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.

Tackling the 'Relevant Experience' Problem

The other day a reader emailed me to discuss some thoughts, and one point that he made has been at the back of my head since then. It’s something that I’m sure many of you can relate with, and is such an important matter than it deserves a post of its own.

All too often a finance hopeful hears the comment, “You’re good, but you don’t have relevant experience”. Most aspirants take it as a sign of rejection and try again elsewhere, even though this need not be the end of the line. It is a difficult obstacle to overcome, but by no means an insurmountable one. Read on to find out why. 

Financial Modeling: Free Resources

A question that I frequently get is, “Which financial modeling course should I use?”, or “Should I go for a classroom based coaching or will online courses be good enough?” In my experience, coaching is not required as long as you have a basic commerce background (CA or B.Com students) and are comfortable with MS Excel.

So in this post, I’ll provide you some free resources which you can use to learn everything you need to know about financial modeling.

The Great Debate: CFA vs. MBA

One of the most hotly debated questions among finance aspirants is the perennial CFA vs. MBA deliberation. Which of these qualifications will give you a better shot at landing that prestigious full time Excel Monkey Investment Analyst role? In this article, we’re going to have a no-holds-barred, all-out face-off between the two, to settle the question once and for all.

Read on to get the drill down on one of the toughest professional examinations in the world, the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), vs. the timeless and reliable MBA (I’m not going to insult your intelligence by expanding that).

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!