Junior Investment Banker

Suits and Wolf of Wall Street made investment banking look like glass towers and corner offices. The reality is closer to a 22 year old at a desk in Midtown Manhattan helping build the pitch deck that wins a billion dollar deal, one logo and one chart at a time. A first year analyst sits at the bottom of a four stage pyramid. Analyst, associate, vice president, managing director. Each layer above sharpens the work. The associate asks for a fix. The vice president asks for two more. The managing director asks for a new angle entirely. The analyst turns it all by morning. By version 44, the deck is polished enough to land in front of a Fortune 500 board. The day is built around Excel and PowerPoint.