB begins with a BBM and ends with a BBM"

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Divya Aggarwal, an Investment Banking Analyst at Avendus Capital, one of the top investment banks in India. She was excited to learn about this blog and was happy to provide an inside peek into the world of IB. Over a course of 3 weeks, I was finally able to finish this interview (read on to find out why it took so long).

Divya Aggarwal is a qualified CS and CFA L2 candidate and has past experience in Consultancy at Mckinsey and M&A advisory services at KPMG. And below, she’ll give you answers to whether IB is like a relationship or a marriage, why analysts have a love-hate relationship with their Blackberry and why even investment bankers aspire to move to the buy side.

Bateman Interviews: Investment research in three distinct fields, breaking in and more.

For the inaugural interview with Bateman Begins, I have with me a Chartered Accountant, CFA charter holder and one of the most active volunteers in the Indian CFA Society. With almost 10 years of experience in hedge funds research, credit analysis and bond trading analysis, he has been at the centre of a universe which most of us only dream of.

An avid educational volunteer and guest lecturer at several reputed institutions, there are few people better placed to advise prospective monkeys. So without further ado, I present to you Mr. Biharilal Deora in the very first of Bateman Interviews: