Case studies: Analyst: Mary

Mary completed a degree in accounting and finance at Lancaster University in 2007 before moving on to do a Masters in Management at Imperial College Business School in 2008. She now works as an analyst within corporate debt products at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

In 2007, I secured a ten-week summer internship at Bank of America’s Portfolio Management department (now called Debt Products) through Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO). Following my ten-week placement, I was offered a full-time job for the 2008 graduate scheme in the same department.

I secured my role after completing my first degree in accounting and finance. This degree was extremely relevant in achieving my job and continues to be relevant in the performance of my job. During my internship, I was able to apply my academic knowledge of interpreting and analysing financial statements, corporate finance and modelling, as well as business and economic analysis. Having this background set a very strong foundation for the steep learning curve that exists in a banking role. That being said, very thorough and relevant training was provided, which prepared me adequately for my job.

A typical day does not really exist. I start by checking email and voicemail, and catch up on any financial news. I also have a brief catch-up with my primary team to see if there is anything imminent on their schedules that they require my support on.

If I am on a transaction, I would call the deal team to get updates on the deal. Following this, I continue work on the transaction flow. As an analyst, my work on a deal would be building models, reading due diligence materials, writing the credit approval memo, as well as managing the flow of operational issues. There are usually a number of short meetings throughout the day when there is a transaction going on.

When there are no deals, I work through my monitoring deadlines, completing quarterly financial reviews for clients in my portfolio.

I began in 2008 covering the healthcare portfolio and now I cover the leveraged finance portfolio as well. There is a natural progression expected in this role so there is definitely much more responsibility than when I started. As a first year analyst, I was responsible mainly for the written credit analysis and modelling, with no primary account responsibility. Now as a third year analyst, I continue with these but I also manage junior members of the team and the off-site analyst team.

My future is certainly in finance and I look forward to continuing to develop my experience.

I get to use and learn new skills daily, usually whilst working on a number of landmark financial transactions, which I really enjoy. I have had the opportunity to meet with senior executives and managers of companies that I encounter daily in the market place. The bank’s culture is also a perfect fit for me and the members of my team are great to work with.

This is an extremely fast paced role which calls for a higher level of efficiency in order to deliver to the clients’ expectations, which can be very challenging. I am a part-time student, so achieving a good work-life balance can be extremely difficult.

I would advise those who want to enter this career to be proactive and make academic and social choices that will aid you along the way.