6.00 AM
My alarm goes off at 6 am every day. This gives me time to fit in some exercise before heading into the office. I live out of the city so I aim to catch a train around 8.00 am.
8.30 AM
When I get to the office I start my day with admin. In corporate finance, we often work across a few projects at the same time. I’m currently working across two projects – a transaction and a model build. Transactions tend to be fast-paced so I spend some time in the morning in meetings and catching up with others in the project team to create a plan for the day.
9.30 AM
For the morning, I am working on building an activity-based costing model. For the past month, I have been involved in the scope and design of the model. This has involved a lot of meetings with the client to understand their processes, the information available, and the required functionality.
Today we have a model design whiteboarding session. This involves discussing the key outputs, structure, and functionality of the model to ensure the model is built logically. The next step is to start building the model in Excel.
12.00 PM
At 12, a number of the team members take a break for lunch. I’m not the most organised when it comes to making my lunch, so I tend to buy lunch most days – luckily there are a number of options close to the office.
1.00 PM
I have a daily call with one of my project teams. There is currently a mix of people working from the office and working from home. This provides a point of contact to discuss progress and also raise questions or issues.
1.30 PM
I spend my afternoon working on a transaction in which we are providing buy-side advice. My job today involves creating the data workbook – an Excel file that collates the information provided and analysis on the target company. This includes financial information (such as historical performance, forecasts, balance sheet, assets, and working capital analysis) and non-financial performance measures.
5.00 PM
Around 5.00 pm we all start packing up for the day.