job description

I am a Division Portfolio Manager and Vice President of the Southeast Region of the United States for a large global investment firm. I work out of our corporate office in Chicago.

Our overall goal is to manage the financial well-being of our customers on every level. The two teams that I manage are responsible for the day-to-day operations and servicing of an existing portfolio of roughly 600 commercial loans ranging from $100,000 to $3 million. We monitor the financial statements of our existing clients. This involves analyzing risk and making sure their financial capabilities are in line with our lending requirements. We provide loan increases and renewals to our existing clients. When the term of a loan has expired, or there is a need to increase a loan amount for a client, we take care of that for them. We are also responsible for monitoring all aspects of the loan performance of our existing clients. Monitoring performance means collecting payments, making sure payments are made, answering customer service inquiries and taking care of any other client needs that come up.

We have two different sets of issues that can occur in terms of themes. One is credit risk. We underwrite and analyze credit risk for commercial loans. So if a client's business is not doing well, then that company will have issues that appear in their financial statements or in how they are using their credit resources. As a result, we need to mitigate and manage risk. We're really risk managers, because if a client is demonstrating a lot of financial risk to our company, we need to reduce our risk as much as possible. This may be through restructuring or eliminating loans, increasing interest rates or fees and making sure we are compensated for our risk.

The other set of issues comes from customer service. Our primary customers, aside from the clients we lend to, are our financial advisors. These financial advisors are people that sell a number of products to their clients and they are not used to being told "no" about certain loans. As a result, we need to manage their expectations so they are getting what they want, but at the same time we are not taking on any undue risk that would cause our firm to be in jeopardy.

We deal with large and small companies. We deal with doctors, lawyers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, wholesalers, parts suppliers, restaurants, pizza franchises, and so on. Any industry you can think of, we probably have in our books. However, there are certain industries we avoid. We don't usually deal with industries that are highly politically-charged, such as gambling or gun shops. Industries that we have determined to be higher risk and only take on an exception basis are construction contractors, printers, independent restaurants and retailers. Anything else is fair game.

I have final say on all loans. We have a two-signature process; one of my underwriters will sign off on a loan and then gives it to me for final approval.

There's a lot of variety from day to day. All of our clients and their financing needs are different from each other. My teams deal with all of the items I mentioned, and as issues or needs arise, they bring them to me. Those issues or needs are rarely the same, so there is quite a bit of variation in what we do.

I do travel, although it is not a regular occurrence. I usually travel about 15 business days out of the year. I try to visit the Southeast region at least a couple of times each year. This year, I will probably travel about six times. Some of those trips will be very brief, and some may last a couple of days. I'll visit Atlanta, Florida, Washington D.C., and Baltimore. My region covers the Southeast portion of the U.S. from Maryland to Florida, and everything east of Texas.

education & career path

I was a finance major in college. During my sophomore and junior years, I got my introduction to banking by working as a bank teller. I worked part-time on the days that I didn't have class. During my senior year, I moved over to the bank's commercial credit department, where I reviewed financial statements, input them into our system and examined any issues that were going on with a client.

Actually, my intent was not to be in banking or commercial lending. I wanted to be a stockbroker, at least until I realized how much selling and cold-calling were involved. I was interested more in the numbers, as opposed to reaching out to clients and selling them something. At that point, given the fact that I was already in the commercial lending field, it felt like continuing in banking was a more natural fit for my interests and finance degree.

After I graduated from college, I took a position as a credit analyst with a large regional bank in Detroit. There, I was trained to analyze and underwrite financial statements for customers, which was an easy transition given my previous commercial banking experience. In this position, I recorded my thoughts on deals and made evaluations and recommendations. After two years as a credit analyst, I took a position working in a more specific niche of commercial credit, at a captive finance company for a large automotive manufacturer in Chicago. My job was to make financial decisions and provide the financing for the vehicle inventory of car dealerships. After a few years in that position, I moved on to a large national bank and worked as a portfolio officer. This position was similar to what I do now, but I didn't work in a management capacity. I knew I wanted to get into management, so I got my master's in business administration and found that opportunity here at my current company, where I've been since.

I've definitely had mentors and people that have taken an interest in my career. I would consider my boss from my first after-college job in Detroit a mentor. He did a good job of helping me see the issues and see more than just what was on paper. This served me well in terms of being able to excel in my career roles and in being promoted to where I am today.

I will be in this position for the next few years. The next step would be the position of the person who I report to, who is the head of our business. I don't see me taking over that position anytime soon, because my boss is a 30-year banker with a significantly greater amount of experience than I've had over my 15 years in the business. Right now I am a regional manager, but if we were to grow our business to the point where it was necessary to create another level of management, I would be interested in assuming that role. Ultimately, I would like to take on the position of my current manager.

my day

Our required hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. I am usually in the office by 8 a.m. and leave around 5 p.m. Depending on what I am working on, there are days when it is necessary for me to come in earlier or leave later. Our company actually has a shorter workday than many in the industry. Like any company, we have some employees that will work those seven hours days and some that will work nine or 10 hours.

The first things I do when I get into the office are log onto my computer, and then go to the vending machine for my morning caffeine. When I get back to my desk, I go through my emails and voicemails. I get to the office earlier than most of my team, so I am also able to take care of any pending busy work in the morning. Then, once my team arrives, I meet with them to see what is going on for the day and whether there is anything that needs my involvement.

As I mentioned, there is significant variety in my job and no two days are the same. However, there are certain things we do every single day. I typically spend 25 percent of every day reading credit approval memos and documents detailing company profiles, financial risks and financial trends before signing off on them. The remainder of my day involves phone calls, conversations, looking at reports and managing the day-to-day operations of the business.

Our dress is business casual, which means khakis and a button-down shirt for guys, and the equivalent attire for women. Occasionally we'll wear jeans on Fridays for charity. Employees can pay five dollars to wear jeans for the day, and that money will be donated to charity. We'll also do a pledge drive where an employee can donate a certain portion of their paycheck to the March of Dimes or another charity, and in exchange, that employee can wear jeans for a certain amount of time. However, if we have a meeting with a client in our office or go to visit them, then business suits are appropriate.

Between my two teams there are 14 men and six women. All are college educated ,and this is the first job out of college for seven of them. It makes work fun because we have a relatively youthful culture where most of the team members are around the same age and have a lot of common interests. Many of us have become friends, and sometimes we'll get together outside of work for happy hour or maybe to play cards.

salary & lifestyle

In my position, the salary range would be between $70,000 and $100,000. To give an example for those just getting started in finance, the salary for my first job out of college was $26,000. However, that was 15 years ago. Someone who is just out of college and brand new to our organization will make between $45,000 and $50,000. Obviously, as I have been promoted and accepted new positions along the way, my salary has increased.

Yes. Many firms have a performance-based model of compensation, meaning if you are doing well in your position, you will be paid accordingly. The way our company has it set up is that we have a very competitive base salary, but the year-end bonus is a very substantial portion of our total compensation package. So, in the case of someone like myself, in a good year, that bonus could be comparable to my base salary. Some firms may handle bonuses differently. Some banks will look at the base salary as being the biggest portion of compensation, and any bonuses would be a much smaller piece. Other banks where employees have more of a sales component or variable-income structure may have a small base salary with the opportunity for large bonuses.

For me to get my job done, it takes 40 to 45 hours per week. I'd have to say that in comparison to others in my position, it is a little on the light side. However, I attribute that to the fact that I have been doing this long enough to know how to work efficiently.

It's definitely had its good moments and bad moments. Trying to get my master's degree to further my career was a significant time constraint. It required me to be away from my family several nights a week and tied up my weekends with homework. That was very difficult.

Now, for the most part, my career doesn't have the same sacrifice of time that school and previous jobs required. I am able to work a short enough day to still spend time with my family at night, be on a basketball league and so on. My current position has really benefited my family and social lives. I make enough money that my family doesn't need a second source of income. It offers my wife the ability to stay home with our two kids. Socially, I have also made a number of friends at work that I associate with outside of the office.

Our company is very community and charity-oriented. We are involved in a number of events where we donate money, collect money or have fundraisers for various causes. We spend time at local schools helping with reading initiatives or improving facilities. We also spend time doing corporate challenges where we are out there making a difference and making a commitment to the social scene. Charity and community involvement are cornerstones of our firm.

pros, cons & trends

My job is fairly stable. When you start working for larger national or global banks, you gain a lot more stability than in smaller regional or community banks. Typically, any lack of stability in positions like mine comes from being acquired by another firm. If you are working for a smaller firm, then the chance of being bought out by another company is much greater. When larger companies acquire small firms, job stability is decreased due to consolidation or the elimination of your position. It is unlikely that a firm such as mine would be bought out. If it were, it would be a mega-merger that would have a ripple effect across the entire industry, so it isn't very likely.

I'd say technology has initiated some of the biggest changes since I started my career, and especially over the last five years. Technology has advanced so quickly over recent years that what we used to do as more of a manual process has become automated. While that never fully replaces the involvement of people or client interaction, there is a lot of automation in the financial service industry. I think that's for the better. It has allowed us to be more efficient, and has allowed us to reallocate our resources where we can use fewer people to do more work.

Regulations significantly impact financial services, and since September 11, there have been a lot of changes in terms of regulation in our industry. Now we really have to know the people we are doing business with. We have to understand the customer and we have to know how they operate. We have to make sure we are making prudent lending decisions, because the majority of banks in the U.S. are federally regulated and insured. So, the federal government wants to make sure that the lending of insured funds is done in a careful and low-risk manner.

Our field is pretty much the same. In terms of financial services and lending needs, those are about the same today as they were yesterday. However, the number of businesses in the country may have gone down due to what's happening in the job market and migration of companies overseas. There's also the dynamic of frequent mergers and acquisitions within the financial services industry. So, there may be fewer people providing the same services. There may have been a little bit of shrinkage, but for the most part it has been fairly stable. Even though there may be fewer companies and banks in the country, there will always be lending needs, and U.S. companies are going to get financing from U.S. banks.

The economy. When the economy is robust and growing, people are going to be borrowing money. Businesses are going to be out looking for investments or seeking to expand their facilities, and banks are going to be more likely to lend that money. On the other hand, when we are entering a recessionary period, there is a lot of contraction in the market and businesses are less likely to make big investments or finance additional items. In an economy that is not doing well, businesses are typically looking to cut expenses as opposed to taking on additional debt.

advice

Clearly, the practical knowledge I have gained through my experience in this industry would have been helpful. The fact that I now know and have seen examples of almost any scenario I might face allows me to make better decisions. In terms of just starting out in this industry or getting a new job, I would make sure I knew what I was worth before I started interviewing for jobs. I would want to make sure I was getting paid market value as opposed to just whatever was offered to me.

Go out and look at various job postings or surveys to determine what the average salary is within a specific field, or what recent college graduates are being paid. That way, when you get an offer, you have a comparison for reference. Some offers are going to be higher than the average, and some will be lower. Knowing what you are worth and not being afraid to negotiate can work in your favor.

The caveat is when the job market is tight and not a lot of positions are available, you may not have the same power to negotiate as you might when the job market is good. When I first started out of college, I was happy to take any position that helped me pay my bills. Now, I would not take any job that didn't pay me what I feel I am worth.

Within my specific field there are better parts of the country to work. Chicago, New York, Charlotte and San Francisco are good markets. Basically any of the top 10 major metropolitan areas have large banking and financial markets.

It really depends. If you are looking at credit underwriting, which is the primary function of what we do, you should be analytical, enjoy working with numbers and enjoy client interaction. But if you are someone who likes to always be out and about, and are not number or analytically savvy, then this probably wouldn't be a good fit.

Regardless of whether you just graduated or are in another field looking to switch, as long as you have a bachelor's degree in finance, accounting, economics or even a general degree, that's a good place to start. Every bank or financial firm is going to have a training program for new hires to prepare them for their job. You don't ever get taught to do what we do in school because it is so specific. These training programs allow you to go in and spend a few months learning the basics and learn how to do the job that we do, then you will be placed in a position that matches your strengths and aptitude. It is certainly helpful to have a degree in a related field, but we have some people working here that don't have financial degrees. I would strongly recommend for those still in college to get an internship, paid or unpaid, or a part-time job at a local bank to get a feel for how the industry works. Banks are always looking to hire people during the summer.

Confidence impresses me, but not to the point of cockiness. Cockiness turns me off, but confidence in your ability and being able to articulate what you are trying to say is impressive. Be prepared. Know something about the organization you are interviewing with and be ready to ask questions. I am not just interviewing you; you should be interviewing me at the same time. I want to know that you are just as interested in us as we are in you. For you to ask me questions shows that you're interested, and it shows that you are paying attention. That is a good demonstration of aptitude, because as I ask you questions, you may ask me something back that parallels or leads to something else that shows you understand what we do here. Your resume is also going to tell us about you. Is your resume impressive? What kind of grades, work and education experience or extracurricular activities do you have that will set you apart?