Hello and welcome.

I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and Chief Monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast.

Join me as I talk to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members

to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general.

Let's get to it.

In this episode, James shares his non-traditional path from the University of Georgia to working

at UBS and investment banking once he graduated.

We'll hear about a big risk he took delaying graduation, how he recovered when he was forced to finish

his analyst's stint early, and why he ended up back in IB at Lazard a few years later

before finally making the transition to private equity. Enjoy.

All right, James, welcome to the Wall Street Oasis podcast.

Thanks for having me.

So it'd be great if you could just give the listeners a short summary of your bio.

Yeah, sure.

So I guess I grew up in Atlanta, went to the University of Georgia.

After that, I worked at UBS in investment banking. I also worked at

Lazarden Investment banking. And on the private equity side, I've worked at Excel KKR and now

a firm in LA called Diversis Capital. All pretty much, I guess, either tech or software

sort of focused.

And, yeah, no, I'm just started my second year as an associate at my company there in LA.

Cool.

And so you've been out of school for about five years, right?

...