Show Notes:

Private Equity is an exclusive, highly competitive and elite space within finance. It’s also very white and very male. Each year, hundreds of elite investment bankers and MBA grads from top schools try to break into PE to make upwards of $500K annually, and that’s without bonuses or carried interest.

Tiffany Luna, a Mexican-American daughter of immigrants who grew up in the South side of Chicago, was an unlikely candidate to break into private equity and become a principal by the age of 30, but that’s exactly what she did – in a very nontraditional way. On this episode, Tiffany doesn’t hold back on what it took to break into – and succeed in this space.

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Transcription:

TEASER

Tiffany: I feel like the expectation is you have to come twice as prepared. You have to be maybe even three times as prepared and you have to be twice as vocal as everyone else and a little bit more aggressive and also more kind and also more everything, which is really hard to balance and learn and adapt to.

PODCAST INTRO

Welcome to the Early Career Moves Podcast, the show that highlights remarkable young professionals of color killing it on their career journeys. I’m your host, Priscilla Esquivel Weninger – proud Texas Latina, daughter of immigrants, and lover of breakfast tacos. Meet me for a coffee chat each Friday, as we dive into a special guest’s story, and hear all about their challenges, milestones, and lessons learned. If you’re a young professional of color and you’re feeling lost in your career, or just need a dose of inspiration, you’re in the right place! Let’s get started.

GUEST INTRODUCTION

Priscilla: Hey, everyone. Today’s episode is pure fuego. You don’t want to miss Tiffany Ramirez Luna. She is my college acquaintance from Wellesley and broke into private equity in a very non-traditional way. She didn’t do it going through the investment banking route that most people do. She actually did it on her own. Pre having an MBA and now she has an MBA from Northwestern Kellogg. This episode is a little longer than my normal ones, but it’s because as I was editing, I just could not get myself to cut out some of this juiciness. We talk about imposter syndrome, working in a male-dominated environment, the hidden rules of working in elite spaces, and how she’s dealt with some major BS to get to where she is today as a private equity principal in Chicago.

INTERVIEW:

Priscilla: Hey, Tiffany, welcome to the show.

Tiffany: Thank you so much Pricilla, I really appreciate you having me here today.

Priscilla: Of course. So Tiffany, we’re here to talk about your really exciting career path in private equity. You and I crossed paths at Wellesley College many years ago, and it’s been so cool to see your success in the private equity finance world. You got your MBA at Northwestern and you’ve just been killing it, so really excited to dive in. Why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about how you grew up in Chicago?

Tiffany: Yeah, of course. So I am a first-generation Mexican-American. I was born and raised in the South side of Chicago. And as you mentioned, I went to school at Wellesley with you and then came back to Chicago right after, pretty shortly after starting my career up in private equity. And I got there through a really unique path that I actually want to talk about it. It started in high school. So I went to high school in South side of Chicago at a school called Cristo Rey. And I don’t know if you’ve heard of it before, but pretty Cristo Rey has a program where students can work, not can, they all work actually at a corporate position one day out of the week and use that to pay for their tuition. And so when I was in high school, I worked in private equity. I worked at a private equity firm here in Chicago and that’s how I got my start. Now, back when I was doing that, I was obviously 15, 16, 17. I was there for four years. I was really young, not doing any type of private equity type work at all, but it really was my first exposure to it and I’d say how I got started down the private equity path.

Priscilla: Yeah, like it planted a little seed for you.

Tiffany: It did. And what’s interesting, it did it in two ways. First when I was there, I had a really rough time because the environment was so different from everything that I had experienced growing up. I’d say that growing up, I was relatively sheltered in terms of my exposure to different types of people. I lived in a Mexican neighborhood. I went to a Mexican school. All the students were Mexican or like 99% of them were Mexican. My grammar school, my high school was the same way. So I didn’t have as much exposure to different types of people and different ideas until I started working. And when I started working, it was a culture shock, I’d say, because I, all of a sudden, got access to all these different types of people that had all these different types of backgrounds and this field, private equity, that is almost exclusive in a way, but it was a good way to start getting an idea of how things worked, and that’s where it started.

Priscilla: Yeah, I can totally imagine how intimidating it would be to be a teenage Mexican-American girl from Chicago at a private equity firm. It just sounds like a totally different world. But yeah, so you went to Wellesley. I know you were an international relations history major, and obviously you did not pursue anything in that world. So how did you end up landing in private equity after college?

Tiffany: Yeah. So right after graduation, it was so tough. I remember applying to so many different places and not getting jobs. And my loans were looming and I thought I have to find something. And I want to be picky but I don’t want to be too picky because I want to be able to pay this stuff back at the same time and not be in debt. So right out of school, what I did is I did a couple different positions, one was more hedge fund oriented and it was temporary. And I knew it was temporary leading to a potential of the long-term full-time position but I didn’t like it. And so I thought, “Okay, this is the first one. I won’t get sad if I go onto something else.” So then I moved on to a more of a consulting role, which I did not like very much for myself. The pace was a little bit off for me. So I kept trying to look for PE positions and I couldn’t find anything just because most PE firms, when they’re hiring for their junior base, for their analysts or their associates, they’re looking for people that have investment banking experience. That’s just the way it is. It’s a very traditional route that most people take to get into PE. So I wasn’t having any luck, but I had all these great connections that kept hooking me up to different people and different networks. And so I thought, “Okay, there has to be something here for me.” And so through some of that networking, someone mentioned to me about a position at the firm where I’m at currently. And the interesting thing is when I applied to that job, the person who is now my boss said, “I would love to have you and I would love to hire you as a junior person. But because we’re not a dedicated PE firm, we’re like a smaller group within this asset manager is we grow as our allocations grow. So we can’t hire you right now but I want to keep you on board.” So I was like, “Okay, well, how are we going to make that happen?” And here’s the interesting thing. So he offered me a position as their admin. And I was like, “No, I did not go to Wellesley, I did not go through all this stuff to be an admin.”

Priscilla: Yeah. I feel like that would be super triggering and messed up if I was interviewing somewhere after college with a college degree and they were like, “You can be my admin,” right?

Tiffany: I agree, Priscilla, it totally is. I was like, “Are you serious? Is this what we’re going to do?” I kept applying to different places and I kept talking to people that were mentoring me and I feel like something interesting happened. So one, I felt like I started getting a little bit more desperate because it was, again, the loans and all my bills and everything was coming up and I thought, “I have to pay for this stuff.” And the other thing that happened is I had another conversation in a follow-up with my current boss and he said, “What would you like to do? What can we do to bring you on board?” And I said, “Look, I’m going to go get my MBA. I am going to be successful in finance. This is my plan.” I was like, “I have a plan.” I was like, “I can’t come in and not know that I don’t have a potential position.” And so we made an agreement. He said, “If you work for me as our admin for two years, I will let you work for us like you’re our analyst. You will do everything. You will sit on every meeting. You will talk to the attorneys, to management teams. You will have access to everything that everyone on a deal team does. You can run an entire deal with the deal team, but I need you to answer phones and book flights too.” And I took it and I was like, it killed me, Priscilla, it really killed me. At first I was ashamed that I did it and I was like, “But they’re offering me this option.” And I thought, “And if it doesn’t happen, I’ll leave.” I kept saying, “If it doesn’t happen, I’ll leave,” and it happened. The way my boss, to his credit, exactly how he promised, I did two years and then we brought in someone else and they put me through business school. And now, I mean, I’m a principal now. I’ve worked on deals since day one. I looked, I learned everything from them. I learned how to do the modeling, everything I would have done in banking I did with them, but as an admin. And I got other roles, like I got promoted to analyst before becoming a principal. But it was the toughest thing to do because I had to eat my own ego, swallow it. But at the same time, I don’t know that I would have been able to get in if I hadn’t done it because I didn’t do investment banking.

Priscilla: Because that is the traditional role, right? Like, you have to do your two years and then they start recruiting you from either PE or hedge funds, right?

Tiffany: Yes.

Priscilla: Yeah. It’s amazing that you were able to do that.

Tiffany: Yeah, that is exactly the traditional route to do. And even then, it’s very difficult because here in Chicago, and this is like many other cities too, there’s only a select number of PE firms. There’s a lot more in New York. There’s a lot more in the coasts but here in Chicago, there’s only a certain number. So there’s a lot of students who are coming out and even out of business schools with some type of experience, and they’re all competing for these same roles, and it’s just, it’s extremely competitive, extremely competitive. So what you end up doing is you end up getting a huge base of people that are applying to these jobs, and then it just comes down to the small details. Everyone starts being top of their class, full-rounded people, everyone’s excellent at everything. And so it’s okay, who knows someone that knows someone? And a lot of times that’s how people end up getting hired, because everyone is so excellent at what they do. Do you know what I mean? So it it’s just extremely difficult. And that’s how you ended up getting a lot of the same type of people working in PE, because people look for people that look like them. And so that’s my background. That’s how I got in.

And when I went to business school, I mentioned at the beginning of business school, people would ask, people who were interested in getting in private equity, and they were very bothered by it. They were very bothered that I slipped through the cracks or I got in through the back door. And I’d say that in the beginning, I felt really bad about myself thinking, “Hey, this is not the right way to do it like I did.” I got this imposter syndrome feeling, where I didn’t earn this, I didn’t do it the way I should have. But honestly, by the time business school was over, oh, that was gone. I ended up realizing that there were people that I had worked with at school who had gone the investment banking route and didn’t have the experience or the knowledge of certain things that I’d already been exposed to, that I was already doing even though I had been an admin. So I credit that to my department, to my company, and to my coworkers who honestly said, “We’re going to do this, we’re going to bring you in,” and did it for me the entire time. And they continued to do that for me.

Priscilla: Well, that’s good on them, but definitely I’m sure that was scary and risky for you to trust them and hope that it would work out, right? And now you’ve been there for nearly nine years. Is that right?

Tiffany: Yeah, it’ll be 10 years in May, so I’ve been there for a while. And I thought about it a lot early on, where I thought maybe it’s not true, maybe they’re not going to help me get through or it’s false promises and it’s not something. But I didn’t want to risk it and I thought, “You know what, I’m going to work my ass off.” And I worked my ass off really hard to get where I am, and I learned everything I could, and I try to absorb all the information that they were throwing at me. And I’m glad I did, I’m glad I did. I’m glad that I had that time. Now I feel in a great position, every time we get anyone who’s coming in new, who doesn’t understand, who needs guidance, I like to be the first one to step out and help them just because I understand what it is to be in a position of not knowing what’s ahead in PE.

Priscilla: Kind of like you mentioned earlier, PE is a very elite industry. It’s an elite space. A lot of people don’t know what it is. So how do you explain to their family members what private equity work entails?

Tiffany: I explain it to my family and my extended family as house flipping. That’s the easiest way to explain it because I was like, “Look guys, we buy companies with pools of money that people,” I was like, “If you guys give me a bunch of money and I buy a house and then I flip it, and I give you proceeds.” I was like, “That’s what we’re doing. It’s a large pool of money from people coming in. We’re buying a company that we think has good potential or is in distress position and we could turn around or different scenarios, we try to clean them up, fix them up and sell them. And the idea is that when we sell them, they’re better companies than they were when we purchased them.” So on a large scale, that’s how I explained it to my family as house flipping, and it seems to be a good explanation for them. So it’s an easy way for them to understand, I think.

Priscilla: When you started in this world, it’s not like you had a BBA, right, like a bachelors in business. You had to probably fill in a lot of learning gaps for yourself. So how did you end up ramping up and learning what you needed to do to do the work?

Tiffany: When I first started, like you mentioned, my background was in international relations. I’ve taken some econ courses or required courses but no finance courses. So what I did was while I was working full-time, I took nighttime courses in accounting, in finance, in modeling. So I was supplementing what I was learning in real-time with some of those courses in some of the local schools here in Chicago. I did classes at Northwestern. They were continuing studies program for students that already have gotten their bachelors, who want to take college level or higher, depending on which courses you were taking courses in. And that’s how I did accounting and finance.

Priscilla: Got it. And so did they help you pay for that or were you just, “I’m just going to pay for this”?

Tiffany: Nope, they helped me pay for it. I told them, I was like, “Guys,” I was like, “if I’m going to do this, I need to understand what it is that we’re doing.” And they work a hundred percent for it. I think that’s rare. I don’t think that there’s a lot of companies nowadays that do stuff like that, but they were able to help me through whatever courses I needed and I would just pitch it. I would say, “Hey, there’s this class. I think it’s really good. I think it would benefit me.” I’d write up the value that I thought it would bring. And then if they thought that it was something that I could benefit from, they’d approve it. And ultimately that’s how I was able to get through some of those courses early on, which I think actually helped me. So by the time I was applying to business school for the MBA, it was really beneficial and really good to reinforce even to the business school, “Hey, this is something I’m really dedicated to. I’ve been dedicated to this for a couple of years. I took these courses, some at your business school.” So it was also helpful there in that aspect, but that’s one way that I started learning more of the technical side.

I think the other side is really just talking to people and finding mentors internally, who have experience in PE, who’ve done it for a couple of years. And one of my colleagues, who really is a mentor and has been a mentor for a couple of years for me, I’d say he’s the one that really took me in early on when I had so many questions about a lot more detailed things that we were doing on a day-to-day basis with deals. So that would be my recommendation is maybe look for ways to add to your education where you’re missing gaps and also find people who can give you the reality of it, right? Because in the classroom, you tend to learn the academic way to do things but it’s not always the way that things work in reality. I’ve taken classes even at the business school level that this is the way things should do and we should calculate valuations or do this XYZ method, and in real life, that’s not how it’s done. And it may or may not be the correct way but it’s not done the way they do it in business school. So getting someone who can walk you through the reality of it too is very helpful.

Priscilla: And why do you think that PE firms do only recruit from ibankers? Is there a real reason for that? Or do you think it’s just like an antiquated system and pipeline?

Tiffany: I have a theory for that. I think it’s two main reasons. One, I think they don’t have the time to train people. They don’t want to have to sit there and wait for people to have everything explained to them, to get these rotation programs or anything going on. Some do but it’s very rare. It’s easier for larger PE firms to just have people filtered in and taught through investment banking. The other reason I think is because it actually helps filter people. I think it filters people because investment banking is a grind. It’s a lot of work and you work long hours and that’s an expectation for when you get to private equity. And so if you can’t handle it, when you’re doing it through investment banking, it almost weeds people out. And I think it helps get a better pool of candidates that are used to the workload to get rid of the people who just don’t have what it takes to get that kind of work schedule and work-life balance working for them.

Priscilla: So I think people know that there’s a lot of money that can be made in private equity and that’s what makes it such a highly coveted and very elite space to get into. Has that been your experience? Would you agree with that?

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INTERVIEW CONT’D

Tiffany: Yeah, I mean, I don’t disagree. PE definitely does offer a lot of people in terms of salary. There’s three different types of ways to incentivize like an employee, there’s that base salary, then there’s also the bonus pools. So your bonus pool would be a certain percentage of your salary, anywhere between 20%, 50% up to 50% or more. So you can have that on top of it based on performance. And then there’s that third aspect, which I think is actually probably one of the biggest factors that get people interested is carry, and carry offers people who are getting into private equity, maybe not the analysts and associates, usually it’s more senior people. It gives them the ability to invest certain percentage of their own money and that percentage is allocated to them from the top. So the bosses, whoever’s in charge, they’ll get a certain percentage that they are to invest alongside the investor base. So you’re investing your own money in these deals and it’s supposed to incentivize you, because you have skin in the game. So depending on how well that company does, once you exit the transaction, I mean, the return on the deal is the return you’re getting on your invested portion. So you’re locking up money for a while, depending on how long you hold a company for. But in the long run, it gives you a great opportunity if you have deals that generate pretty big multiples at exit. So people love it but at the same time, I’m going to tell you, people work hard for it. It’s hard hours. You’re working all the time. You have so much invested that you really can’t afford for it to fail.

Priscilla: Yeah. And what has it been like being a Latina in private equity when there’s so few of you, if any, right? What is that like, how do you deal with the imposter syndrome that has maybe come up for you?

Tiffany: Yeah. I have had some very interesting experiences. It’s been really hard, to be honest. I feel like my team and my group has been really kind and really helpful to the extent that they can in guiding me and helping me to meet new people. And the different people that I meet, whether they be management teams, CEOs, CFOs, or maybe either lawyers, attorneys that we work with or whatever, consultants, whoever it is that we’re meeting, different people tend to react very differently to me. When I go to a board meeting or I walk into a boardroom where I’ve never met the people before, I tend to get stares. I think most people think, “Oh, she must be confused, she must not know where she is,” because they seem very confused by me being there.

I’ve had some really nasty experiences that have left me bad taste in my mouth. I’ll give you an example. It was the first time we’re meeting a management team for a company that we were looking to potentially acquire. We flew over to New York. I went with two other colleagues and we’re all in suits. It’s a suit meeting and we’re walking into the conference room. It’s supposed to be about 20 people or so in the conference room. And I’ve one colleague in front of me, one colleague behind me, and the management team is lined up shaking everyone’s hand as we walk in. And so as I’m walking in and I started shaking everyone’s hand saying hello, introducing myself, and we’re all walking in the line. And one of the people from the C-suite shakes my colleague’s hand in front of me, and then goes over my head and then shakes my colleague’s hand behind me, and completely skips me, just literally what right over my head and did not even shake my hand. And I get stuff like that more often than you would believe. I get people who come to meetings and, I don’t know, don’t realize that I’m part of the group. I really don’t know what excuses they can come up with. But stuff like that happens so much more than you would believe it to happen. And it’s really sad and it’s been really hard to deal with because it’s hard enough with that imposter syndrome to make yourself believe that you belong there. And then when you have other people doing stuff like that, it really adds to it.

But over the years, I’d say my skin has gotten so much thicker and I’ve become a lot more in-your-face when people do stuff like that to me. And so like in that example, I stayed right in front of them. The person who didn’t shake my hand, the line stopped moving because I stopped moving and everyone kept — and he looks at me and I stuck my hand right under his nose and then he goes, “Oh, hi,” and introduces himself. But it takes stuff like that to get them to realize, “Hey, I’m in the room. I’m also part of this team. I’m not here to clean the table or do stuff like this.” I think it’s been interesting to see how some people react so well to me, other people don’t, it’s just a mixed bag. It’s not always the people you would expect but I guess, one, getting a thick skin has helped me and honestly, two, sometimes getting the support of colleagues when they notice it. Cause we’ve had a conversations now internally with our group after some of the experiences that I’ve had, where they’re now being a lot more aware as to what’s happening when people interact with me versus how they interact with them.

Priscilla: That is so challenging. That feels, I mean, not only is your job so demanding physically, intellectually, your time, but to have that on top of everything, to feel invisible in the room, it’s just such a terrible feeling.

Tiffany: Yeah. And one of the reasons that I really wanted to get my MBA is to say, “I want to continue to level out the playing field.” I don’t want anyone to have an excuse to say she did not come prepared. She is not as prepared as some of our own or doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I feel like the expectation is you have to come twice as prepared. You have to be maybe even three times as prepared and you have to be twice as vocal as everyone else and a little bit more aggressive and also more kind and also more everything, which is really hard to balance and learn and adapt to, but it is, that’s just the reality of it. It’s the only way that I can manage to sometimes get a word in or get someone to give me attention. Now, the interesting thing is I’ve had friends that I’ve made in the same industry who are Latinos, who are men and they don’t have as much of a tough time. Now, I don’t know if that’s everyone, but the few friends that I have who are Latinos in PE who are men don’t seem to have the same experience. And it’s so frustrating to me.

Priscilla: Yeah. So it’s funny you say that because I was literally just thinking that. I was thinking, “I bet it’s so hard as women of color to compartmentalize those identities because we’re just all of that all of the time,” right? But I think in finance, like we talked about a little earlier, it is so male-dominated and it’s shocking to have a woman principal period in the room who knows what she’s talking about, who could command the room. And so they’re able to look past, and I say look past intentionally, like your race, if you’re a man.

Tiffany: Yeah. And I’ve had to do other things to adapt. I had to golf when I was at Wellesley. And I took it for fun but then when I started working where I’m at now, I thought, “Oh, this is going to come in handy.” And a lot of my colleagues make and develop relationships through golf. And so I thought, “No, hell no, I’m not saying behind. I need to keep up. I’m not going to have the excuse that I didn’t make contacts or connection because I don’t golf.” So I took up golf lessons and I bought golf clubs and I took lessons. And now if the invitation goes out, I have a conversation again with my colleagues telling them, “Hey, it’s unfair. I’m not developing relationships because you guys are golfing and I’m not getting an invite.” And so they make sure to speak up for me now if anyone invites them and say, “Hey, Tiffany golfs too. She should come.” But the things we have to go through just to get in there and be part of the same conversations, it’s annoying and it’s very difficult.”

Priscilla: Yeah. Playing golf to fit in and not miss out on any critical conversations that can advance your career. It’s crazy that as women, we have to be thinking about those things, especially if we’re working in male-dominated spaces. So what were other things that maybe you have done or situations that you’ve been in, where you’ve had to really think about what are the hidden rules of this elite space?

Tiffany: In the beginning, I remember we’d go to annual meetings and we’d be sitting at dinner and they always seat you with a variety of people so you don’t just sit with your colleagues, et cetera. And I remember hearing conversations between the people at the table, “We’re going skiing to over here. Oh, my children play lacrosse and this and that.” And here, I kept thinking like, “Here I am, this tiny little Latina from the South side of Chicago.” I’m like, “I played basketball. That’s the only thing I could talk to you about.” But being able to have those conversations about topics that you know nothing about, it’s tricky. And I think that learning how to maybe guide the conversation towards other areas where you can participate, that’s what becomes a little bit more helpful. And it’s what I’ve been trying to do over the last few years, where once people start talking about things that I have no experience and I have nothing to be able to relay, I try to get that conversation somewhere else and ask different questions that lead people towards things that I do know something about or that I do have experienced, just so that they won’t exclude me from that conversation.

Priscilla: Yup. And have you had to mute different parts of yourself or code switch at work in order to really be successful?

Tiffany: Yes, yes, every time. I think it tends to be a very conservative space and a very traditional space. And PE has this thing where cultural fit is big. And if there’s something about you that doesn’t fit, then that’s a point against you. That’s a reason not to hire you. That’s a reason not to get you because you’re not a cultural fit. So what you end up doing is you end up hiding a lot about your life or about where you’re from or what you believe in if you are different because you don’t want to risk being flagged as the person that’s a bad cultural fit. And PE, there’s no fear of letting people go who are not cultural fits, that’s common. And if you’re a junior person and I feel like you start exposing yourself, then you’ll be cut out. And it stinks because why would you want everyone to be exactly the same? The companies we buy sell products to people that are so different. You want variety, and they want variety at some level, some opinion of it, but if you’re cutting it out from the bottom when you’re getting analysts and associates come in, I just don’t know how that’s going to change. But yeah, I’d say it’s something that I’ve curved a lot in the beginning. I think now that I’m moving up, I’m trying to curve it a lot less and be a lot more vocal just because I feel more secure in my position, and I feel like I can say things without the fear of all they’ll realize that no, I’m problematic or they don’t want me here and will just say, “Sorry, you’re not a good fit.”

Priscilla: Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of D&I work that has to be done in finance, for sure. So my next and last question for you, what is your recommendation for people who want to get into private equity? Maybe it’s through the more traditional iBanking MBA path, but what’s your general advice about breaking into this industry?

Tiffany: Yeah. I’d say it’s a couple things. One, prepare yourself as much as you can. Try to get to business school, try to get through places that have — if you’re doing the investment banking route, try to go through the big names, that’ll make it easier to get into. And then the other thing I’d say is if you’re choosing to go in through a non-traditional route, it is possible, definitely is possible. I got there and not just myself. I didn’t mention this earlier but every one of my colleagues, none of us went through investment banking. There’s 10 of us and all of us came from non-traditional routes. Some did consulting, some were auditors. Others, for example, a close colleague of mine, he came in as a lawyer for PE and he was hired from the lawyer from our legal side, sent to business school, and then continued working for us. So he went in through the legal aspect of it. And then another person came in through operations. So he actually worked at a company, worked in the operations team, learned about the companies from the inside and then joined PE. And that was super beneficial and I think it’s something that maybe coming a little bit more common now, just because a lot of PE firms want to be able to hire people who actually have experienced working a company. You can manage a company a lot better if you’ve worked in one, if you’ve known how it functions. So I think that’s also — you can make really strong point and be able to get into PE through that method especially, for example, if you have experienced in, let’s say, healthcare, strong experience in healthcare and you’re looking at a PE firm who’s focused in healthcare, then you’re a strong asset for them. So, looking at different ways, that’s helpful. And then the only other route that I would suggest too, just to wrap this up is, you don’t always have to end up at the big PE firms. There are asset managers, there are family offices, there are endowments, pension funds. There’s so many different types of firms that you can go to that have a PE wing to them. And you can start there and then work your way up and transfer over to the large PE firm, if ultimately that’s where you want to end up.

Priscilla: Amazing advice. Thank you, Tiffany, for being with us today and letting us hear your story and allowing yourself to be so vulnerable, opening up about the hardships involved. So thank you.

Tiffany: Yeah, no, of course it’s tough but it’s really rewarding. And if people can get a little bit more exposure to it and really understand it, then I think it’s something that more people would be willing to try. But thank you so much for having me.

OUTRO

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