Typical Day

When I am not on client calls (individually or jointly with colleagues from other product groups, such as investment banking and/or debt capital markets) or on due diligence site visits, my day usually starts with reviewing my BlackBerry calendar of meetings and things to do, while commuting on the subway.  I will also glance over the latest news from a few publications which come directly into my mail box.  Once I arrive in the office, I’ll spend about 30 minutes reviewing documents, and reading online industry information and project finance journals.  

As a relationship manager, my duties include business development, which means I’ll spend time at lunch or coffee meetings with prospective clients and also with counterparts at other banks, colleagues at law firms or independent consulting firms, and attending client entertainment events.  Also, given our portfolio management responsibilities, we will have multiple requests, annual reviews to complete during the review season (May to August). As such, I work closely with our Associates and Associate Directors. I will check in with them several times each day to determine the status of any time-sensitive requests and to discuss upcoming work flow. 

While the days are usually shorter than in investment banking, we will see high priority M&A financings that result in spikes of 16 or more hours per day for 3 – 4 days and possibly require working on weekends to execute and close.  Furthermore, there is no real downtime as even if there are no active project or acquisition financings, you are constantly working.  There are always many portfolio maintenance activities that require my attention, emerging industry trends to be aware of given the dynamic nature of the power and utilities industry, or financial information and MD&A reports to review in order to identify potential business opportunities.