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&lt;p&gt;After slogging away as an analyst and associate, working 93-hour workweeks, making under a measly $247,000 per year, you finally make it to VP. And that&#39;s when the big bucks start rolling in. As a vice prez, you spend a few years leaving the office before midnight, lead a few deals, earning your bank some bank, and then what happens?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;embeddedObject&quot; src=&quot;http://content.screencast.com/users/dloos/folders/Jing/media/b9565d78-ea30-4d0f-b46b-eb3975a11199/00000132.png&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; width=&quot;218&quot; height=&quot;285&quot; align=&quot;left&quot; /&gt;Director.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&#39;s right, bigger bucks, the babes, the folding chair, and one step away from mighty MD land.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And when you do hit director status, in addition to the aforementioned benefits, you can expect a much shorter day in the office—when, that is, you&#39;re in the office. As a director, it&#39;s likely you&#39;ll spend at least a fourth of your time on the road, drumming up b&#39;ness.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But seriously, here is what a 12-hour period might really look like, from home to office.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h2&gt;A Day in the Life of an Investment Banking Director at Baird (in Chicago):&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7:30 AM:&#160;&lt;/strong&gt;Wake up and check my phone. Typically I&#39;ll have 15 to 20&#160;emails and today&#39;s no different. Half are industry-related (one&#39;s from MergerMarket, revealing yesterday&#39;s announced deals in my industry; another&#39;s from our equity capital markets desk, with all the public filings in my industry). Of the other half, five are spam and five I have to respond to. Of those, one is from a European client. It&#39;s night there; I spend 15 minutes responding.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8:00 AM:&#160;&lt;/strong&gt;Take the train to the office (I live in the city and take the Brown Line). On the way I read &lt;em&gt;The Wall Street Journal&lt;/em&gt; (I usually get about halfway through the first section during my commute).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8:30 AM:&#160;&lt;/strong&gt;Arrive at the office; check email and voicemail. Immediately respond to all the emails I can to respond to quickly—if I don&#39;t have to, I don&#39;t like to leave them to later. Two emails require a bit of follow-up before I can respond. For one, I need some information from a colleague in Boston. For another, I need to do some research on five potential buyers. After I get what I need, I respond to both.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9:30 AM:&#160;&lt;/strong&gt;Work on my calendar for an industry trade show I have next week. I&#39;ve been arranging meetings in advance. I put in a good hour emailing people, confirming times and meetings.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;10:30 AM:&#160;&lt;/strong&gt;Meeting regarding a pitch we have coming up in three weeks. I&#39;m overseeing the execution of the pitch. I meet with a VP, associate and analyst, and we go over what we&#39;ll need to do to get the pitch together. The pitch is a sell-side deal, so we walk through who the potential buyers might be, what we&#39;re going to highlight, the valuations we&#39;ll need to do, etc. It&#39;s more of a discussion than me just giving orders. Everyone participates, not just listens. The potential client is a private company that, in addition to us, is talking to two other banks. The presentation will ultimately be a two-hour sit-down with the firm; we&#39;ll be selling Baird as well as presenting our opinion about who&#39;d be the best buyers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11:30 PM:&#160;&lt;/strong&gt;Networking event/lunch out of the office. The event is about the state of the Canadian M&amp;amp;A market. The reason I attend is because I&#39;m pitching a business based in Canada.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1:30 PM:&#160;&lt;/strong&gt;Back at the office, I check and respond to emails and voicemails. One voicemail is from a client that I need to respond to right away. After that I call two other clients on sell-side deals I have going on, just to check in.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2:30 PM:&#160;&lt;/strong&gt;Flip through a CIM (confidential information memorandum) and mark it up with my edits. The CIM is an 80-page book detailing everything you ever wanted to know about a company. This company is a sell-side client. The junior members of the deal team put together the CIM. It&#39;s a first draft that they&#39;ve given to me to review. I have to read every word and make sure all looks okay.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4:30 PM:&#160;&lt;/strong&gt;Another call with a prospective client. It&#39;s a &#39;how you doing&#39; kind of thing. A half hour, very informal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5:00 PM:&lt;/strong&gt;&#160;Work on a one page overview of what I&#39;m going to present at the upcoming trade show. It&#39;s a marketing handout piece. It just came back from our support team. I mark it up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6:00 PM:&#160;&lt;/strong&gt;Do some filing with regards to transactions that I closed at the end of 2010.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6:30 PM:&#160;&lt;/strong&gt;Clean up my inbox, sending any last emails I need to send. Create a to-do list for tomorrow and make sure there isn&#39;t anything I hadn&#39;t done. Realize I need to send an email regarding a conversation I had earlier in the day (about a potential buyer for a firm we&#39;re selling). It&#39;s a one page email. I craft it and send.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7:30 PM:&#160;&lt;/strong&gt;Leave the office. Back to the Brown Line.&lt;/p&gt;

Derek Loosvelt

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