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Kate Gribbon of Investec and her career story

Kate Gribbon, co-head of the private company fundraising team at Investec, tells Jo Russell how she went from university to corporate finance to private-company coverage. She covers her ACA training, a decade-long stint at Deloitte and her ambitions regarding Investec’s strategic direction

I completed a scholarship programme at Arthur Andersen in 2001, before studying economics and management at Oxford University. I then joined the graduate audit programme at Deloitte. An interest in going beyond audit and getting under the bonnet of a business was always there. I’d built up a broad network, so corporate finance was a good fit. My scholarship programme counted towards my ACA, so I qualified nine months earlier than my peers. I got ahead of the pack in terms of an internal move into the corporate finance advisory consumer team. The ACA training helped me understand how to analyse a set of accounts and apply that knowledge. It felt like being a detective, delving into layers of a financial model, identifying key risks and understanding the value drivers.

I was at Deloitte for 10 years and gained an enormous amount of experience working with very exciting mid-market companies and C-suite executives. But my passion was working with entrepreneur-led businesses, and I wanted more autonomy in originating sell-side M&A opportunities. I joined Cavendish Corporate Finance in 2015. They took a more boutique approach to working with companies, and their focus on entrepreneurs appealed. I could tap into my own network, target businesses I wanted to work with and be involved from start to finish. 


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