“In the US they introduced this a few years back, so people had something to strive for,” says one former BNPP staffer. It actually has analysts, associates, directors and managing directors. Senior bankers continue to be important figures at French banks.Īt BNP Paribas in the U.S., however, there are actually job titles. The title was reportedly invented as a ruse so that corporate CEOs who couldn’t always get access to the bank’s CEO still felt loved. Nonetheless, some BNP Paribas bankers in Europe refer to themselves as managing directors, although the obscure title of "senior banker" is often the most revered. In Europe BNP Paribas has still not adopted formal corporate titles, despite adopting a structure that is more similar to US banks since building out its corporate and institutional bank.
The most recent banker to be elevated to vice chair status in EMEA was Vinod Vasan. But it’s not an organizational layer as such, and tends to be discreetly in cases where a very senior banker wants to be freed from day-to-day management. To add to the confusion, UBS's f ormer investment banking boss Andrea Orcel introduced a further horizontal layer, vice chairman, which sits alongside managing director and GMD in terms of seniority. Īt UBS, the career path beyond analyst goes from analyst, to associate director, director, executive director, managing director, group managing director and global executive board member. HSBC differs in that it has analyst, associate, associate director, director and managing director, with each rung known as a ‘global career band’ or GCB, starting - confusingly - at GCB6 for an analyst. Deutsche will announce its promotions next month.Įvery other bank has their own twist. Both have analyst, associate, assistant vice president, vice president, director and managing director. Of the European banks, Deutsche Bank and Barclays have the same structure. Most European banks: from analyst to associate, to AVP, VP, director and MD The job titles can be confusing and very from firm to firm. The variation in time taken to get to the top of a bank's hierarchy is partly down to the differences in structures within and between European and U.S. The time it takes to get to the top varies from firm to firm but on average it takes anything from 15 years to move from analyst to managing director. Nonetheless, working your way up the ladder internally can make sense: 10 of the 15 people promoted to managing director at Lazard this year joined as an analyst or associate.