GEM finance society student Francesco Diego Trovato reports back.
Career advice from Thierry Bourel to work in EDF as Manager of the Finance & Controlling departement og the Thermal Engineering Unit (GEM ESC 1990).
There are several traits a student must have:
- Adaptiveness and Dynamism. It is reported that in 4 years, half of the employees in EDF have career changes, which means that it is essential to be able to cooperate with different people and team members from project to project. This ability to adapt is not just
linked to projects but can be impacted by the change of work location, units and consequently lifestyle.
- Imagination. Although this company does not have the flexibility of a startup due to its dimension and structure, the core business; which shapes all the different departments is purely devoted to innovation and research. Therefore, a creative mind is required for this kind of job, given the fact that energy is a fast changing business, where the unknown is not just the future goal.
- Solid hard skills. EDF, due to its core business, is a company in which a great number of engineers work. This fact leads to a marked distinction of tasks within the company structure between technicians and managers. However, for a business student, a solid knowledge and an open mind are required, and a ready ability to dialogue with a team of engineers to succeed in each project, where complexity is not an exception but normality.
The typical day of a M&A intern, Marcel Perret-Gentil, GEM MSc 2018, in EDF is divided in many parts.
Meetings are the base of this work, because they are essential to communicate with all the other department and positions required for this business: engineers, for the technical aspects, investment bankers for the deal, big 4 companies for the due diligence, the legal department for the contract, international colleague, who work on the deal from another country and finally the management of EDF, which have to made decisions on the base of all the information available.
There is no routine in this job, project differs and working hours follow the deal, so every day is different. To conclude, there are a lot of similarities with jobs in M&A in investment banks, because the main task is being a financial analyst and of course, the core bus
iness, is always M&A.