This is an amazing story of quitting your job in the City. This young woman, whom I mentored for several years, had enough of her current employer. This very large city firm is poorly run, this young woman was earning a large salary, and she was probably the most productive in the M&A practice.
Over the past six months, we prepared for her exit from the company. Yes, it takes that long. The process was driven by her need for a three-month sabbatical to finish her PhD dissertation. She is number two in a large UK institution M&A team and her boss hates her guts, mainly because she's a woman. He was more than happy to see her take leave because he would be able to engineer her firing.
On November 30th of 2023, she began her sabbatical, what he boss didn't understand was that several clients had paused their projects until she returned. So in November she finished her last project and left the firm, with all her things, as her office would be given to her "temporary" replacement.
By January 30th her dissertation had been accepted. She approached a large foreign firm that had been trying to acquire talent in the City for some time with a package deal. She would bring her entire team over. The new firm agreed and drafted contracts.
On March 1, 2024, she went to meet with her old boss, and with human resources to re-integrate the firm. Her boss had been efficient and used the 90 days to undermine her, going as far as to show that her first quarter 2024 performance was down 75%, neglecting to say that she was on leave.
The decision had already been made, and HR offered a severance package which represented 150% of her average compensation over the past two years, and no garden leave, as she had been already away for 90 days.
We could only imagine his surprise when by the end of the day her old boss got seven resignations. Her entire team left the firm (mostly women). On April 1, 2024, they will officially join her at her new firm. I have no idea if her old boss saw the announcement in the FT. She was named the head of the new M&A group at this well-capitalized institution. She started working last Monday. She already has 10 deals in the pipeline...
I had been mentoring her for five years. In our monthly conversations, it had become evident that she was reaching a breaking point. We discussed her leaving in March 2023. She had been with the same firm for 5 years. Resigning abruptly would be bad for her career prospects, but leaving for 90 days to finish her PhD was something else, and it covered her for the obligatory garden leave. Moreover, it gave her the chance to close all her deals and allowed her boss to undermine her with management. There was no way of knowing if she could find a new job after she finished her PhD, but her timing was excellent, and so she was able to negotiate a very good deal. She signed the contract Friday afternoon the 1st of March 2024.
Her old firm is now falling out of the UK M&A league table, her 90-day garden leave didn't help, but her old boss had counted on the 10 deals she took with her to her new job to make up the numbers in Q2/24. Now he has lost 20% of his team and nearly 40% of new deal revenues. That's going to hurt!
Note: some timing and details have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty! This was an elegant exit. They wanted her gone, and so she left. The FT announcement was low-key and part of an entire discussion about her new employer's activities in the UK. It's more than likely that no one at her old firm realized that she was now a direct competitor...
Note2: She is one of two people I agreed to mentor, a favour to an old university tutor. An easy ask considering that I was leaving the City to become a farmer.
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