Could you please introduce yourself?
"Hi, I am Moritz Jonathan Arndt. I am 25 years old, and I graduated in 2021. I took the Politics and Economics tracks and did the external SBE honours programme."
What did you do in your fifth semester?
"My fifth semester was impacted by COVID, so my exchange to Milan unfortunately did not take place. I stayed at the VU and did a minor in econometrics."
What are you currently doing, and where?
"I am working in the field of Corporate Finance. Currently, I am employed at Perella Weinberg Partners, working as an investment banking analyst within their Financial Institutions Group (FIG). I specialise in M&A advisory for banks and insurance companies in DACH (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland)."
What did you do between PPE and now?
"Directly after PPE, I did a year of internships, first at Ernst and Young in Hamburg, then at MP Corporate Finance in Vienna, and lastly at HSBC in Düsseldorf. Following my internships, I did a Master of Science at the Barcelona School of Economics, focusing on macroeconomic policy, financial market analysis and econometrics. After my Masters, I directly entered the job market and joined Barclays as an investment banking analyst in Frankfurt. I switched jobs in the summer of 2024 and am now permanently located in London."
How did PPE affect your choice to be working where you are?
"During PiP1, I worked on a paper that concerned the role of non-performing loan transactions within the Irish financial banking market during the global financial crisis. I got interested in how capital at banks can be best deployed into the economy and decided to further explore this topic outside my studies. After PPE, I joined the non-performing loan department at Ernst and Young, which introduced me to the market of Corporate Finance and Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)."
How does PPE come up in your daily life now?
"PPE gave me the ability to look at problems from far more angles than others. A simple example from my work: As interest rates have spiked since 2022, this has largely driven banks’ profitability recently. However, on the flip-side, people forget that interest rates act as a double-edged sword, because they also affect the risk-profiles of borrowers who lend on these terms, increasing their debt burdens and ultimately their likelihood to default on their loan, since borrowers require more capital to service their debt. The constant consideration of the trade-off between risks and benefits appears more apparent to me than to some of my colleagues who have studied solely Finance or Business Administration and who I sometimes find to make less transferable connections between topics, or become aware of two sides of the coin."
Is Finance how you imagine it?
"This depends on how you imagine it to be. If you have a “Wolf of Wall Street” idea in your head, it is for sure not the same (at least where I work). First, my job is much more about the technical and strategic analysis of a business than just to sell stocks, debt, or any other risk to a client for a merely broker commission - I need to have a much more long-term view than just doing “the next trade”. Second, there is much less excessive culture in the sense that people are well-behaved and the working culture is highly collaborative. Of course people are driven to “make money”, but it is much more entrepreneurial; opposite to how the film depicts protagonists who are driven to exploit their clients, I have constantly felt that my job requires me to rigorously understand what our client needs and then pitching it to select us to advise the client how to get there strategically. But the picture is not all bloomy, of course. There remain things which this industry needs to and is currently addressing. E.g., the share of women in this industry remains below that of men and the working culture still puts a lot of strains on junior professionals. We are currently experiencing slow but constant shifts in the right direction, however, the industry will need further advances to improve on these aspects.
Nonetheless, I like my job. You always work with new clients, and on new topics. I quite enjoy it, but I definitely would not have imagined to be working here after I graduated PPE. The working hours are quite intense, but it also gives you a great learning curve. It is definitely a trade-off to be made, but if that trade-off is worth it to you personally (which it is for me right now), it is a great industry."
What advice would you give to yourself when you were in PPE?
"Do internal honours, and do the philosophy track! I did economics and politics, mostly because philosophy was quite difficult for me to comprehend. For example, for exams during the first and second semester, in order for me to get a good grade,it required me to spend much more time and energy on philosophy than I needed for either politics and economics, especially for History of Philosophy. In hindsight, however, I often became jealous of the discussions my peers within the philosophy track had (which I could hardly follow) and I often experienced during the remaining semesters that those of my peers who did philosophy had greater capacities for problem-solving. Now I wish I had taken these courses, because once you are out of uni, you do not put that much effort into learning these things anymore - I bought mostly all of the required readings for the philosophy courses, however, did I really interact with them as much as I would have if I studied this?"
Are there any resources or opportunities that you found particularly helpful, both in PPE and after, that you would like to share?
"LinkedIn. Definitely. I did three internships, and am currently at my second full-time professional job. I got four out of five of these positions through connections that I either made personally or via LinkedIn. I made a connection on LinkedIn with someone from my second internship in Vienna through someone I met during my first internship at Ernst & Young. I got introduced to my position I took on at Barclays through a mutual connection on LinkedIn as someone referred me directly. And for my current position at Perella, I got contacted by a headhunter who found me on LinkedIn. It might not necessarily always be the case for the public sector, but if you want to work within think tanks or private public policy companies, having these connections, and exchanging knowledge of positions is very beneficial. And lastly, regardless of whether you have LinkedIn or not, never be afraid to ask for something! Whatever it is, wanting to do an internship, or someone to be your mentor, I rarely got a “no” when asking for help to advance my career."
How are you still connected to the people from PPE?
"Almost all my best friends as of right now are from PPE. We are still in contact, although we are in different cities right now. Sometimes it is hard. As this programme attracts people from all corners of the world, you have to accept the fact that once done with your studies, not only you, but your friends and peers will take on exciting opportunities around Europe and the globe. People you have spent time with on a daily basis are only to be reached by flight. Nonetheless, we always try to find some time during the year to also catch up in person."
How did the network of PPE contribute to your personal growth?
"Being surrounded by people who are willing to discuss highly sensitive and important societal problems with you on a daily basis helps you to think and prioritise what is important right now, to know that you should raise your voice, e.g., during the current rise of the far-right in Germany. That boils down to our lecturers always provoking thought and forcing us to be open to different viewpoints and opinions.
My former PPE peers are in so many different places right now. One of my best friends is doing an internship at the UN, another one is working on her solo album, and one is doing her PhD. Everyone made their own story and went down their own path, and that is really the ability PPE gives you. It does not constrain you to do only one kind of job, instead it equips you to break into almost any industry you are interested in."
Is there something exciting that you would like to share about your life outside of your work?
"I finally moved to the city of my dreams: London. PPE definitely helped me in achieving that. I always wanted to move to London, whether for my Master's or permanently. And I managed to secure a job here! What I like most about London: The city is super diverse in terms of cultures, nationalities, and interests of people. Whether you are a banker, a chef, an artist, or a politician, you will always have a spot in the city!"
What are your plans for the future?
"I want to stay in London, and to stay happy and learning. Also, I want to become more active politically, seeing what is going on in Europe and the world at the moment."