Earlier this month, I started a new chapter of my career – one that caught almost everyone by surprise: I returned to investment banking – but not just any banking seat.
I rejoined my former managing director from Moelis, who was hired as Partner and Global Co-Head of Business Services M&A at one of the most elite and historically significant investment banks in the world, an institution with over 200 years of heritage in strategic advisory.
Since I announced my return, many friends and colleagues have asked the same question: Why banking again?
It’s a fair question. Private equity is considered the promised land of high finance, and it IS very rare to see people return to investment banking after making the leap. I wanted to share my full story here in case it is helpful to anyone navigating a similar crossroads. To best explain my decision, I think it makes the most sense to start from the beginning…
Moelis: Where It All Started
The truth is that I actually enjoyed my investment banking analyst program, which I know isn’t something you hear often. Yes, there were many all nighters and rough days… but Moelis is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I feel extremely blessed to have started my M&A career at a firm that set an incredibly high standard for delivering bespoke, high quality, and unconflicted strategic advisory to its clients. I also received hands-on technical training, support, and mentorship from some of the sharpest people at the firm, and all the best practices they taught me still serve me very well to this day.
Working at such a firm helped me realize that I genuinely enjoy advisory. Many of the mandates I worked on were highly complex, and I often found myself as a fly on the wall in rooms where MDs and group heads came together to brainstorm the best path forward for our clients, watching how they structured solutions in real time. I also loved the feeling of closing deals – not just because of deal toys or fancy closing dinners, but because it meant we had successfully delivered a solution for our clients.
After completing my analyst program, I went on to fulfill my long-held dream of working in private equity – but I never closed the door on investment banking, especially if it meant working with the people who shaped the beginning of my career… which brings me to the most common question:
What was it about private equity that made me want to go back into investment banking?
I started my large-cap private equity career in April 2021 which was a very interesting time in the market. M&A activity was picking up again after the volatility of COVID-19. Interest rates were still near zero. Debt was cheap, and private equity firms were announcing record fundraises left and right. At the time, no one realized the good times would only last another 8 months.
I’m glad I joined early enough to catch the last wave of the bull market because it gave me perspective – a real-time contrast between what private equity looks like in a hot market versus a downturn. The ultra low interest rate environment (which lasted from late 2008 to early 2022) had shaped a generation of investors, but those who entered private equity during that time had not experienced the full impact of macroeconomic headwinds. On top of that, the industry is much more mature now than it was in 2008. The industry is ripe for consolidation, which we’ve seen with many of the larger sponsors evolving into global asset managers and expanding into various asset classes such as private credit and real estate.
2021 was a phenomenal year for Wall Street – and certainly a busy one for me. Investment bankers were flooding our inboxes with new opportunities. Raising debt was easy – lenders were calling us offering to fund entire tranches at attractive terms. The fundraising momentum was so strong that we were laser focused on deploying capital as quickly as possible to pave the way for the next fund. It was a period of go, go, go. I closed a platform acquisition quite literally on December 31, 2021. What none of us knew was that this would be our last platform deal for the next two years.
The high from closing that deal faded within a couple weeks with the FOMC meeting in January 2022 that signaled rate hikes were on the horizon. As interest rates climbed from near zero to ~4.5% throughout the year, I saw the not-so-glamorous side of private equity emerge – faster and more clearly than I had expected.
Fundraising had slowed down significantly as LPs paused private equity fund commitments to preserve liquidity. Private equity firms that once seemed indestructible were shutting down. Raising debt financing was difficult with lenders requiring minimum 50% equity checks… all of which is very concerning when your current fund is depleted. These conditions affected the private equity industry as a whole, but it was particularly painful for large-cap funds like mine that are heavily reliant on leverage.
By the end of 2022, I felt very different from how I did the year before. I knew I didn’t love private equity – but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. Was it just market whiplash? Was it because I was in Los Angeles, far away from my friends and community in New York? Was I simply not happy at my current firm? In hindsight, it was a mix of all three, but at the time, I wanted to take more time to reflect and test whether I might enjoy the work more at a different firm before leaving the industry altogether.
Around my 2.5-year mark in private equity, I was recruited to join a new fund that had spun out from my first private equity firm. I decided to take the plunge for three key reasons:
- They had raised a sizable first-time fund in a tough market, which was a strong signal of investor confidence – and it also meant they had fresh capital to deploy
- Their strategy focused on middle and lower middle market LBOs and carveouts, which were still seeing decent deal flow and were less impacted by the broader financing headwinds
- It was a leaner, more entrepreneurial team, in contrast to my first PE firm’s large, institutionalized platform with a massive operations team
I learned a ton at the spinout fund and was surprised at how much more complex smaller deals are compared to large cap deals in terms of financials, operations, and structure. After about six months at the new fund, I still didn’t love private equity but this time I was more certain about why.
So what did I not like about private equity?
The biggest reason: I enjoyed M&A execution but not the portfolio and operations work. I don’t think enough people talk about what it is really like when your portfolio companies are on fire. It’s almost taboo to talk about the ugly truths of portfolio management. Of the six portfolio companies I covered, four are either distressed, actively undergoing restructuring, or have already gone through an out-of-court bankruptcy.
When a portfolio company is in trouble, it completely consumes your capacity – and often, you’re assigned to it despite having had no involvement during the original acquisition. You often have no relationship with the management team, no context, and yet you are expected to lead the clean-up.
The internal politics of struggling portfolio companies is also very challenging. You could have a view on the best path forward for your portfolio company, but that could go against the ego of the partner who led the original acquisition. You also have no time for new deals, which are a source of revenue and career visibility. It reminded me that private equity is not just about buying… you also very much need to enjoy being an operator – and I did not.
The second reason I did not love private equity was that I often felt constrained by the fund mandate. This might be more specific to my experience as a value investor, but all the deals I worked on eventually started to look the same: single-digit EBITDA multiple opportunities in melting ice cube or commoditized assets in sectors like automotive, semiconductors, and industrial tooling and equipment…
Fund mandate aside, I think there were fundamentally different views on what value investing really means. When I started private equity, I was told, “Any deal can be a great deal at the right price.” Sure, you can acquire a melting ice cube for 5x EBITDA – but I always asked my teams, “If we acquire this, how are we going to exit it?” If you buy an ugly sweater for $1, is it really a good deal if it’s worn beyond repair and you can’t sell it even for that same dollar?
I was an industry generalist all throughout investment banking and private equity, and my favorite sector was business services. It’s a broad, fragmented space with a variety of business models from BPOs, consultancies and accounting firms, environmental services, tech-enabled services, and even HVAC and janitorial services. I underwrote a lot of deals in the sector, but in value-oriented private equity, those businesses often got ruled out due to higher multiples.
I missed the variety of deals that I would see and work on in investment banking because investment banks aren’t constrained or limited by what deals they can take on, assuming there are no conflicts or fee economics issues.
Now that I know why I don’t like private equity… Now what?
At this point, I had spent nearly four years in private equity across two firms, market cycles, and deal sizes, and I now understood what I did not love about my experience. But that still raised the question: what do I do next?
I spent my last year in private equity reflecting on what I valued in my career. I spoke with my mentors. I explored common paths from my finance peers: business school, entrepreneurship, or corporate development… none of which interested me. I also considered adjacent spaces like secondaries, which is booming right now but felt too niche, and frankly, I believe many sponsors are misusing continuation vehicles for the wrong assets for the sake of generating DPI. In my humble opinion, this is just kicking the can down the road for five or so years.
One day, I was catching up with my friend from Moelis where I told him, “I like M&A and running processes, I really don’t like portfolio work, and I just want to go from deal to deal to deal,” to which he replied, “That is literally investment banking. You should come back.”
Coming Full Circle
That comment reminded me that the parts of finance I loved most – structuring deals, solving complex problems, collaborating under pressure, connecting clients to investors – were all core to advisory. Now that I had seen the full arc of a private equity cycle, I had a better appreciation for what kind of environment I thrived in.
I started reconnecting with my former colleagues and bosses from Moelis. When I shared my intent to return to banking, this time with a stronger sense of who I was and what kind of work I wanted to do, the response was overwhelmingly positive: “As long as you’re sure, we’d love to have you back.”
The opportunity to rejoin my former managing director – an amazing dealmaker with integrity and someone who has had an immense impact on my professional growth – felt like everything had come full circle. This wasn’t a step back—it was a return to what I loved, with clarity, purpose, and years of buyside experience in hand.
Final Thoughts
Investment banking gets a rep for being about “moving logos at 3am” – which, yes, I have done as an analyst – but I personally think it’s a lot more than that.
Great advisory requires creativity. Selling a business at the highest possible price isn’t just about numbers – it’s about storytelling, positioning, and connecting clients with the right future partners. It’s about becoming someone that founders and CEOs trust in the most pivotal moments of their lives.
There is no “right” path to building a career in finance, but I do think there is immense value in taking the time to reflect, experiment, and be honest about what energizes you – and what doesn’t.
The last few years have been challenging, but I am so happy to be where I am now, working with a boss and team who invest in my professional development and finding intellectual fulfillment covering my favorite sector. I am grateful I gave myself the space to properly explore and reflect on what I value in my life and career.
If you made it this far, thank you. If you are at a crossroads yourself, I hope my story gives you the courage to pause, reflect, and trust your gut – even if the answer surprises you.
Thank you for reading,
Phyllis
