What's your job about?
The Deal Advisory team provides commercial advice to public and private clients through corporate finance, transaction advice, strategy, M&A, business integration & separation and deal analytics.
A great aspect about the Wellington Deals team is you don’t have to pick a specific area to specialise in. In the past year I have had the opportunity to work on a range of engagements across several areas including buy-side and sell-side engagements (Transaction advice), valuations (Corporate finance) and multiple Government jobs across Health and Infrastructure. All of which brings in a range of skills, both qualitative and quantitative.
The work we do is always dependent on the nature of the engagement and what the client needs. One of the highlights about working in different areas within the Deals team is that through different engagements I get to explore different industries and businesses across both private and public sector.
What's your background?
I grew up in Levin, a small town out of Wellington. During high school I developed an interest in investing which sparked my interest in taking economics and studying commerce at university. I was one of three students who took economics in Year 12 and 13. In 2019, I moved down to Wellington for university and spent just over a year here before moving home for the first round of COVID-19 lockdowns.
I studied a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Finance and Data Science at Victoria University of Wellington. Finance was something I had always been interested in and I took Data Science because I wanted to challenge myself in something new. I interned at a small IT firm before interning in the KPMG Deal Advisory team in Wellington. This was an awesome opportunity to get a better understanding of what the team does, and I knew it was somewhere I wanted to start my career. After the internship, I started the graduate program in February 2022.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes, anyone who likes problem solving would be a great fit in this role. The team tends to naturally attract people with a finance background, but we also have people who studied, Biology, Public Policy, Geography, Information systems and Engineering. Having a finance, economics or accounting background gives you a good idea of what our work involves, but it’s not a must! A lot of the skills required for my role can be learnt on the job and the team are great at giving the support needed for this. It can be scary at first but with self-motivation and an ability to learn, anything is possible.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
My daily highlight is a morning coffee from The Exchange (home of in-house coffee and $2 cheese scones). After a coffee, I start work for the day.
The people in the team makes my day so much more exciting! I have worked with almost everyone in the team on different engagements, and it’s the people who make different jobs enjoyable to be on. Our workload fluctuates depending on what projects we have on, some more time pressured than others, but we all know we’re all there to get the job done together.
What are the limitations of your job?
A day in Deals will depend on the nature of engagements at the time. Some jobs are more fast-paced and time pressured than others, but being able to work in a team and having good time management will minimise the chances of having to work late. Most of the jobs in Deals have a quantitative analysis component to it so anyone who likes working with numbers would enjoy the work we do!
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