Ep 3. From Investment Banking to Consulting and Tech, Searching for Meaning in Retail
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In this episode, you will hear from a guest you will hear from a guest who spent time as an Investment Banker then Consultant and worked in Tech before finding a role that fully allowed her to use her passion and knowledge about the business of Retail. Listen as she shares the highs and lows of working in industries that many post MBAs covet but left her searching for something more.
Transcript
Victoria Hefty (00:00):
Hi, I'm Victoria Hefty and welcome to the Post MBA Pivot podcast, where I share stories of professionals who took unexpected, interesting, or unique paths after graduating from business school. Today, you'll hear from a guest who spent time as an investment banker, then consultant, and worked in tech before finding a role that fully allowed her to use her passion and knowledge about the business of retail. Listen as she shares the highs and lows of working in industries that while many post MBAs covet, left her searching for something more. As always, I'd like to dive right in and get the story going.
Victoria Hefty (00:40):
What was sort of your motivation for going to business school?
Post MBA Guest (00:44):
Yeah, so I think for me, just to give you some background, I was in investment banking before business school, and I was actually in the regional group so investment banking was something I never envisioned being in, it was mainly because I was a Goldman Sachs scholar in high school. So you just get introduced to things and then there's money associated so you're like, "Okay, sure. I'll try this out." So all of a sudden I'm on the investment banking path. I didn't know much else, and then by serendipitous, I ended up being placed in the retail for my summer, and loved it. And I loved it because it was so tangible to me, even banking was something hard to grasp, I'm reading 10-Ks and all this stuff.
Post MBA Guest (01:24):
But it was easy for me to understand because I knew these companies I was investigating. It was big names like Walmart, Target. So this is what I'm looking at when I'm there. So I think for me, it was just really interesting to work in a job that I felt like, "Hey, what I'm doing has an impact in the real world that my parents know, my friends will know, et cetera." Even though I could talk about it. So I went back after my summer, I joined full time, and then it was we're in the middle of the recession so everything was crazy, and I remember thinking to myself like, "I hate this." And not that I hated [inaudible 00:02:04], I hated the hours I was working.
Victoria Hefty (02:07):
What was one moment that you can think of when you were like, "I hate this."
Post MBA Guest (02:11):
And I'll tell you what, and it's actually a personal thing. So I had been dating a guy five years, we dated through college. We were high school sweethearts. I think he was staying with me over spring break, and he never saw me. So he was staying in my apartment and I think I'd see him for three hours because I'd literally come home at 1:00 in the morning, I'd roll back out of bed at 7:00, be at the office. He was like, "I never see you." And I remember being like, "Oh, but this is my job." And I remember going to work that day after we got into an argument about it, and I remember being like, "This is actually not what I want to do. Why am I fighting for something that's not important?"
Post MBA Guest (02:47):
I learned two things. One, that that person probably wasn't going to be with me term. So that was one because it was like, "Hey, I'm always a person who's going to care about my job, all these things." But I also want someone who understands that I am passionate about things that I work towards. So that was one realization. But the second was like, "Why am I fighting so hard for job I don't like?" I didn't love finance, I understood it, I was good at it. People today even still marvel at my Excel skills, it's like, "Oh, because they borderline tortured us when I was 20." But for me, I realized that I didn't love the deal-making, I loved retail, I love learning about retailers, I love the industry, but I did not love finance. So I was like, "I want to get out of this."
Post MBA Guest (03:30):
So of course like every other person my age did, I interviewed for hedge funds and VC firms, and I was [inaudible 00:03:36] and I was like, "I to do any of this either." So then I started to realize that it's still easy to get pigeonholed. I was pigeonholed at the tender age of 22, 23, and my only options that people would explore for me was extensions of finance. So that was really a turning point for me, and that's when I was like, "All right, what's next?" And then that's when business school started becoming a thing. And did a very big pivot before business school so I actually left banking, took the exit package for investment banking times, and raised my hand, was like, "Okay, this is not it for me." I spent three months studying for the GMAT, sit at home, did that, got a score I was happy with, and then I went to go live in Brazil for a year, and then I applied to business school from Brazil. And then that was my path to business school.
Victoria Hefty (04:27):
So wait, so what was the catalyst for Brazil what was your relationship there? How did that happen?
Post MBA Guest (04:31):
Yeah, I've always been a traveler. So essentially once I left banking, I needed a cathartic experience to purge because I think at this point I had broken up with my boyfriend and left banking at the same time so literally it was like, "Okay, I got to go do something." So I decided to go travel South America for six weeks. So I literally took my exit package on a Friday, I think I had my trip booked by the next Friday. I just used some of the money and I was like, "Oh, this I'm going to do." So I went traveling through South America for six weeks, I think I was in eight countries or something crazy, and I fell in love with Brazil.
Post MBA Guest (05:03):
So when I came back, I think I was thinking during that trip and I was like, "Okay, I'm definitely going to do the business school thing." I came back, I decided to study for the GMAT, and then because I loved Brazil, I came back inside to say, "what can I do to stay in Brazil for longer? I want to go back." Ended up finding someone who taught English down there and joined a program, was supposed to be there for six months and ended up being there for a year, and that's where I applied to business school, and that's how I went to this school.
Victoria Hefty (05:31):
I love it. Because one of the things you said that stuck to me, so you said you were kind of looking at exits and you were being pigeonholed, and so, what extent did you feel like business school was either going to get you out of being pigeonholed or you just realized that finance was a particular field that does pigeonhole you once people see that background?
Post MBA Guest (05:50):
So I think for me, what I kept hearing about business school because [inaudible 00:05:54] been interested, I just never knew when I wanted to go because I actually thought I was quite to go, I actually was one of younger ones in my class by the time I went to business school. So I'd only had three years of work experience by the time I went, which is on the lower side. So I think, for me, I started having these conversations with people about like, "Why did you go to business school?" All these things. And they were saying, everybody mentioned career switching, career switching. I'm like, "That's what I want to do!" And I was like, "I want career switch." So I was like, "Okay! I think that makes sense."
Post MBA Guest (06:22):
And I was thinking about everything. I was thinking about law school. I was thinking about business school. So like part of my Brazil trip was just thinking through thoughts in my head as to what I was intending to do, and I felt if I did law, I had to become a lawyer, was not about this doctor lifestyle, wasn't going to happen. If I wanted to just get a master's I need to know what I want it to do, and this is why business school became so appealing so it was a place to decide which one was for you, and that's part of the reason I chose business school, and it was to career switch. But I didn't know going into business school, I loved retail and I really wanted to learn more about retail. So for me, it was like, "I love this industry [inaudible 00:07:00] I want to learn more, but I don't know how to learn more. What do I do?" And so I actually went into business school really specific about what I wanted to get out of it.
Post MBA Guest (07:07):
I think it's a lot of people come in and they're like, "Oh." [inaudible 00:07:09] I was like, "I want to stay in retail. Maybe I'll extend it to consumer, but I really want to know more about retail." And so, as I started going through my journey, I started looking into consulting and I was super specific with consulting, which is part of the reason I was very, very honed in on where I wanted to go because I wanted to be able to figure out, "Could I go to a place where I can focus on retail and just learn all the different types of retail?" And most consultants don't allow you to do that, but I was very specific, I literally asked every single consultant, "I'm interested in retail, y'all allow me to do that?" Some of them would say yes, some would say no.
Post MBA Guest (07:44):
So by the time I got an offer... And I used to always been between like nonprofit work and retail, so during my summer, my first engagement was a retail with a retailer, my second one was with a nonprofit. So they knew me very well. So I got both sides of the coin. And so it was like, "Okay, I can do this here." And so I spent my entire time there only doing retailers, but I did everything from apparel retail, I did restaurants, I did supermarkets. So I really got a full gamut, and sometimes I did strategies, sometimes I did marketing, sometimes I did operations, but it was just really great to focus on retail and really start to understand the inner workings of a retailer from the consultant point of view, which allowed me to inform what I want achieve after that.
Victoria Hefty (08:28):
So fast-forward, so you're at your consulting firm, give me that moment where you're like, "Time to move on."
Post MBA Guest (08:35):
I was like, "Oh, this is the same." I was like, "I did banking all over again." I was upset. I even remember what project I was on, was in a project in the Midwest, I was working till 1:00 in the morning in some random city, and I remember being like, "Is this what I'm doing?" I literally remember sitting... I can picture right now me sitting in the hotel of the JW Marriott [inaudible 00:09:01] I was like, "I'm getting all these points..." But I'm like, "What am I doing here?" I remember being like, "Yeah, this is not it. This is the same thing I was doing in banking. I thought it would be different, but here I am, 1:00 in the morning, cranking out slides. What's the difference between me doing it at 22 versus doing it at 26?" I thought it was just consulting in the US didn't excite me.
Post MBA Guest (09:23):
Well, my next goal then was like, "I need to be inspired more, maybe if I do this work in Africa, this might change the way I feel about it." So I'd been talking to my... Forgot what they call them, DGM is what they called them. [inaudible 00:09:38] person who helped you get on engagements, et cetera, and I was telling him, "I'm thinking about leaving." He was like, "Oh, but how do we convince you to stay?" And I was like, "Hey, maybe trying a different geography might be different for me, let's try that." So then I started this pursuit of getting on an engagement in Africa and the African offices were the new in vogue thing at the moment.
Post MBA Guest (09:58):
So then I ended up getting on an engagement with a CBG company in Nigeria and ended up being there for six months. Loved being in Nigeria, still hated consulting. So I was like, "Oh, okay. I tried something new. It's still the same." But I did love Nigeria, I loved the energy, and I'm Nigerian by background, but I grew up in the states. My parents came to [inaudible 00:10:22] after they got married, but it's the first time I'd been in Nigeria working as an adult. I'd always gone as a kid on vacations or whatever. So I was like, "Oh wow, this is great." I started making friends. So I decided to leave Nigeria, but I actually left Nigeria with two job offers.
Victoria Hefty (10:38):
Oh, nice.
Post MBA Guest (10:40):
Yeah. So Nigerians being a really small community, people know each other, I was like, "Oh, maybe I'm looking, I'm not sure." And I ended getting a job from an e-commerce player. So literally I came home from my engagement in October, told my family I'm moving to Nigeria, had an offer in hand, and moved to Nigeria the day after Christmas. So it was like, I came home, decided to pack up everything, quit my job, it was crazy.
Victoria Hefty (11:06):
So do you think the Brazil experience, looking back, helped?
Post MBA Guest (11:09):
Absolutely.
Victoria Hefty (11:09):
I mean, if you've done it once, did it make it easier? Talk to me about that.
Post MBA Guest (11:15):
Absolutely. And I think, if there's anything I learn from Brazil and also from Nigeria, what I learned is that if I set my life up where I'm unencumbered by things, I can take any opportunity or risk that I want to. So I luckily graduated from college without loans, so I got a scholarship to college, so I was able to take that risk and go live in Brazil for a year because I was like, "It's okay. Once I start paying my rent, I don't have no..." It's like, "This is it, it's over."
Post MBA Guest (11:44):
So I remember my first couple of years, I remember telling my parents, and my family, [inaudible 00:11:48] friends, they all knew this, I was anal about paying down my student loans, and everyone thought was nuts. I was paying 50, 60% of my post tech salary to my loans and everyone was like, "Why are you doing that? Just ride them out." But I was almost done by the time I decided to go to Nigeria. So for me, I should go, I'm like, "What am I waiting for? I don't have loans that are holding me back." The amount I had was small and maybe if I had stayed in the US a little bit longer I would've paid them off earlier, but I was almost done compared to where I started.
Post MBA Guest (12:18):
So I was able to take that job. So that freedom, just being like, "Hey, I'm going to see where life takes me." And that's kind of how I am in general, I try to be as open to possibilities and opportunities when they come and evaluate them. And I've realized in life that the things I tend to actively seek sometimes usually are not the best things for me, it's the things that usually just kind of come and you're like, "Okay, should I do this?" And the answer to me is usually like, "Yes." And I usually just pray about it like, "How am I feeling?" If I'm like, "Hey, I'm calm." I feel this is it, like, "God, if this is for me, I'm going to do it." And I just make those jumps and usually something great comes out of it, but because I'd done it once, you're right, in Brazil, it was like, "All right, cool. [inaudible 00:13:00]."
Victoria Hefty (13:01):
And the world didn't end, as I always like to say.
Post MBA Guest (13:04):
The world didn't end. So I will say when I left Nigeria I actually had to come back home for family reasons about three years, so I spent three and a half years in Nigeria, I thought tech was going to be the thing for me, it was the new hot thing at the time, of course. [inaudible 00:13:18] tech, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, "Okay, I don't want to be in retail because retail's dying." Everything was going left, then this was 2016. So I got this job and it was awful.
Victoria Hefty (13:30):
Talk to me about that.
Post MBA Guest (13:32):
[inaudible 00:13:32] so tough [inaudible 00:13:33]. This is where I started to learn to trust your gut, I think I felt this during the interview process, even on my first day where it was like... You know when you go through an interview process and you feel they're almost trying to see if something's wrong with you, and then I kept passing their tests and it's like, "Okay, fine." But I think I was desperate to leave Nigeria because I was trying to get back for a family issue [inaudible 00:13:56] and all of that stuff so I was like, "Oh, I really wanted it." So I kept conceding to all these things. For example, I applied for a role and then they gave me another role and I was like, "But that's not the role I applied..." So things like that you're like...
Victoria Hefty (14:09):
Yeah, are usually like... But at the time... It's much easier looking back and being like, "That should not have happened."
Post MBA Guest (14:16):
[crosstalk 00:14:16] yeah, exactly. But because I just wanted to move on and needed to get out of Nigeria [inaudible 00:14:23] move me, I need all these things, it was like, "Okay, fine." But then I'd get there and it was like, I did not vibe with my boss at all. By the end, I was having anxiety issues. So at some point I was just like, "I can't do this anymore." And literally just quit without a job, without anything, eight months in.
Victoria Hefty (14:46):
So what was that moment? Was it truly a gut, or was it a slow build up?
Post MBA Guest (14:53):
It was a slow build up, but I think the thing that really put it over the top was I think my family was like, "You're not okay. This job is not good for you." And I just realized my personal health meant more. I was going to work anxious every day, I felt I could never measure up, it was really hard for me personally, and it was kind of a low because when I came back... When I left, I ended up doing consulting work afterwards and it took me a while to feel confident in my work again because I felt the people at work had made me feel like I didn't measure up. And it was this slow chipping away that you didn't really realize until after you got out of it.
Post MBA Guest (15:33):
But I realized, for me, [inaudible 00:15:35] I jumped into Brazil, I jumped into Nigeria, that I use that same energy to jump out, and most couldn't do that, they were like, "Oh, you didn't have a job." And I'm like, "No, because my personal health was more important." And I know some other people are not okay with that. Was it hard? Yes. Did I have enough savings? No. But I just trusted that it had to work out in some way, shape, or form. And I didn't know how, but it was worth it to me to try than just sit in a place which was so clearly detrimental to my mental health at the time.
Victoria Hefty (16:07):
I obviously think you made the right decision, but now you're out of your last company, now what's going through your head? Is it like, yes, you're free from that, but now you have to literally recover?
Post MBA Guest (16:18):
The recovery was delayed because then you launch into the worries to like, "How am I going to pay my rent? What is next?" And then I went through this period of when I was looking, and this is where I started to realize that I'm in a different place than I was pre college because pre college it's like you're young, there's lots of opportunities available, but now I'm more selective because I know what I wanted, and I didn't expect it to take so long to find a new role.
Victoria Hefty (16:45):
Yes. Talk to me about that. It's always longer than we expect, even for you.
Post MBA Guest (16:51):
[crosstalk 00:16:51].
Victoria Hefty (16:51):
So you have these amazing credentials, what was your mindset going in versus the reality? That's fascinating to me.
Post MBA Guest (16:58):
Yeah. So I think, I thought I would have a job in three months, I thought, "Okay, job market, I think is great, or I think is good, I'll find something." And then you realize there's just not a lot out there that fits you. And I think this is the difference where people go out on limbs for jobs and they're like, "Oh, I'll just find a job." And it's like, "No, you want the right job. You don't want just a job." It's kind of like dating where you don't want just a person, you don't want just a man or boyfriend, you want the right person for you. And very similar to me going in focused, like I did with business school, I realized I needed that focus to find the right thing for me that I was looking for because I knew what I did not want. But then it makes the search much longer because there aren't that many types of opportunities.
Post MBA Guest (17:48):
So I even remember what wrote down. I wanted my next job or my performance not to be subjective, but truly objective. So I wanted to make sure it was rooted in numbers. I really wanted to make sure I had a manager who cared about my development. And that was super important to me because I had been in roles where I did not have that, and I recognize the difference.
Victoria Hefty (18:13):
Yeah.
Post MBA Guest (18:13):
And I was also looking for a place I could stay a while and I could see growth and I could see evolution and what that looked like. So for me, it was really evaluating those things, but I also really wanted to stay in retail. And so even when I did freelance, I turned down every offer that wasn't a retail offer. I was very focused and everyone was like, "Oh, there's a lot of things that come my way." But I was like, "Hey, I've worked for retailers, I also know that they want people with retail experience. So I want to work at a retailer." I had this focus and I was very relentless on it.
Post MBA Guest (18:45):
And luckily it worked out, but it took me... I interviewed for almost a year, interviewed many different places. Some of them I didn't get, some of them I was like, "I'm not sure if I actually want this." And turn it down. So then it was easier to be like, "No, but I wanted these things." And consulting was good for me because I [inaudible 00:19:02] friends about this to this day about the four or five pillars so that you evaluate a project, it's the same way you evaluate a job. It's location, people, industry, function. And it's like they always tell you, you can probably optimize for one, potentially two, everything else you might have to kind of roll with it.
Post MBA Guest (19:23):
And so my biggest anchors were location and industry. And so industry already, I had done by filtering the roles I interviewed for. But for me, location, I was a little bit flexible, but then I started to realize, "Maybe I'm not so flexible on that." And so what I was flexible on was function within retail, et cetera, and certain things, but I realized that location was not as flexible as I thought it was. And so for me, retail in the industry were almost non-negotiables. And so that's what I learned through the process, that maybe I might've reneged on at the beginning.
Victoria Hefty (19:59):
Exactly. So you're in your current role. I feel you can do well in your role, and clearly you were, but even within that, where you either want to try something new, or you become open to this current role you're at, what was that sort of moment?
Post MBA Guest (20:12):
So the moment was a role change that I had essentially. I loved my job , was doing really well, they asked me to build up a team for the entire organization. Then the bottom fell out, and I was like, "Oh my god." And then new people came in, and then I was asked to switch... Not asked, essentially told I was switching from my previous role to being chief of staff. And for me, I felt there's no growth in this role because I actually don't want to become my boss. In addition to that, a chief of staff, like, "I could do this in my sleep. You're asking me to do... " I'm like, "This does not challenge me."
Post MBA Guest (20:49):
At that point I was like, "I need to go." And then I started talking to people at the organization, sponsors of mine, or people I didn't know where sponsors, but people... because I remember talking to someone, I was like, "Oh, [inaudible 00:21:00]." And then she left, and I remember being like, "Everybody's leaving me!" She was like, "Even before I met you, people talk about [inaudible 00:21:08] you will find more, you will find people who are going to advocate for you even more than people who have left." And she was like, "There are people here for you, you just need to tap into them. You haven't built that yet, but your success in the org is there to build on."
Post MBA Guest (21:24):
So then there was someone that I'd gotten to know. I'd just really admired him, his work, et cetera. So we just ended up [inaudible 00:21:31] talking. I remember being like, "Let me just reach out to him." I remember telling him, I was like, "I'm looking for a job." And he was like, "Where? I was like not here." And he was like, "What are you mean?" And I was like, "I said not here."
Victoria Hefty (21:44):
"What part of that don't we understand?"
Post MBA Guest (21:46):
He was like, "Give me some time." I said, "Some time to do what?" [inaudible 00:21:49], "Give me some time." And I was like, "Okay." And then he was like, "I have this other role." And I was like, "What is this?" [inaudible 00:21:57] and I'm like, "So you mean it's everything except product, is that what you mean?" He's like, "Yeah." And I was like, "Is that a job?" He was like, "Well you just realized that there's a lot of other things that we need to do that we just didn't think of." And I was like, "Okay." So then that was the job. And this is where sponsorship really comes in because [inaudible 00:22:19] a while to get me on board, and [inaudible 00:22:22] thinking like, "Oh, maybe he's not interested." Blah, blah, blah.
Post MBA Guest (22:25):
I remember talking to the CEO again and being like, "Hey, he's taking a while, is this not for me?" Blah, blah, blah. And he goes, "No, this job is yours regardless of when he wants to onboard you, there is no one else he is allowed to consider." And I was like, "Oh." And I was like, "That makes me feel a lot better." And he was like, "There is, "Oh, if you want"." It's like, "No, the job is yours, [inaudible 00:22:47] deciding when to bring you on, but it's yours."
Post MBA Guest (22:51):
But I will say again, now what, I'm six, eight months in, [inaudible 00:22:56] think the role is great for me just because I do everything and things I didn't even think I was doing, I literally manage the budget. So anything that's numerically based, whether or not it's analytics, it's ordering product, it's ordering [inaudible 00:23:10], everything comes through me at some point. I'm learning a ton and it's been a really great transition. So when I look back at [inaudible 00:23:16] which is crazy now that we're talking about it, it's like certain things seem serendipitous, but then you start to realize all the things that you've done before start to lead up to the thing that you're in now.
Victoria Hefty (23:27):
So sort of looking back and retelling your story, what emotion, or feeling, or memories is that even invoking now as you hear it?
Post MBA Guest (23:35):
Yeah. I think that what it invokes in me now is that everyone's journey is unique and different, but you are where you need to be. And I think that is that's really hard, I think for most of the type A's in us, when things don't go our way for a certain period of time, and we think that, oh, we're being set back. And I think when you look at your career you realize that every single setback, every single positive thing was all part of the journey, it was necessary to get where you are today. Take each step purposely and just continue [inaudible 00:24:07] journey.
Victoria Hefty (24:10):
Thank you for listening to this episode. If you are interested in crafting your next career move or reading the transcript of the conversation, please visit postmbapivot.com. Finally, if you enjoyed today's discussion, make sure to leave a review and subscribe to receive the next episode.
