Episode #09 Alexander Doll – CEO of Barclays Germany Perspective on Investment Banking and M&A

Alexander Doll is the CEO of Barclays Germany and the Head of Banking for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Prior to his role at Barclays, Mr. Doll served as a Managing Director of Financial Advisory Business at Lazard.  Mr. Doll joined Lazard after eight years with UBS. His previous experience also includes working for Lehman Brothers in New York and Frankfurt.

Have you asked yourself what the best-case scenario for your career would be? I mean, if everything goes extremely well – you get along with your colleagues, you become a well-known and recognized expert in your field, you are being nicely rewarded financially for what you do – what would that look like for you? Will you be a CEO of a company? Or perhaps a successful investor or run your own business?

Regardless of what your answer is, there is one thing we can agree on – to get there, you are going to work extremely hard at it. You must master multiple skills, not only on the technical side of your craft, but also your interpersonal abilities. And, as we have heard from so many previous guests on our podcast, you are going to have to truly love what you do – “do it for the love of the game”, as Steven Gerbel said.

There is one thing that all guests on our show have in common – they have achieved a level of “success” that most of us can only dream of. We believe that, whenever you have a chance to talk to someone who has “been there”, regardless of the field they are in, we should all stop and listen, as we all stand to learn something new from them.

In fact, there is nothing stopping any of us from finding someone we admire and asking for 30 minutes of their attention. These overachievers are usually genuinely nice people who are more than willing to share their wisdom with eager souls looking to grow in their careers. This is exactly what Luke and I do with our interviews – the only difference is that we bring our audio recorder with us. Maybe all you are missing is an audio recorder!

Today is one of those days when we tell ourselves – “we are so glad to have recorded this”. In this wide-ranging conversation, you will get a glimpse at what it is like to be the regional CEO of a global investment bank. You will soon realize that you cannot climb the corporate later at an investment bank if you are not both good with the numbers, but most importantly, good with clients. Mr. Doll also tells us the differences between the M&A markets in Europe vs. the US, what he looks at when interviewing job candidates, and much more.

And now to the show notes!

• 1:40 How Mr Doll explains what he does
• 2:30 The story of how Mr doll started out in finance
• 04:45 How does Mr Doll’s typical day look like
• 06:25 current developments in the M&A markets
• 07:50 differences between the investment banking environment in US and EU
• 09:54 What is the most important aspect when analysing an M&A deal?
• 11:40 Specialization, industry experts and their role in investment banking
• 12:55 What has changed the most since Mr Doll started out in investment banking?
• 14:30 How does Mr Doll deal with the information overload
• 16:20 News outlets that Mr Doll follows
• 16:50 Three pieces of advice to the younger self
• 18:50 Favourite mistake
• 19:20 A person who shaped Mr Dolls life
• 20:25 on mentorship
• 21:50 on importance of education and designations
• 23:00 Outside of work what takes the majority of your time?
• 24:50 If you could… What book would you make employees at your company read?
• 25:25 Daily Routines?
• 26:02 What questions would you ask in a job interview?
• 26:30 What is something that you believe to be true that most people do not believe to be true?
• 28:00 Is there anything you would like to leave our audience with?

If the interview was valuable to you, make sure to take a few seconds to leave us a 5-Star review on iTunes.

Stay tuned!

Luke & Leo

P.S: Our next episode will come out on March 6th, in which we cover the topic of interview preparation and career development with Ian Morgan, a former Managing Director of Société Générale turned executive coach focused on helping professionals succeed in the financial services industry.