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Jimmy Lee
We caught up with Lee on the phone this week before Bloomberg's "The Year Ahead" summit and he shared his keys to success.
"I think it's just a few thing that you have to do every day," Lee told us.
Here they are:
1. Work hard.
"You have to work really hard. There's just no getting around that."
2. Become an expert.
"You have to know each of the major products exceptionally well. You've got to know high-yield debt. You've got to know investment grade debt. You've got to know loan syndication. You've got to know M&A. You've got to know IPOs and follow-ons, i.e. the equity business. You have to have a deep vertical experience and expertise."
3. Don't be afraid to give honest, objective advice to powerful people.
"You have to be unafraid of just telling the truth, especially with respect to CEOs. A lot of bankers are always looking to please the CEO, and in doing do they please them, but they may not give them, you know, objective advice. So I think being honest, open and give you best objective advice and be unafraid as to what can happen from that so long as you've thought it through. "
4. Don't underestimate the importance of working well with people.
"The most successful people tend to have relatively high IQs and relatively high EQs [the emotional quotient]. So having strong EQ and just fundamental working well with people I think is very, very important. Because investment banking at the end of the day-it's very technical, it's very complicated, but once you've learned all those skills it's really just about people. If you are a really good student of people and hopefully have a relatively high EQ, then you are better able to both work with them and you're better able to make bets on them. Because a lot of what you do when you get to my level, you know, I can sort of simplify it by saying 'I make bets on people.' Because at the end of the day, companies are run by people, managed by people and lead by people. And while every industry is different and every company is different, there's no substitute for a great leader. So my job is to both find those great leaders and put bets on them and also be experienced enough to avoid the people we shouldn't be making bets on."
On November 13-14, Lee will be speaking at Bloomberg's "The Year Ahead" summit where he'll talk about industry and economic issues going into 2015 along with other top executives.