Breaking Into Banking, Private Equity & Corporate Development
Episode 39 | January 5, 2026
In Episode 39, Ben chats with Jay, a Michigan State graduate whose journey spans investment banking, private equity, and corporate development. Jay’s story offers a roadmap for students seeking to break into banking from non-target schools, excel in high-intensity roles, and build long-term career momentum in finance.
Jay grew up in Lansing, Michigan. “Born and raised a Spartan”. And entered college already focused on finance. As he shared with Ben, he identified early that “the investment banking track would set me up pretty well for a successful career.” But coming from a non-target school meant he had to create his own edge. He joined Michigan State’s Financial Markets Institute and participated in student investment organizations, surrounding himself with “highly motivated, sharp individuals” all aiming for roles in banking, equity research, and private equity.
One theme Jay returns to repeatedly: master the fundamentals before the internship begins.
When describing his junior-year internship at Wells Fargo, Jay recalled realizing he was “a little bit ahead of everybody else” when he was staffed as the sole intern on a live deal, working directly with an associate. His early investment in financial modeling, through the Financial Modeling Certification® (FMC®) Program, allowed him to focus on content and deal mechanics rather than keystrokes. This opened doors quickly. “Being able to walk through a three-statement model with relative ease” helped him build credibility with Wells Fargo’s M&A team.
Jay emphasizes that technical ability is only half the equation. The other half: networking with intention.
He describes flying to New York the summer before recruiting, shadowing an equity researcher on the trading floor at 5 AM, and meeting face-to-face with professionals he had contacted months earlier. “It shows you’re a real person, not just someone behind an email address.”
After two years in Wells Fargo’s New York M&A group, Jay moved into private equity at Huron Capital in Detroit. There, he managed multiple portfolio companies, navigated the uncertainty of COVID, and learned to model downside scenarios more rigorously. “No forecast is perfect,” he told Ben, “but you need to understand what a true downside scenario looks like.”
Today, Jay is nearly five years into a corporate development role at Paraggo, where he focuses exclusively on M&A, a “hat” he realized he enjoyed most in private equity. His long-term ambition is to run a business: “Eventually, I’d like to become a general manager or business owner,” leveraging his finance foundation to lead across operations, HR, legal, and strategy.
When asked for his best advice for students, Jay didn’t hesitate:
“Network, network, network. And figure out what you don’t like. That’s just as important as figuring out what you do like.”
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