Main Responsibilities of a Managing Director Corporate and Investment Banking at Wells Fargo
Eric's role as Managing Director involves deeply understanding 25 clients' financial objectives, crafting multi-year relationship strategies, and acting as a "generalist" who coordinates dozens of team members across various levels—from junior analysts to senior management—to execute these plans. Success is measured by the return generated on capital lent to clients, a process Eric describes as a "perpetual" scorecard, constantly assessing performance on a company-by-company and portfolio basis.
Relationship Management, Strategic Planning, Financial Analysis, Teamwork and Collaboration, Performance Measurement
Advizer Information
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Eric Frandson
Managing Director, Corporate & Investment Banking
Wells Fargo
UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley, MBA
Anthropology, Sociology
Finance (Banking, Fintech, Investing)
Sales and Client Management
Scholarship Recipient, Took Out Loans, Worked 20+ Hours in School, Transfer Student
Video Highlights
1. Managing client relationships requires a deep understanding of their financial objectives and a multi-year strategic plan.
2. The role involves collaboration with a large team, including both internal subject matter experts and external clients, requiring strong coordination and communication skills.
3. Performance is measured by the return generated on capital lent to clients, necessitating a continuous evaluation and improvement of strategies.
Transcript
What are your main responsibilities within your current role?
The first thing is I have 25 clients. We really want to have a deep understanding of their strategic and financial objectives. It's almost like knowing the patient, knowing the customer.
Once we discern that these companies are very large and they work with multiple banks, then we have to figure out how we stack up to our competitors on the different financial needs that these companies have. Then you can start crafting a relationship strategy.
This is like a multi-year playbook. You've got to do a lot of thinking and processing, and then you get to the point where you're in execution mode. You have a plan, you start executing, but that plan is a living, breathing document. You have to continuously update it. It's never finished.
There's no real finish line. You can mark time with a calendar, but these are companies and you're looking at longer time horizons.
How do we do that? It's a team sport. It's one of the things I love about the business. I have a role on a team, but you're talking about dozens of people working on just one client relationship in all these different ways.
Part of my relationship management is with the companies and the people at the companies, but also internally. It's just a lot of coordination, a lot of management of administrative things. Staying organized and communicating.
That communication goes horizontally with subject matter experts who go deep, much deeper than me. I'm sort of a generalist, so I work with people who go very deep. That's what I call horizontal. Vertical is junior analysts to senior management above me. It's sort of like two axes that you have to manage a large team. It's a true team sport to use that analogy.
Over time, you get measured by one of our core products. We lend money to companies, which we call capital. Over time, you want to measure the return that you can generate with your strategy compared to that capital. There's like this scorecard that is perpetual. We look at things on a company-by-company basis, but also on a portfolio basis.