Stellenbosch to M&A in London | Chat with Luca | WSO Academy

Wall Street Oasis

Business

4.9 • 534 Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

Luca’s journey from South Africa to breaking into M&A in London is a story of persistence and smart strategy. After studying accounting at Stellenbosch University, Luca moved to London to work as an auditor at BDO. Despite being told that transitioning from audit to investment banking was nearly impossible, he leveraged WSO Academy to revamp his approach, scale his networking, and land an M&A analyst role at PCB Partners. 📍 From working 40+ hour audit weeks to sending 500+ LinkedIn messages, Luca shares how he made the leap—proving that with grit and the right support, even unconventional paths can lead to high finance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 👇👇👇 Land A High Finance Career: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/academy?affiliate=socialwinner-youtube 🚀💼📈 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT IS WSO ACADEMY? It's a 12-week program to dramatically increase your odds of landing a 6-figure+ role in high finance... What’s included? 💥 GUARANTEED offer in high finance 🎓 Full course library for life (over $4k+ of content) 👥 Direct access to 1,300+ top mentors across banks & funds 📚 Tons of live training bootcamps (IB, PE, VC, Excel, etc.) 📄 Full resume rewrite + LinkedIn review (human + AI) 🧠 1:1 work with Head Mentors on TMAY + behavioral questions 🗣️ 6–10+ mock interviews, HireVue prep, Excel + logic assessments 🏢 Internship with WSO for resume branding 📬 Proven networking strategy & outreach software 🧭 Accountability coach & progress matrix 💬 Lifetime access to the exclusive alum Slack community 👉 JOIN WAITLIST HERE: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/academy?affiliate=socialwinner-youtube 💪🔥 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ IS WSO ACADEMY FOR YOU? Yes, if any of the below sound like you: ✅ You want to break into investment banking but don’t know where to start ✅ You've applied to 100+ jobs and heard nothing back ✅ You’re not sure how to network effectively ✅ Your technicals or behavioral answers need work ✅ You’re not from a target school or have below a 3.7 GPA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Land A High Finance Career: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/academy?affiliate=socialwinner-youtube WSO Academy is the largest online finance community with 1M+ members and 20M+ annual visitors. The 50+ head mentors in the program were handpicked from 1,300+ finance pros. They’ve helped thousands break into Wall Street careers over the past decade. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 🎓 JOIN WAITLIST HERE: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/academy?affiliate=socialwinner-youtube ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ #finance #investmentbanking #privateequity #hedgefund #consulting #venturecapital #wallstreet The Daily Peel Newsletter 📰 → https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/media/newsletters/the-daily-peel 🎧 Listen to the Podcast: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wall-street-oasis/id1463441793 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7nQxuApNXFkUSvojQGKyAQ?si=GrYh2zIHSsub8S8xIX0PjQ&nd=1 📚 WSO Resources: Courses: https://bit.ly/2ESzrv2 Resume Review: https://bit.ly/2Z0DFYq Mentors: https://bit.ly/3lIHoUi Events: https://bit.ly/350vMGd ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 📱 Follow us: LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok → @wallstreetoasis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, this is Patrick Curtis, CEO and founder of Wall Street Oasis. Today we have a great chat with
0:04.1	Luca. Luca came from a really interesting background, studied in South Africa at one of the top
0:08.1	universities there, ended up moving to London to become an auditor and an accountant. So he basically
0:14.9	had to work at BDO. He learned very early on that it wasn't easy to transfer from accounting to investment banking.
0:23.2	Listen to how he was able to make his break and how he was able to leverage Debussy Academy.
0:26.6	Enjoy. All right, Luca, welcome.
0:44.8	Hi, Patrick.
0:45.9	Good to see you again.
0:47.6	I appreciate you joining us today.
0:49.4	So it would be great if you could just give the listeners kind of a short summary bio,
0:52.6	where are you from, all the good stuff.
0:54.5	Sure. So originally from, all the good stuff. Sure.
0:55.2	So originally from South Africa, I studied at Selimosh University.
1:00.8	I studied accounting at Selimbos University.
1:05.6	And then I moved over to London where I joined BDO, a part of their audit division.
1:14.5	And throughout this whole process of kind of become a chartered accountant, I always had investment banking and particularly
1:20.6	MNA at the back of my mind, a career path that I always wanted to follow and get into.
1:27.4	I didn't fully realize how difficult and challenging that was going to be moving to the UK,
1:33.2	especially coming from an audit background.
1:36.5	So, you know, reached out to the academy, definitely gave me some very good advice to make the transition.
1:44.0	And now I am working at a company
1:47.3	called PCB partners and I'm an analyst, an M&A analyst in their by-side team. And I've been at the
	...

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