Harrison Messer

Professor Robinson
CNS 220
4.6.15
Informational Interview 1
For my first informational interview, I decided to interview Matthew Teller, who
graduated from Wake Forest in 2014. He is currently working at Barclays, after having
completed an internship there following his junior year.
Since he is a recent graduate, I focused my questions on what I was most interested in,
and our discussion mostly on his progression and trajectory, relating to how he arrived at the
point in which he currently is at. He began by asking my about the career class, since he had told
me he had received a few emails, requesting informational interviews with him. From there, we
discussed his life at Wake Forest, and almost more importantly, how he spent his summers,
leading up to the point in where is now. He started by telling me that following his freshman
year, he began by interning at a micro-finance bank in Peru, name Caja Los Andes, where he did
some translating, as well as put together a bunch of presentations in addition to giving them. As a
side note, he did tell me how he weighs the importance of knowing a second language, which led
him to spend his junior fall abroad in Madrid, Spain.
After having spent his first internship experience at this bank in Peru, he then decided to
pursue the business school and ultimately declare his major in finance. The following summer,
that after his sophomore year, he then interned at Neuberger Berman, which he described as an
arm of Lehman Brothers, where he worked in the private asset management group. This is the
point in which he decided that he wanted to start pursuing Private Equity, after having spent
many hours performing the research for many of the deals that were underway at the time. After
this experience, he described the next summer as being the most important in the sense of having
the potential to gain employment from this particular summer following junior year, as well as
getting the most experience and responsibilities starting at this point. This is the point in time

when he decided to pursue a summer internship at Barclays, a very notable, bulge bracket bank.
And, aside from its stature and wonderful name, he was admitted to be interning in their
Investment Bank in the Financial Sponsors group, which he absolutely loved and continues to do
so, since he was asked back for full-time employment, which was exactly what he wanted. There,
he belongs to what is called coverage group in the Investment Bank, and covers all of their
Private Equity clients. Even though he now has to spend at least a day out of each weekend
working, he absolutely loves it and views it as something will ultimately pay off. He and his
group is responsible for all investment-banking deals, however deals mainly with all of their
private equity clients and their portfolios. He explained to me that his involvement spans as far
as if one of their private equity clients wants to buy, sell, or finance a company; he is involved
and not limited to one side of the trade. He also told me that he deals with Mergers and
Acquisitions, debt equity, as well as IPOs, which involves taking companies public. On the other
side of that, he relayed to me that he was involved in one of the largest privatizations ever, which
he said was incredible for a first year analyst, with having taken Pet Smart private with one of his
clients, BC Partners. This was an $8.6 billion deal, which made the private equity firm over $50
million in doing so. With this, he explained to me that 90% of his work, deals with live
transactions, which involve pitching deals and transacting as he described it to me.
In addition to the project just mentioned, Teller told me that he is working on a slew of
interesting projects, and with that, intends to stay at Barclays for at least a few years. I asked him
about his thoughts on pursuing an MBA, and he felt that at this point it would on hold him back,
detracting from his current experience and removing him completely from the job market for two
years, affecting his opportunity costs. Furthermore, in addition to the deals and experiences that
Teller is undergoing at Barclays, he has also become a licensed financial analyst, having
completed his Series 63 and 79 tests. He directly reports to five managing directors, working 80100 hours per week, but absolutely loving it and not wanting to leave anytime soon so it now

seems as he described to me. He is getting exposed to a variety of industries and companies,

which he views as invaluable, and down the road, envisions himself pursuing an MBA and
potentially working at strictly, a private equity firm. He was an absolute pleasure to talk to, and I
learned a great deal from him. He offered me very sound advice, heavily encouraging me to
make sure I am pursuing an area, which I am certain at the very least is of interest to me, because
it is all about doing what you love.