February 11, 2025 • 48 mins
On this CHATS segment of the "Financial Perspectives" podcast, Walter Pritchard shares his remarkable career pivot from chemistry to finance, exploring the critical decisions that shaped his career path and the skills needed for successful transitions. In our conversation, Walter offers valuable insights on the differences between corporate environments and the importance of communication, adaptability, and professional networking.
This discussion delves into the intricacies of corporate communication, particularly within Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Walter emphasizes the art of distilling complex information for diverse audiences, ensuring clarity and consistency in messaging. He highlights the role of the CFA program in his career, discussing its impact on credibility and opportunities in finance.
With personal anecdotes and lessons learned, Walter shares the importance of aligning one's skills and interests with career paths, the role of feedback and mentorship, and the nuanced decisions between pursuing an MBA or continuing with the CFA program. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation packed with insights into career growth, professional development, and investor relations.
CHATS is a monthly segment, featuring audio recordings from our previous webinars. This month's episode was originally recorded in October 2024.
If you'd like to learn more about the show, have a topic or speaker to suggest, or would like to leave us a comment, email podcast@cfa-sf.org.
This podcast is produced by CFA Society San Francisco, a not-for-profit professional association, providing professional learning and career resources to over 13,000 investment industry professionals worldwide. To learn more about CFA Society San Francisco, visit our website or connect with us on LinkedIn.
The information contained in this podcast does not constitute financial or investment advice. Please consult your own financial advisor for information concerning your specific situation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lindsey Helman (00:05):
Hello and welcome to this month's chat
segment of the FinancialPerspectives podcast.
Our chats episodes featuredynamic conversations between
industry experts from some ofour recent and most popular
webinar recordings.
This month you'll hear fromWalter Pritchard and Jeff
Hamrick as they discuss careertransitions and investor
relations.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (00:28):
Good morning.
Thank you for having us.
I would like to take thisopportunity to thank Walter
Pritchard from Palo Alto Networkfor joining us today for what
will hopefully be an engagingconversation about his career
and path along over the last 20plus years.
Walter, welcome.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (00:46):
Thanks.
Thanks, jeff.
Thanks for ha ving me
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (00:47):
Absolutely .
So maybe we'll start with justa little bit of background of
you know.
My understanding was, as youwere a chemistry major coming
out of undergrad, moved up tothe Bay Area, what drove you
from coming from chemistry,chemistry, to financial markets?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (01:05):
Yeah, so it's an interesting story.
So I was, you know, as a typicalundergrad.
You go into college you're notexactly sure.
You kind of know what you like,but you don't know exactly what
you want to do.
Ended up, you know, reallyinterested in the sciences, did
the chemistry major.
Really liked the theory part ofit.
As I got further into it it'sall about spending time in the
(01:25):
lab.
And I joke that I was allthumbs in the lab and really
didn't envision my future kindof in the lab.
And so I had a bit of arevelation.
My beginning of my junior yearhad a chat with the guy who was
my advisor, a great guy namedFred Greenman who just retired
as a professor, and I sort ofposed to him my conundrum and
(01:48):
he's like well, my brother is,was a physics major and is now
in the aerospace industry andhe's on the business side and
you should talk to him.
So I had a chat with with hisbrother and sort of realized
like I could continue on withthis chemistry major but I
didn't need to be in the lab.
So I continued on with thechemistry major, ended up doing
like some internship work aftermy junior year in finance
(02:08):
actually the mutual fund anddecided like I wanted to do
something.
I've always sort of said Ithink I know what I want to do
next or I know which direction Iwant to point.
So I did that internship,decided okay, coming out of
college, what like, I like thatdirection so I'll take a job in
that direction.
Ended up doing investmentbanking for a couple of years,
which I think is a typical.
You know, you come out ofundergrad and you want to do
(02:29):
finance, but you don't knowexactly what you do, like an
analyst role, did that for acouple of years and then, you
know, moved into equity researchbecause you know, met some
great people and they got meexcited about it.
So that was the progression.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (02:42):
And so you were.
So it was about two years onthe investment banking side
before moving over to equityresearch, and in that a lot of
people think of investmentbanking, equity research.
It's all from these largeglobal firms.
Was there a significantdifference in your day to day?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (02:58):
You mean between banking and research
Exactly.
Yeah, I mean, banking is verytransactional and I did banking
during a time it was like 98 to2000.
So it was just it was a veryactive time in the capital
markets, lots of IPOs, and soyou, you really get to like get
deep on some some things andbecome an expert and and and and
.
So that's what got meinterested.
(03:31):
I would also say the pace andlifestyle.
When I was in banking I, youknow, I met my wife in college,
like we got, we were gettingmarried, you know, and it was a
bit of like is this thelifestyle?
You know, the banking lifestylecan be tough and I looked
around at the guys in researchand said that might look like a
better lifestyle, so so thatalso influenced the decision.
But I think really theopportunity to to kind of dive
(03:53):
down in deep on on on a, on anindustry was was what was
attractive to me coming out ofbanking, where you're very
transactional.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (04:00):
And when you started in research, has it
always been on the technologyside?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (04:04):
Yeah, yeah, so I did.
You know.
It's funny like when I so, whenI was coming out of the
chemistry with the chemistrymajor, you know my dad, actually
his advice was, well, you know,you know chemistry and like
whatever.
He didn't know any of it, right, but he's like, well, maybe you
do something biotech or pharma,and you know, tech was hot.
There were a couple of firmsrecruiting for tech and I had
(04:25):
done I could.
I could at least talk the talkon tech.
I had done some likeprogramming as it related to the
chemistry work I had done.
So there was a lot ofopportunity in tech.
Tech was kind of where it was at.
I was in California.
So I went into tech and and Ikind of got lucky between you
know, there's a bunch ofdifferent areas of tech I chose.
I kind of got lucky.
Between you know, there's abunch of different areas of tech
.
I chose.
I went, ended up going intosoftware, even in banking, doing
(04:46):
a lot of work in software,which was kind of right place at
the right time.
I don't know that I was thatscientific about it.
It was kind of like that'swhere the opportunity was, so I
went with it.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (04:55):
And I think software has been the
right place, right time for 20years now.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (04:58):
Right, no , that's what.
I'm saying yeah, exactly,exactly, I had it.
It's funny my initialopportunity in banking it was
between software andsemiconductors, and now
semiconductors are kind of backas well and I ended up choosing
really really more personalities.
There was a banker in softwarethat I, that I had an
opportunity to work with, that Ireally liked him and so I just
was like, ok, I like workingwith him, so I'm going to do
software.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (05:19):
Wow, interesting.
And so you started on researchand, around the global financial
crisis, you moved from a verywell-respected boutique firm to
Citi, which is a globalfinancial institution.
We all know.
In that change was there thingsthat were very surprising.
(05:39):
In that career change of goingfrom a smaller firm to a global
shop, yeah, so it's funny.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (05:44):
Every time I've changed jobs I've
tried to get ahead of it andlike talk to people that are in
that area.
You know at that firm, at abigger firm.
So everything I was, I was sortof all the work I did about
joining a bigger firm.
It definitely all played out.
I mean you're, there's so manymore demands on your time,
there's so many more salespeoplethere, there's so many more
salespeople there's colleaguesin all industries, and so it was
(06:05):
.
I mean, going from Cowan toCiti was drinking from a fire
hose for the first year and ahalf and it was a big step up in
just a number of companies.
You know my team grew byprobably two and a half times.
You know we were global.
(06:34):
You know I was, you know, firsttwo months.
It's like all right, you'regoing to spend a bunch of time
in Europe.
You know we're going to go toAsia, like it.
Just it was I sort of sensed Iwas getting into that from
talking to people that were atbigger firms.
It was definitely, even withall the preparation, it was a
major adjustment and you know Iwould say you know I was in over
my head probably for the firstyear just trying to keep up.
And then you, you know youfigure it out and you, you learn
and and and dig in and and itworked out fine, but definitely
(06:57):
a challenge.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (06:58):
So that initial belief that the sell
side research lifestyle wasgoing to be a little bit more
manageable than investmentbanking was not true to start.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (07:08):
I mean, I found and I only spent two
years in banking, so I don'tknow that I have enough
experience to say thiscategorically but I did find
that in banking the client madethe choice right, the client's
got something going on and youdon't get to tell the client I
don't want to participate inyour IPO or your M&A transaction
is not important to me.
(07:28):
On the sell side, especially asI got to Thitty, I had a
research manager who basicallyvery much imparted on us.
You run a franchise.
If you have a successfulfranchise, you'll be successful.
Here I'm going to give you somebest practices on how to run
your franchise, but I'm notgoing to manage your franchise
(07:50):
day to day.
So I did feel like I had atleast the ability to make
choices.
But no doubt for that first 12,18 months I was working very,
very hard, and as hard as I wasin banking at the beginning.
And then, as you start to getcontrol of it and hey, what
drives success in a franchise?
What's maybe not as important?
I started to moderate it alittle bit.
But I think it is hard to besuccessful at anything without
(08:11):
just investing everything youhave in it.
You just have to figure outwhere everything you have is and
you've got to balance stillother things family and
otherwise.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (08:20):
And when you think about the skill sets
of investment banker versusresearch, were there some
specifics, some things that youneeded to upskill about?
Was it managing two and a halftimes as many people, or was it
just dealing with the globaltravel?
What were some of those.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (08:41):
So I moved within from banking to
research in my first firm.
I was at SoundBee for about sixand a half years.
So there I would say, bankingto research is you know you're.
I think banking, especially thejunior levels, is very
quantitative.
It's like you're running thisanalysis, that analysis.
I think you move into researcheven at the junior level.
You start to understand there'smore to understanding a
(09:02):
business and a company than justthe spreadsheets and the
numbers.
So I started to, I think,appreciate that and that was a
bit of a actually enjoyed thattransition.
I think that moving from youknow smaller firm to to bigger
firm I mean there I had one, Ihad one associate working for me
at my my first equity researchrole and it was, it was very
easy and you know you can,almost you can manage by
(09:25):
micromanaging, right, you justyou're like this is what we need
to do.
Okay, you do this, I do this.
Like it's very straightforward.
You get a team of you know four, six people that you can't.
You have to start thinkingabout like what is the plan,
setting people's, setting ourteam's goals?
How do you contribute to thosegoals?
Really kind of more traditionalmanagement.
So I would say it wasn't untilI got to Citi and had you know,
I think when I started therewere five or six on the team
(09:47):
Like I really had to startlearning how to manage versus
just doing like, and even earlyon managing was an extension of
doing and then managing notmanaging.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (09:56):
You know you're managing in all different
directions, right, I think thatappreciating that aspect of it
as well is something I startedto learn, and that the aspect of
being a global firm matrixedand you know a lot of people
pulling you different ways ofdeciding who needs what.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (10:12):
Yeah.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (10:13):
I would assume is very important being
successful from like sitting.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (10:17):
Yeah, and you, I mean, you see every.
It's funny, you see everybody'stitle and where they are in the
organization, and then youreally start to understand how
the organization works.
And there's like the, there'sthe, there's the org chart, and
then there's how does ourbusiness work every day and who
do you need to, who do you needto influence to get done what
you want to get done, which ismore than just where are they on
the org chart?
So so I would say, learningthat kind of soft side of of
(10:38):
managing and and, and you knowagain, managing, kind of
laterally managing up, thatbecame much more important.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (10:45):
Absolutely .
And how long were you at Citi?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (10:48):
I was there for 11 years.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (10:50):
Okay, so a long time to get your processes
in place and understanding howto run the research side.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (10:56):
Yeah, I mean it took me, you know, took
me like really 18 months to sortof understand how it all worked
.
Sort of understand how it allworked.
And then, you know, then Ithink during that period I mean
software, really just the numberof companies, the amount of
market cap just kept growing.
So for the for the middleportion of my career at Citi, it
was just it was just trying totrying to scale what we were
(11:16):
doing in software, because therewere so many more companies and
and then me, you know, I thinkat the end we had a team of nine
or 10 people, and then we hadokay, there's European software
companies, we've got colleaguesdoing Europe software and how do
we influence them?
And then I took that part onand then we tried to staff that
back up.
(11:38):
So just a lot of trying to scalewhat we were doing, which I
would say was I enjoyed that.
Actually I always enjoyed likethere were new companies, there
were, you know, new people tokind of bring on board.
I enjoyed that.
I enjoyed the franchise modelwhich Citi really, I think, did
a really good job of likeinstilling in us as analysts
that build your franchise to thebest it could be.
There's no, there's no limit.
You can be the number onefranchise within equity research
(12:00):
.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (12:01):
So and so you have this your team built.
Things are running smoothly.
You know you're succeeded byany measure in the corporate
world.
What drove that change to?
Okay, I've done this, but let'sthink about something different
.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (12:18):
Yeah, I mean I would say first of all,
like I had had over the years,like it was a bit random, right,
people come to me and say, oh,we're looking for this, you know
, we're looking for a head offinance, we're looking for IR,
we're looking for, you know, abank's call.
Hey, I'm looking for an M&Abanker.
I had some random pings overthe years and sometimes they
(12:38):
were from people like yourespected, so you wanted to
investigate a little bit more.
So it always had like a bit of,oh, there's other things out
there, maybe.
Maybe I consider something else.
I think what it was was acombination of three things.
It was it was definitely likethe travel was kind of a
(13:01):
grueling lifestyle, that thatwas kind of always getting to me
.
The second was and these aren'tnecessarily in order, but that
was, that was one of them.
The second was I did kind ofstep back a couple of and say
and my wife would almost likeask me this like you know, where
do you want to be in five years?
What do you want to?
You know, what do you want todo next?
But more almost in the contextof equity research.
And I just thought to myselflike I don't want to manage the
research department, I don'twant to move into another role
(13:21):
at Citi, don't want to move intoanother role at Citi.
And then I started to look atit from the perspective of if I
fast forwarded five years and Ilook back on those five years,
like what would I say?
Oh, I learned this, I did this.
And it did kind of get to thepoint in equity research where I
just said like I don't knowthat the next five years look a
lot different than the last fiveyears.
And you know, I didn't dislikethe job, but it was like what am
(13:42):
I going to do over the nextfive years?
What will I look back on overthe last five years and say I
did that?
And then, you know, theopportunity here came up and it
was like okay, well, interesting, I investigated it, like I
investigated a few of the others.
I was like no, this is really.
It's probably the first time Italked to a company where they
really understood, like what myskill set was.
(14:03):
It wasn't like I have this role.
Do you want to interview for?
The role is more like I knowwhat you do.
We need help in that area.
You know we should talk right.
So so that I think, set it upwell, and so I decided to
investigate it more.
As you know, maybe some they'redialed in may or may not
recognize like a coveringanalyst, exploring an employment
(14:23):
opportunity at a company thatyou cover is actually quite a
sticky situation that you haveto go by the book.
And so you know, even decidingI was going to seriously engage
in that conversation.
Some of the other conversationsI'd had were with companies I
didn't cover, but if you're thecovering analyst you actually
have to.
It has to be disclosed in yourresearch if you're pursuing
employment with a company youcover and you know went through
(14:51):
the process here and it, youknow it fit the criteria kind of
what I wanted to do.
Next I looked back on equityresearch and said, well, if I do
this new thing for the nextfive years, versus, you know,
staying in that for five years,what do I think?
And I decided like I don't knowwhat more I'll get out of the
next five years in equityresearch.
Like I didn't dislike it butdecided to try something new,
and you know I was 45.
Like it, but decided to trysomething new, and you know I
(15:12):
was 45.
So you're like at some pointyou know, if you're 60, you're
not going to say, okay, I'll dosomething new.
At some point you say, okay,not worth it maybe.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (15:20):
Right and so in doing that, you likely
built it sounds like you built avery large network of people at
all different levels, differentparts of city, people that had
leftiti and gone and maybe donethe same journey.
Did you go through that processof reaching out to your
colleagues and friends that haddone a similar move to get the
(15:42):
real take?
I should say?
Walter Pritchard, CF (15:44):
Definitely .
There were two Citi analystsand one analyst who was a
calendar that had all made amove from research into finance
and I talked to all of them andI heard a very similar story.
I didn't hear anything thatscared me and in fact, after I
talked to all of them I was likethis sounds like the right next
move.
So yeah, I definitely, like Isaid, even when I went from
(16:04):
Cowan into Citi, like spent alot of time trying to figure out
what it would look like.
So I'm a I'm like a fairlyconservative decision maker
generally.
So I would say, did all myhomework, tried decision maker
generally.
So I would say, did all myhomework, tried to learn as much
as I could, and a couple offolks were pretty helpful.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (16:17):
Sounds like a lot of the CFA's on the
phone.
Right, you do all your research, make a logical decision from
there.
And when you got over to PaloAlto Networks here you're going
from a financial firm to atechnology firm works, you know,
here you're going from afinancial firm to a technology
firm Was there a lot of cultureshock of just how it's managed
(16:40):
and how the people operate?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (16:42):
So I would say the biggest thing I
heard in doing my work was in alike an industry internal role.
It's a lot more about how, how.
So I guess the summary would bealmost everything that I
experienced in terms of likedifference.
I I heard, or was kind of likewarned going going into the role
(17:04):
, so um, but.
But probably the biggest thingwas it's not that, it's not what
decision is made, it's how thedecision is made, the process by
which a decision is made.
It's how the decision is made,the process by which a decision
is made inside a company.
I think, as analysts and peopleobserving companies externally,
you just focus on what was thedecision?
Did they make the rightdecision?
Internally, it's really moreabout how the decision is made
(17:27):
and if you're trying to get towhat you believe is a right
decision, how do you kind ofplot the path to get there?
How do you influence the rightpeople?
How do you bring the right data?
I would say I was very muchthat was very much imparted upon
me by folks that I talked toand that's very much turned out
to be a big difference betweenmy old role and this role.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (17:46):
And has your management style or
leadership style had to shiftbecause of that?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (17:52):
Yeah, there's a lot more like in like
at Citi.
You know, in equity research,like I said, you're sort of
running your franchise right andyou depend on other people for
the success of your franchise.
You can't completely be in yourown world but you're much more
doing your own thing, I wouldsay, in the role.
So I do investor relations, Ido corporate development, which
(18:12):
is our M&A.
I was for the first three yearsdoing some work, kind of core
finance work, our long rangeplan.
I managed a product financeteam In're constantly, you know,
influencing others, workingacross other businesses, and I
would say I have had to developthat.
I knew I would have to developthat.
(18:43):
I've had to develop that.
You know much, much more.
And that's been almost like thekey to having success here or
not has been my ability to kindof work more laterally with
colleagues, which I didn't haveto do nearly to the same degree
in the equity research world.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (18:59):
And as people are, you know, dialed
into this call, thinking abouthey, maybe I want to make a
switch.
I work in investment banking orI work on the buy side, I want
to go to the corporate side.
Any advice or thoughts of youknow how they should approach
that process?
You know what skills might theynot have?
That you're like you have to beable to communicate well if
(19:21):
you're an analyst and you neverdo one all day.
That is not going to work overhere, you know, is there.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (19:27):
Yeah, I think I think it's hard to build
out every skill you're going toneed for the combination of the
role at a given company andmaybe the way the company
operates.
So I think what you're betteroff doing is to get in the door,
understand what you do well,make sure you can represent that
(19:47):
to somebody in a corporateenvironment and then find the
right fit for your skills in acorporate environment and then
find the right fit for yourskills.
I think that's the.
I think I think it's harder forme to say, oh, go out and take
a course in this or develop thisskill, because I think you know
, for example, in IR, some, somecompanies are very heavy on the
communications aspect of IR.
It's almost like IR is anextension of corporate
(20:08):
communications, right?
Others, ir is very, very tiedinto finance and like the
strategic finance role andthings like that.
So I think it is hard to saythis is the list of skills you
need to build, but I think, likethe collaboration and ability
to work laterally with otherfolks I think is, as I've
already mentioned, kind of amuch needed skill.
I'm just not sure how yourepresent that as you go into a
(20:30):
new role.
So I think, knowing what you dowell and being able to
articulate that, being able toalign that with what a
prospective employer needs, Ithink is important.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (20:41):
And how important at Palo Alto or
another company do you thinkjust industry domain expertise
is.
So if someone comes from afinance background in retail, is
that going to translate?
You know, maybe they'reextremely good at modeling,
extremely good at all.
That Is the learning curve onthe specific company.
(21:01):
Actually a little bit easierthan maybe some of the other
students.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (21:05):
I think at a I mean, you know I did this
in a more experienced level,right, I think at a more junior
level.
I think there are, you know,like we hire, for example, in
finance, you know, analysts andsenior analysts and so forth who
might just have a given skillset that we wouldn't really care
what industry they're in.
I think at a more experiencedlevel, I think it's harder to
(21:26):
make an industry change and arole change.
So I think making a and I wouldsay also back in equity
research, like I saw people makeindustry shifts but they're
still doing equity research in anew industry, right, whereas
here I feel like if I were tohave gone into a different
industry and try to do what I'mdoing now make that shift.
I think it's challenging.
So I think you almost figureout what industries you know the
(21:48):
best and then figure out howyour skill set which you're
going to have to explain tosomebody why your skill set in
equity research or in investmentbanking or on the buy side is
relevant to their corporate role.
At least you can talk the sameindustry domain knowledge and
show your proficiency there.
So I think it makes it harderif you're trying to switch
industries.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (22:09):
The binoculars say you know
understanding what all thosethree letter, four letter, you
know words are that that peopleare sitting on.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (22:16):
Yeah.
So the other thing maybe I'dsay just it's not a direct
answer to a question you'veasked, but it relates to this
topic.
So the piece that I find likewe've talked a lot about, like
what I've had to upskill, whatI've had to do, to kind of
transition in I think the piecethat is lacking in internal, you
know, in the corporate worldthat I brought that I think
maybe I almost I was told thisas I was going in.
(22:36):
But everybody in the corporateworld kind of has their like.
They're in treasury, they're inproduct finance, they're in
sales finance.
They sort of have their area,they have to collaborate with
others but they don't know awhole lot about sometimes these
other areas internally and theyalso have no idea of sort of the
outside world.
So like being able to bring theoutside in perspective.
(22:57):
I think in finance everybody'sgot the inside perspective.
They don't have the outside inperspective.
I think the more that's neededat a company and the more you
can demonstrate you have that, Ithink the more valuable you're
perceived to be.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (23:11):
And on that was there other things that
you wish you would have knownwhen you were at Citi or as a
publishing analyst, that youlearned once you got into Palo
Alto.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (23:21):
Yeah, I would say when you're in equity
research again, you have yourteam, your franchise.
Sometimes, when you have to getsomething done, you just tell
everybody we've got to jump onit and it's kind of all hands on
deck.
Sometimes you do thatrepeatedly because that's just
how it works.
I would say, in a corporateenvironment and with a bigger
team that I have now, or youknow, or as the company's just
(23:43):
growing quickly, you've got tobe able to put process behind it
and be able to scale.
And I think I probablyunderappreciated that as I came
in and you know it's probablystill.
The lesson I learned every dayis you know we're a growing
company.
You know there's, there's.
We have to move quickly.
You can't, you can't do thatwithout, without process
established, and sometimesyou've just got to step back and
(24:04):
say, okay, we're not going to.
It's like ready aim fire.
You know you've got to kind ofput that, put that process in
place.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (24:11):
I'd say I'm reminded of that constantly,
even after being here for threeand a half years and being on
the corporate side now and maybethis is on the IR side, maybe
it's on the M&A side when you'redoing corporate development, is
it a lot different having tointeract with the CEO, cfo and
board of directors than anythingyou've done previously in your
(24:33):
career?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (24:35):
I mean, I think a good equity research
analyst has to distill down whattheir message is, to make it
simple and easy to follow,because you're often, as a
sell-side analyst, you're oftendealing with generalist-type
investors, not necessarily techspecialists that know all the
acronyms, specialists that knowall the acronyms.
(24:57):
So I would say being able to dothat is is a skill that has has
worked well when dealing withthe, you know, with our, with
our seat, especially our CEO onour board, and and I would say,
yeah, I've been able to leveragethat.
I've been able to leverage thatreasonably well.
I think I just have to.
I do have to constantly remindmyself you know your, I know
whatever topic it is.
You know I've I've spent.
You know you're, I knowwhatever topic it is, you know
I've spent.
You know 100 times more timefocused on it than the person
(25:17):
I'm presenting it to.
So you have to, you have tomake sure that you're constantly
remembering that.
I think that that goes for evencommunication outside to
investors, right?
Sometimes the folks that I'mtalking to, they kind of check
in on us once a quarter.
Right, you have to.
You have to level set, makesure you're putting things in a
common kind of framework and soforth that they can understand.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (25:37):
And were your communication skills?
Is that something that you justlearned over time, being on the
South side, having to go outand talk to people all the time?
Or was that something you veryconsciously have worked on how
to communicate?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (25:50):
Yeah, I think it's just happened over
the years, right, and I don'tthink I'm necessarily an expert
at this point, but yeah, I wouldsay you know, one of my
directors of research at Citisaid he's like I listened to you
on the morning call andsoftware becomes so complicated.
He said listen to the oil team.
When they come on the morningcall they say oil's going up.
(26:12):
Here's why you should buy this,sell this, you know, and so I
would charge my team at Citiwith oil's going up by.
I just had this joke like oil'sgoing up by software.
But but how do you makesomething that simple in
software?
And I haven't figured out whatthe what, the analogy is to that
in in in in my world right now.
(26:32):
But I think thinking aboutthings that way, you know, being
able to explain it to yourfather, being able to put it in
that context, something likethat is helpful for just honing
communication skills.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (26:44):
Being able to have it, being able to talk
to someone that doesn't knowanything about the industry and
convince them, at the end of theday, that this is something
that they should be interestedin.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (26:52):
Yep agreed.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (26:53):
And then be able to pivot and talk to
maybe some of the mostsophisticated hedge fund
investors out there.
Yeah, yeah.
And when you've kind of thoughtabout the different segments of
your career or what yourcurrent responsibilities are, do
you think of them holisticallyor is it very much?
You have your IR team.
You have your corporatedevelopment team.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (27:15):
Yeah, I feel like, at the end of the day
, my collective team's role isto make sure we understand
what's going on outside thecompany and make sure we bring
that perspective, you know, indifferent areas of the company.
So in CorpDev we spend a lot oftime out meeting with startups,
(27:37):
meeting with companies thathave some scale, like trying to
understand what is going onoutside our four walls and then
representing that to our teamsand then helping them understand
how what they're doing, howwhat's going on outside, relates
to what they're doing, becausesometimes they're not that in
tune with it.
Similarly, on the IR side, youknow, again, in finance,
everybody's focused on there.
(27:57):
They might focus on, you know,this part of it or that part of
it.
I think, to some degree,bringing it all together and how
does it get represented as aset of results that are digested
by.
You know the outside world isis something that you know we do
, and then and then making surethey're in tune with where the
outside investor sentiment isand what other companies are
saying, and so forth.
So I think bringing thatoutside perspective is something
(28:21):
that's tied commonly across.
I would say, beyond that, likeCorpDev and IR, we've done a few
acquisitions.
When it's time to communicatethe acquisition, I have an
advantage.
But I don't think there'snecessarily a synergy in those
two beyond that sort of focus onthe external world.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (28:38):
And you talk about managing expectations
and putting that in howdifferent is that versus the
internal audience, versus theexternal audience?
And maybe on the external side,how different is that managing
the long you know, plain vanillalong term holder versus some of
the faster moving money?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (28:58):
Yeah, I think I think on the external
side, the most important thingis to just make sure they
actually understand what we'resaying.
Because I think if you thinkabout like we don't have that
the number of conversationshappening in the, in the, in the
investment community, aroundour company, we're probably
involved in 1% of them.
The rest is like a sell-sidertalking to a buy-sider, a
(29:22):
buy-side talking to anotherbuy-side.
There's so many conversationsgoing on around our company.
We need to make sure that ourmessage is out there and that
it's understood by everybody.
They may have an opinion thatdisagrees with our view of the
market, something like that, butwe want to make sure our view
is out there.
I would say keeping it simple,keeping it consistent.
(29:46):
Externally, that's where wefocus.
We try to be very consistentacross long only hedge fund.
We want to know, we wanteverybody to know, what they're,
what they're, what we're saying.
It may their questions we haveto answer may be different, but
we want to make sure that it'sthat it's very consistent.
I would say externally it'salmost the reverse.
There's like a there can besometimes a lack of connection
(30:08):
between the inside and theoutside.
And and then if if we don'thelp everybody understand what
outside expectations are.
They sort of operate in a waywhere maybe outside expectations
don't matter.
So we need to make sure thatthere's enough information
internally such that people havethat perspective.
They almost won't make up theirown story if they don't hear
(30:30):
something, whereas if we're notout with a consistent external
story to investors.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (30:39):
I find that the market will make up
their own message if you don'thave a message out there.
And it seems to be thatcommunication is an incredibly
important part of your role,both internally, externally, and
doing that Maybe to change thesubject just slightly when you
were talking about how you'realways thinking about the next
five years.
You know, and you've been atPalo Alto networks for four
(31:02):
years- yeah, three and a half,yep.
So we're coming up on that fiveyear anniversary.
Maybe when you think about thenext five years, are you like
hey look, I got a great life.
Companies, companies you knowdoing really well, really enjoy
my job, built out my teams, youknow things, things are going
well yeah or are you thinkinglike hey, you know what, maybe
(31:23):
ir is the destination, maybeit's not um how do?
You think about that?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (31:27):
yeah, I, I would say like and even when I
was at city and I wasn'tcontemplating any, any change, I
would.
I would sometimes just just puttogether a chart and I would
show this to my team this iswhere I'm spending my time, this
is where I think I should bespending my time.
And how do I?
And some of it was likepersonal preference right, I
wanted to travel less.
(31:48):
So, like, let's adjust my time.
Part of it was like this iswhat I'd like to spend my time
on, this is what I'm better atdoing.
The team can do this otherstuff.
So I tend to follow this modelof I want to do more of what I
like and want to do less of whatI don't like, or more of what
I'm good at, less of what I'mnot good at.
That's the wrong way to put it,because sometimes you want to
challenge yourself in areasyou're not good.
(32:09):
So I would say, as I've thoughtabout what I'm spending my time
on in the job I'm in, and maybethinking about what I want to
do next, it's what do I enjoy?
Or where do I add more value?
I'll focus more there, and andso I've definitely, if I think
about, you know, 2024 now,versus I came in in 2021.
You know, I'll give you anexample.
(32:30):
I took on a product finance team, which I it was.
It was super interesting.
I learned a lot.
I don't know that that's mynext to almost be the head of
finance.
I don't know that.
That's it's been.
(32:51):
I've enjoyed it.
I'll enjoy keep doing it ifthat's part of what I do.
You know, the core dev piece Ithink is really fun.
I've always enjoyedunderstanding like external
innovation, and so you know,I've done a little bit of like
oh, I want to do more of this,less of this.
You know, that's kind of evenhow I think about the next role,
like what you know.
There's things I know I don'twant to be part of the next role
and there's things I'm spendingmore time on.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (33:13):
That I would like to double down on and
when you're out, thinking aboutwhat the audience is on here,
adding members to your team andthis could have been at Citi,
this could have been now PaloAlto Networks or even earlier in
your career.
Are there common traits thatpeople see when you watch
interviews or listen to podcasts?
(33:34):
Everyone like oh be curious becurious, you know outside of
being curious is there somethingelse that?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (33:39):
yeah, I, I would say I kind of bifurcated
in in in two, two, uh twosegments of people to hire,
right, you're kind of hiring you, they're hiring more at the
entry level.
You're hiring more experiencedright at the entry level.
I actually got very, veryexperienced right At the entry
level.
I actually got very, very goodat that at Citi.
You want someone, they've gotto have a baseline level of
skill set, right, so that'stable stakes and then you're
(34:01):
really hiring for.
Are they hungry?
Do we think they have a goodwork ethic?
Are they going to like theexample I'd always use if you
throw something at them, theyput it in Google and they don't
find the answer.
Do they come back to you andsay I can't find the answer?
Or do they keep, you know,banging, banging, banging on it
to find the answer and to solvethe problem, like that work
(34:22):
ethic, that hunger.
To me at the entry level, onceI've established they have the
baseline skill set to do the jobI need, that's what I would
focus on and that's never failedas a hiring criteria for me At
the more experienced level.
It really comes down to likeand this has been more here
rather than in equity researchit's like what am I good at and
(34:42):
what am I not good at, or what'sgoing well on the team and
what's not going well on theteam, and then you're trying to
hire for what you need, right,and what kind of person is that?
Like I mentioned, I wasprobably a little light on the
process side.
So I have some really strongpeople on my team here that are
process people and you know, oneof them was here when I got
here.
One of them I've elevatedbecause he's very good on
(35:05):
process.
So you just you compensate forwhat you don't have in your more
experienced hiring, becausethey ultimately have to they're,
they're, they're driving theteam forward.
They're sometimes representingyou when you're more experienced
hiring, because they ultimatelyhave to they're, they're,
they're driving the team forward.
They're sometimes representingyou when you're not there, like,
like.
You need to make sure you havethat.
You have that strength.
So I would say there, you knowI've only been here three and a
half years kind of using thatskillset.
I'm probably not as good atdoing that as I am, you know,
(35:25):
hiring hungry people at theentry level, but you know,
that's what I've learned so far.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (35:29):
And and when you're looking for that
feedback of understanding whereyour blind spots are.
I think this is important foranyone, no matter where they are
in their career.
How do you go about gettingthat critical feedback that you
need?
Is it from your peers yourcolleagues?
Maybe the CEO has no qualmstelling you what you don't do.
Well, you know.
Is there some process you gothrough in order to get that
(35:51):
feedback?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (35:52):
So, yeah, so I've been.
I think I've been.
So my style is I try to.
I feel like I should know thatbefore anybody tells me that,
right, I should be self-awareenough that I have a sense for
what I'm strong at and what I'mnot strong at.
I would say, then, establishingwith you know, with your boss,
which is actually not that hardright, if you tell your boss,
(36:13):
don't beat around the bush, justwhen something's going well,
tell me it's going well.
When something's not going well,give me feedback.
Like if you and most, mostbosses, they'd rather operate
that way than have to, you know,put on kid gloves and try to
nuance something.
Right, if you just establishthat with your boss and then
some are just naturally likethat right, they're just going
(36:38):
to give you direct feedbackbecause that's how they operate.
But I think that's very helpful.
I think if you help, like yourpeers understand that you're
open to that feedback, that'sthe next step.
And then I think the hardeststep is like making your team
aware that you're also, you knowyou'll take feedback as well as
a manager, right, and and Ithink that's harder that's both
harder to communicate becausebecause ultimately you know
you're the manager you don'twant to have have it be too much
like management by by committee, but I think if you're open to
(37:01):
that, they know that you are andthen they use it.
They use it sparingly, but theyknow they can use it.
I think that's.
That's all helpful, but you canget.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (37:16):
I think you can get 75% of percent of
that from your boss.
Okay, got it.
And um.
So if you were um you knowcoming out with a chemistry
degree again, um, you know fastforward to today yeah, would.
Would you be heading towardstechnology?
Would you be thinking, oh,let's head towards finance,
because it gives you such a coreunderstanding of businesses?
You know, how would you, howwould you guide someone at this
point?
Yeah, you know, it's funny.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (37:34):
I have a 20 year old, so like we're we're
talking this, and he's anelectrical engineering major and
he, he, he's enamored with youknow, he's really good at math,
so he thinks options tradingwould be the most exciting thing
in the world.
And I think, a look, I think itdepends on what type of person
you are.
There's, there's some peoplethat aren't going to end up in
tech or finance or whatever.
(37:55):
I think you figure out what youenjoy and what your core skill
sets are.
I think to do, I think, to bein most tech related roles.
I think to be in finance,you've got to be quantitative.
I don't think necessarily.
Nobody looks at my chemistrymajor and says, oh, you're not
qualified to be in finance,right.
They always ask like, oh,you're not qualified to be in
finance, right.
They always ask like, oh, how'dyou get into finance?
(38:17):
I think the mindset is, youknow I'll catch myself using the
term rate limiting step, whichis kind of a chemistry.
You know term.
I think you, just like I'vealways I started off in
chemistry because I thought itwas interesting, I thought there
was a path there.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (38:54):
I thought I knew what I wanted to do over
the next five years.
It turned out I didn't want tobe in the lab so I sort of
adjusted.
So I think you just keep goingdown the path that you find
interesting and definitelycourse correct.
As you go down the path andyou're never going to know where
you're going to ultimately endup, you know kind of which turn
you'll take in the next set ofoptions you have down the path
and as you were heading downyour journey was moving from
city to Palo Alto.
Was that a defining part ofyour career, just in terms of
what your next steps were or not, significantly, you were doing
some over here?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (39:11):
I think, like again, I think you're just
on a bit of a journey.
So maybe you and I haven'tthought about this way.
Maybe you retire right, you endyour career and you look back.
I would say there are a couplelike forks in the road for me
and a couple people at thoseforks in the road that I look
back right now and say that wasa big moment, like I actually
(39:33):
enjoyed the investment bankingwork.
And there was a the firstanalyst I worked for, who's not
in the business anymore.
He, he really helped meunderstand what, what, how,
where.
He thought my skills would fitin equity research and he
actually was kind of like youknow, it was a weird time, it
was like before all theregulation stuff.
So he said, oh, you can try itout a little bit.
(39:53):
You know you're a banker, butspend a little time with me in
research and we can learn.
You can learn if you want to dothis Right.
He took the time to help meunderstand what equity research
was about.
I would say, you know, there'sjust a couple of moments in my
career.
I'd say that was a criticalpoint where I decided to make,
to make a move, and it wasn'tabout the move I made, it was
about the process of me makingthat decision.
(40:15):
So in coming in here I didspend a decent amount of time
with our CEO, like what do youthink my role would be?
Why do you think you need ithere?
And if it just would have beena job posting at Palo Alto
Networks, like, oh, here's thejob, take it.
I don't know if that's the jobI want or what, but helping to
understand what they weresolving for here helped me
(40:37):
decide.
I wanted to take the role andyou know I probably wouldn't
have done it without that.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (40:41):
And it seems like there's been people
have been very key to yourcareer and your journey as they
always are.
Is there anything you do inparticular to keep your network
strong or, you know, in terms ofmaking sure when you're back on
the East Coast you're reachingout to maybe some of your former
colleagues to grab a dinner?
(41:01):
Maybe it's you do regularconversations, you know with
people.
How do you think about keeping?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (41:06):
No, I'm smiling because we have like a
private LinkedIn group of mywhatever 21 year equity research
team, like the people that workdirectly for me and equity
research, and we have a LinkedIngroup.
It's not maybe as active on theon the LinkedIn, but you know
I'm in New York to do dinnerwith those, that team, and you
know I it's been mostly New York.
(41:26):
I kind of catch up with peopleone off in other cities but no,
I enjoy that actually, likethey're all in, you know they're
all in different, uh differentspots they're.
You know, some are, some are onthe buy side, some are doing
random things, private equity.
So yeah, I've enjoyed thatquite a bit actually, just kind
of uh, staying in touch and and,uh, you know, kind of proud of
it.
Like there's, I don't know,there's 18 or 20 people in that,
(41:47):
in that group, so it's it'sbeen kind of a fun group to stay
in touch with and is that yourkey sounding board, or does it
just depend on what kind ofdecision you're making?
Yeah, no, like you know, not asmuch.
It's interesting like a coupleof them, yes, but but a couple
of them yes, because I value,like the perspective I probably
(42:08):
use others more than than themmy couple friends.
I have my wife like my wife's avery objective decision maker.
So, you know, I would say notas much, it's more just like
learning from them.
Right, they're all doingdifferent things, so you get to
hear what they're up to and soforth what their experiences are
and how they've managed theirjourney right.
(42:29):
Yeah, also just kind ofpractically like.
Think about like I spend as aresearch analyst.
I covered like a team, coveredlike almost 50 companies.
You know I was on the morningcall.
Every day You've had peopletelling you what's going on in
the markets.
And you know, now I sit here Iread some research but like I
have a very narrow view of theworld versus what I used to have
and so I actually use thosetypes of people to just hey
(42:50):
what's going on, what's going onof people, to just hey what's
going on.
What's going on Like what'sgoing on with Microsoft, why,
you know, stock's done well,stock hasn't done well, what's
going on right, I get to hearthe pitch and I actually can
easily digest like what's theinvestor pitch?
I hear that enough on things.
I can kind of understand what'sgoing on in the world.
It helps me understand what itmeans for us.
So I use it in very real terms.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CF (43:10):
Interesting .
Are there any other?
And maybe Tanya, I don't know.
Are we bringing people on toask questions or would you like
me to just do some of themoderated questions?
Tanya Suba-Tang (43:23):
We have some questions in the Q&A box.
Unfortunately our audiencecan't unmute themselves, but of
course they're welcome to submitthem to the Q&A box.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (43:33):
Perfect, thank you.
So I see a couple here likethere's there's a question on a
transition from IB into investorrelations and you know, what
would you, what would youhighlight during the interview
process?
I think I mentioned thisearlier.
Like I think you need tounderstand what they're solving
for, what, what a prospectiveemployer is solving for, and how
you can, how you can be thesolve right.
(43:54):
And if and if you're not thesolve, then maybe the roles,
maybe if you can't get that tomatch up, maybe it's not the
right role and you find anotherrole.
But but you know, I don't know.
I have specific advice for,like a coverage banker, but
again, I find that many of thesecompanies do not have a very
clear picture of what's going on, going on externally, and as a
coverage banker, you have, youdo have that view, so that that
(44:14):
might be a salt.
But I think figuring out whattheir pain points are, what
they're looking for to be solved, I think, I think can be
helpful.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (44:21):
And one of the other questions being asked
is how helpful has goingthrough the CFA program been in
your career in terms of eitherpeople you met, the knowledge
base how's that played a role?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (44:33):
I was at a fork.
I was at a fork in the road in2002 or three um and I was
trying to figure out no, 2001.
I was trying to figure out didI want to move into equity
research?
Did I want to do something else?
I actually took the cfa levelone.
I I did, you know it, studiedfor it, it did well and I was
deciding do I want to do an mbaor or just keep on with the CFA?
(44:54):
And I decided look, I likeinvestment research, I like what
I'm doing, I kept on with theCFA.
I would say, along thatsell-side journey as well as in
IR, people see CFA and they'relike oh, you must know this,
this and this, we can have aconversation using certain terms
.
And oh, this, this and this,like, we can have a conversation
using certain terms and speak alanguage.
(45:15):
And so I think it's just beenkind of a baseline that I never
wanted to like go into marketingor take a very sharp turn in my
career from a businessperspective where maybe I would
have said, oh, I need to go getan MBA.
So I think it's helped me morefrom just like establishing that
baseline of credibility andbeing able to be conversant with
(45:35):
folks.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (45:36):
And if you're looking at a stack of
resumes that the HR folks havegiven you, do you're like, oh,
they have their CFA.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (45:44):
Yeah, I think I did.
In fact, the first five years Iwas on the sell side I told
everybody I hired I said you'regoing to start working on your
CFA.
So I then kind of relaxed thatthey were like you know, I
started hiring people.
They were married, they hadkids.
They're like I'm keeping thembusy.
I'm not going to mandate theyspend more of their time on that
, but I did always value it onthe sell side world.
(46:08):
I would say in this world it'snot as directly.
I think it helps, again,establish credibility.
So if I were hiring at theentry level, there'd be a number
of things I would look at tohelp establish credibility.
That might be one I don't knowthat I I don't probably look at
it exactly the same way as I didwhen I was hiring on the sell
side.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (46:27):
Though and that makes sense.
I mean, you know, when you'reon the sell side, it's, it's.
The curriculum is tailored forthat.
Yeah, exactly.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (46:35):
Exactly.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (46:37):
Well, I just want to say thank you so
much for your time.
You know I really appreciatehaving the opportunity to have
this call and look forward topotentially doing something like
this again in the future.
Lindsey Helman (46:53):
Thank you for listening to this month's chat
segment.
Chats is a monthly segmentfeaturing audio from our
recently recorded webinarsairing on the second Tuesday of
the month.
To view the video recording ofthis episode and discover
additional Society webinars,visit the CFA Society San
Francisco YouTube channel.
Join us next time for ourregularly scheduled Financial
(47:14):
Perspectives podcast episodeairing on the last Tuesday of
the month, and make sure to sendin a message to the show using
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We'd love to hear what youthink of our new chat segment or
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Thank you for being a dedicatedlistener.
(47:36):
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Hello and welcome to this month's chat
segment of the FinancialPerspectives podcast.
Our chats episodes featuredynamic conversations between
industry experts from some ofour recent and most popular
webinar recordings.
This month you'll hear fromWalter Pritchard and Jeff
Hamrick as they discuss careertransitions and investor
relations.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (00:28):
Good morning.
Thank you for having us.
I would like to take thisopportunity to thank Walter
Pritchard from Palo Alto Networkfor joining us today for what
will hopefully be an engagingconversation about his career
and path along over the last 20plus years.
Walter, welcome.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (00:46):
Thanks.
Thanks, jeff.
Thanks for ha ving me
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (00:47):
Absolutely .
So maybe we'll start with justa little bit of background of
you know.
My understanding was, as youwere a chemistry major coming
out of undergrad, moved up tothe Bay Area, what drove you
from coming from chemistry,chemistry, to financial markets?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (01:05):
Yeah, so it's an interesting story.
So I was, you know, as a typicalundergrad.
You go into college you're notexactly sure.
You kind of know what you like,but you don't know exactly what
you want to do.
Ended up, you know, reallyinterested in the sciences, did
the chemistry major.
Really liked the theory part ofit.
As I got further into it it'sall about spending time in the
(01:25):
lab.
And I joke that I was allthumbs in the lab and really
didn't envision my future kindof in the lab.
And so I had a bit of arevelation.
My beginning of my junior yearhad a chat with the guy who was
my advisor, a great guy namedFred Greenman who just retired
as a professor, and I sort ofposed to him my conundrum and
(01:48):
he's like well, my brother is,was a physics major and is now
in the aerospace industry andhe's on the business side and
you should talk to him.
So I had a chat with with hisbrother and sort of realized
like I could continue on withthis chemistry major but I
didn't need to be in the lab.
So I continued on with thechemistry major, ended up doing
like some internship work aftermy junior year in finance
(02:08):
actually the mutual fund anddecided like I wanted to do
something.
I've always sort of said Ithink I know what I want to do
next or I know which direction Iwant to point.
So I did that internship,decided okay, coming out of
college, what like, I like thatdirection so I'll take a job in
that direction.
Ended up doing investmentbanking for a couple of years,
which I think is a typical.
You know, you come out ofundergrad and you want to do
(02:29):
finance, but you don't knowexactly what you do, like an
analyst role, did that for acouple of years and then, you
know, moved into equity researchbecause you know, met some
great people and they got meexcited about it.
So that was the progression.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (02:42):
And so you were.
So it was about two years onthe investment banking side
before moving over to equityresearch, and in that a lot of
people think of investmentbanking, equity research.
It's all from these largeglobal firms.
Was there a significantdifference in your day to day?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (02:58):
You mean between banking and research
Exactly.
Yeah, I mean, banking is verytransactional and I did banking
during a time it was like 98 to2000.
So it was just it was a veryactive time in the capital
markets, lots of IPOs, and soyou, you really get to like get
deep on some some things andbecome an expert and and and and
.
So that's what got meinterested.
(03:31):
I would also say the pace andlifestyle.
When I was in banking I, youknow, I met my wife in college,
like we got, we were gettingmarried, you know, and it was a
bit of like is this thelifestyle?
You know, the banking lifestylecan be tough and I looked
around at the guys in researchand said that might look like a
better lifestyle, so so thatalso influenced the decision.
But I think really theopportunity to to kind of dive
(03:53):
down in deep on on on a, on anindustry was was what was
attractive to me coming out ofbanking, where you're very
transactional.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (04:00):
And when you started in research, has it
always been on the technologyside?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (04:04):
Yeah, yeah, so I did.
You know.
It's funny like when I so, whenI was coming out of the
chemistry with the chemistrymajor, you know my dad, actually
his advice was, well, you know,you know chemistry and like
whatever.
He didn't know any of it, right, but he's like, well, maybe you
do something biotech or pharma,and you know, tech was hot.
There were a couple of firmsrecruiting for tech and I had
(04:25):
done I could.
I could at least talk the talkon tech.
I had done some likeprogramming as it related to the
chemistry work I had done.
So there was a lot ofopportunity in tech.
Tech was kind of where it was at.
I was in California.
So I went into tech and and Ikind of got lucky between you
know, there's a bunch ofdifferent areas of tech I chose.
I kind of got lucky.
Between you know, there's abunch of different areas of tech
.
I chose.
I went, ended up going intosoftware, even in banking, doing
(04:46):
a lot of work in software,which was kind of right place at
the right time.
I don't know that I was thatscientific about it.
It was kind of like that'swhere the opportunity was, so I
went with it.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (04:55):
And I think software has been the
right place, right time for 20years now.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (04:58):
Right, no , that's what.
I'm saying yeah, exactly,exactly, I had it.
It's funny my initialopportunity in banking it was
between software andsemiconductors, and now
semiconductors are kind of backas well and I ended up choosing
really really more personalities.
There was a banker in softwarethat I, that I had an
opportunity to work with, that Ireally liked him and so I just
was like, ok, I like workingwith him, so I'm going to do
software.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (05:19):
Wow, interesting.
And so you started on researchand, around the global financial
crisis, you moved from a verywell-respected boutique firm to
Citi, which is a globalfinancial institution.
We all know.
In that change was there thingsthat were very surprising.
(05:39):
In that career change of goingfrom a smaller firm to a global
shop, yeah, so it's funny.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (05:44):
Every time I've changed jobs I've
tried to get ahead of it andlike talk to people that are in
that area.
You know at that firm, at abigger firm.
So everything I was, I was sortof all the work I did about
joining a bigger firm.
It definitely all played out.
I mean you're, there's so manymore demands on your time,
there's so many more salespeoplethere, there's so many more
salespeople there's colleaguesin all industries, and so it was
(06:05):
.
I mean, going from Cowan toCiti was drinking from a fire
hose for the first year and ahalf and it was a big step up in
just a number of companies.
You know my team grew byprobably two and a half times.
You know we were global.
(06:34):
You know I was, you know, firsttwo months.
It's like all right, you'regoing to spend a bunch of time
in Europe.
You know we're going to go toAsia, like it.
Just it was I sort of sensed Iwas getting into that from
talking to people that were atbigger firms.
It was definitely, even withall the preparation, it was a
major adjustment and you know Iwould say you know I was in over
my head probably for the firstyear just trying to keep up.
And then you, you know youfigure it out and you, you learn
and and and dig in and and itworked out fine, but definitely
(06:57):
a challenge.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (06:58):
So that initial belief that the sell
side research lifestyle wasgoing to be a little bit more
manageable than investmentbanking was not true to start.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (07:08):
I mean, I found and I only spent two
years in banking, so I don'tknow that I have enough
experience to say thiscategorically but I did find
that in banking the client madethe choice right, the client's
got something going on and youdon't get to tell the client I
don't want to participate inyour IPO or your M&A transaction
is not important to me.
(07:28):
On the sell side, especially asI got to Thitty, I had a
research manager who basicallyvery much imparted on us.
You run a franchise.
If you have a successfulfranchise, you'll be successful.
Here I'm going to give you somebest practices on how to run
your franchise, but I'm notgoing to manage your franchise
(07:50):
day to day.
So I did feel like I had atleast the ability to make
choices.
But no doubt for that first 12,18 months I was working very,
very hard, and as hard as I wasin banking at the beginning.
And then, as you start to getcontrol of it and hey, what
drives success in a franchise?
What's maybe not as important?
I started to moderate it alittle bit.
But I think it is hard to besuccessful at anything without
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just investing everything youhave in it.
You just have to figure outwhere everything you have is and
you've got to balance stillother things family and
otherwise.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (08:20):
And when you think about the skill sets
of investment banker versusresearch, were there some
specifics, some things that youneeded to upskill about?
Was it managing two and a halftimes as many people, or was it
just dealing with the globaltravel?
What were some of those.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (08:41):
So I moved within from banking to
research in my first firm.
I was at SoundBee for about sixand a half years.
So there I would say, bankingto research is you know you're.
I think banking, especially thejunior levels, is very
quantitative.
It's like you're running thisanalysis, that analysis.
I think you move into researcheven at the junior level.
You start to understand there'smore to understanding a
(09:02):
business and a company than justthe spreadsheets and the
numbers.
So I started to, I think,appreciate that and that was a
bit of a actually enjoyed thattransition.
I think that moving from youknow smaller firm to to bigger
firm I mean there I had one, Ihad one associate working for me
at my my first equity researchrole and it was, it was very
easy and you know you can,almost you can manage by
(09:25):
micromanaging, right, you justyou're like this is what we need
to do.
Okay, you do this, I do this.
Like it's very straightforward.
You get a team of you know four, six people that you can't.
You have to start thinkingabout like what is the plan,
setting people's, setting ourteam's goals?
How do you contribute to thosegoals?
Really kind of more traditionalmanagement.
So I would say it wasn't untilI got to Citi and had you know,
I think when I started therewere five or six on the team
(09:47):
Like I really had to startlearning how to manage versus
just doing like, and even earlyon managing was an extension of
doing and then managing notmanaging.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (09:56):
You know you're managing in all different
directions, right, I think thatappreciating that aspect of it
as well is something I startedto learn, and that the aspect of
being a global firm matrixedand you know a lot of people
pulling you different ways ofdeciding who needs what.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (10:12):
Yeah.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (10:13):
I would assume is very important being
successful from like sitting.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (10:17):
Yeah, and you, I mean, you see every.
It's funny, you see everybody'stitle and where they are in the
organization, and then youreally start to understand how
the organization works.
And there's like the, there'sthe, there's the org chart, and
then there's how does ourbusiness work every day and who
do you need to, who do you needto influence to get done what
you want to get done, which ismore than just where are they on
the org chart?
So so I would say, learningthat kind of soft side of of
(10:38):
managing and and, and you knowagain, managing, kind of
laterally managing up, thatbecame much more important.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (10:45):
Absolutely .
And how long were you at Citi?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (10:48):
I was there for 11 years.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (10:50):
Okay, so a long time to get your processes
in place and understanding howto run the research side.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (10:56):
Yeah, I mean it took me, you know, took
me like really 18 months to sortof understand how it all worked
.
Sort of understand how it allworked.
And then, you know, then Ithink during that period I mean
software, really just the numberof companies, the amount of
market cap just kept growing.
So for the for the middleportion of my career at Citi, it
was just it was just trying totrying to scale what we were
(11:16):
doing in software, because therewere so many more companies and
and then me, you know, I thinkat the end we had a team of nine
or 10 people, and then we hadokay, there's European software
companies, we've got colleaguesdoing Europe software and how do
we influence them?
And then I took that part onand then we tried to staff that
back up.
(11:38):
So just a lot of trying to scalewhat we were doing, which I
would say was I enjoyed that.
Actually I always enjoyed likethere were new companies, there
were, you know, new people tokind of bring on board.
I enjoyed that.
I enjoyed the franchise modelwhich Citi really, I think, did
a really good job of likeinstilling in us as analysts
that build your franchise to thebest it could be.
There's no, there's no limit.
You can be the number onefranchise within equity research
(12:00):
.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (12:01):
So and so you have this your team built.
Things are running smoothly.
You know you're succeeded byany measure in the corporate
world.
What drove that change to?
Okay, I've done this, but let'sthink about something different
.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (12:18):
Yeah, I mean I would say first of all,
like I had had over the years,like it was a bit random, right,
people come to me and say, oh,we're looking for this, you know
, we're looking for a head offinance, we're looking for IR,
we're looking for, you know, abank's call.
Hey, I'm looking for an M&Abanker.
I had some random pings overthe years and sometimes they
(12:38):
were from people like yourespected, so you wanted to
investigate a little bit more.
So it always had like a bit of,oh, there's other things out
there, maybe.
Maybe I consider something else.
I think what it was was acombination of three things.
It was it was definitely likethe travel was kind of a
(13:01):
grueling lifestyle, that thatwas kind of always getting to me
.
The second was and these aren'tnecessarily in order, but that
was, that was one of them.
The second was I did kind ofstep back a couple of and say
and my wife would almost likeask me this like you know, where
do you want to be in five years?
What do you want to?
You know, what do you want todo next?
But more almost in the contextof equity research.
And I just thought to myselflike I don't want to manage the
research department, I don'twant to move into another role
(13:21):
at Citi, don't want to move intoanother role at Citi.
And then I started to look atit from the perspective of if I
fast forwarded five years and Ilook back on those five years,
like what would I say?
Oh, I learned this, I did this.
And it did kind of get to thepoint in equity research where I
just said like I don't knowthat the next five years look a
lot different than the last fiveyears.
And you know, I didn't dislikethe job, but it was like what am
(13:42):
I going to do over the nextfive years?
What will I look back on overthe last five years and say I
did that?
And then, you know, theopportunity here came up and it
was like okay, well, interesting, I investigated it, like I
investigated a few of the others.
I was like no, this is really.
It's probably the first time Italked to a company where they
really understood, like what myskill set was.
(14:03):
It wasn't like I have this role.
Do you want to interview for?
The role is more like I knowwhat you do.
We need help in that area.
You know we should talk right.
So so that I think, set it upwell, and so I decided to
investigate it more.
As you know, maybe some they'redialed in may or may not
recognize like a coveringanalyst, exploring an employment
(14:23):
opportunity at a company thatyou cover is actually quite a
sticky situation that you haveto go by the book.
And so you know, even decidingI was going to seriously engage
in that conversation.
Some of the other conversationsI'd had were with companies I
didn't cover, but if you're thecovering analyst you actually
have to.
It has to be disclosed in yourresearch if you're pursuing
employment with a company youcover and you know went through
(14:51):
the process here and it, youknow it fit the criteria kind of
what I wanted to do.
Next I looked back on equityresearch and said, well, if I do
this new thing for the nextfive years, versus, you know,
staying in that for five years,what do I think?
And I decided like I don't knowwhat more I'll get out of the
next five years in equityresearch.
Like I didn't dislike it butdecided to try something new,
and you know I was 45.
Like it, but decided to trysomething new, and you know I
(15:12):
was 45.
So you're like at some pointyou know, if you're 60, you're
not going to say, okay, I'll dosomething new.
At some point you say, okay,not worth it maybe.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (15:20):
Right and so in doing that, you likely
built it sounds like you built avery large network of people at
all different levels, differentparts of city, people that had
leftiti and gone and maybe donethe same journey.
Did you go through that processof reaching out to your
colleagues and friends that haddone a similar move to get the
(15:42):
real take?
I should say?
Walter Pritchard, CF (15:44):
Definitely .
There were two Citi analystsand one analyst who was a
calendar that had all made amove from research into finance
and I talked to all of them andI heard a very similar story.
I didn't hear anything thatscared me and in fact, after I
talked to all of them I was likethis sounds like the right next
move.
So yeah, I definitely, like Isaid, even when I went from
(16:04):
Cowan into Citi, like spent alot of time trying to figure out
what it would look like.
So I'm a I'm like a fairlyconservative decision maker
generally.
So I would say, did all myhomework, tried decision maker
generally.
So I would say, did all myhomework, tried to learn as much
as I could, and a couple offolks were pretty helpful.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (16:17):
Sounds like a lot of the CFA's on the
phone.
Right, you do all your research, make a logical decision from
there.
And when you got over to PaloAlto Networks here you're going
from a financial firm to atechnology firm works, you know,
here you're going from afinancial firm to a technology
firm Was there a lot of cultureshock of just how it's managed
(16:40):
and how the people operate?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (16:42):
So I would say the biggest thing I
heard in doing my work was in alike an industry internal role.
It's a lot more about how, how.
So I guess the summary would bealmost everything that I
experienced in terms of likedifference.
I I heard, or was kind of likewarned going going into the role
(17:04):
, so um, but.
But probably the biggest thingwas it's not that, it's not what
decision is made, it's how thedecision is made, the process by
which a decision is made.
It's how the decision is made,the process by which a decision
is made inside a company.
I think, as analysts and peopleobserving companies externally,
you just focus on what was thedecision?
Did they make the rightdecision?
Internally, it's really moreabout how the decision is made
(17:27):
and if you're trying to get towhat you believe is a right
decision, how do you kind ofplot the path to get there?
How do you influence the rightpeople?
How do you bring the right data?
I would say I was very muchthat was very much imparted upon
me by folks that I talked toand that's very much turned out
to be a big difference betweenmy old role and this role.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (17:46):
And has your management style or
leadership style had to shiftbecause of that?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (17:52):
Yeah, there's a lot more like in like
at Citi.
You know, in equity research,like I said, you're sort of
running your franchise right andyou depend on other people for
the success of your franchise.
You can't completely be in yourown world but you're much more
doing your own thing, I wouldsay, in the role.
So I do investor relations, Ido corporate development, which
(18:12):
is our M&A.
I was for the first three yearsdoing some work, kind of core
finance work, our long rangeplan.
I managed a product financeteam In're constantly, you know,
influencing others, workingacross other businesses, and I
would say I have had to developthat.
I knew I would have to developthat.
(18:43):
I've had to develop that.
You know much, much more.
And that's been almost like thekey to having success here or
not has been my ability to kindof work more laterally with
colleagues, which I didn't haveto do nearly to the same degree
in the equity research world.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (18:59):
And as people are, you know, dialed
into this call, thinking abouthey, maybe I want to make a
switch.
I work in investment banking orI work on the buy side, I want
to go to the corporate side.
Any advice or thoughts of youknow how they should approach
that process?
You know what skills might theynot have?
That you're like you have to beable to communicate well if
(19:21):
you're an analyst and you neverdo one all day.
That is not going to work overhere, you know, is there.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (19:27):
Yeah, I think I think it's hard to build
out every skill you're going toneed for the combination of the
role at a given company andmaybe the way the company
operates.
So I think what you're betteroff doing is to get in the door,
understand what you do well,make sure you can represent that
(19:47):
to somebody in a corporateenvironment and then find the
right fit for your skills in acorporate environment and then
find the right fit for yourskills.
I think that's the.
I think I think it's harder forme to say, oh, go out and take
a course in this or develop thisskill, because I think you know
, for example, in IR, some, somecompanies are very heavy on the
communications aspect of IR.
It's almost like IR is anextension of corporate
(20:08):
communications, right?
Others, ir is very, very tiedinto finance and like the
strategic finance role andthings like that.
So I think it is hard to saythis is the list of skills you
need to build, but I think, likethe collaboration and ability
to work laterally with otherfolks I think is, as I've
already mentioned, kind of amuch needed skill.
I'm just not sure how yourepresent that as you go into a
(20:30):
new role.
So I think, knowing what you dowell and being able to
articulate that, being able toalign that with what a
prospective employer needs, Ithink is important.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (20:41):
And how important at Palo Alto or
another company do you thinkjust industry domain expertise
is.
So if someone comes from afinance background in retail, is
that going to translate?
You know, maybe they'reextremely good at modeling,
extremely good at all.
That Is the learning curve onthe specific company.
(21:01):
Actually a little bit easierthan maybe some of the other
students.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (21:05):
I think at a I mean, you know I did this
in a more experienced level,right, I think at a more junior
level.
I think there are, you know,like we hire, for example, in
finance, you know, analysts andsenior analysts and so forth who
might just have a given skillset that we wouldn't really care
what industry they're in.
I think at a more experiencedlevel, I think it's harder to
(21:26):
make an industry change and arole change.
So I think making a and I wouldsay also back in equity
research, like I saw people makeindustry shifts but they're
still doing equity research in anew industry, right, whereas
here I feel like if I were tohave gone into a different
industry and try to do what I'mdoing now make that shift.
I think it's challenging.
So I think you almost figureout what industries you know the
(21:48):
best and then figure out howyour skill set which you're
going to have to explain tosomebody why your skill set in
equity research or in investmentbanking or on the buy side is
relevant to their corporate role.
At least you can talk the sameindustry domain knowledge and
show your proficiency there.
So I think it makes it harderif you're trying to switch
industries.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (22:09):
The binoculars say you know
understanding what all thosethree letter, four letter, you
know words are that that peopleare sitting on.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (22:16):
Yeah.
So the other thing maybe I'dsay just it's not a direct
answer to a question you'veasked, but it relates to this
topic.
So the piece that I find likewe've talked a lot about, like
what I've had to upskill, whatI've had to do, to kind of
transition in I think the piecethat is lacking in internal, you
know, in the corporate worldthat I brought that I think
maybe I almost I was told thisas I was going in.
(22:36):
But everybody in the corporateworld kind of has their like.
They're in treasury, they're inproduct finance, they're in
sales finance.
They sort of have their area,they have to collaborate with
others but they don't know awhole lot about sometimes these
other areas internally and theyalso have no idea of sort of the
outside world.
So like being able to bring theoutside in perspective.
(22:57):
I think in finance everybody'sgot the inside perspective.
They don't have the outside inperspective.
I think the more that's neededat a company and the more you
can demonstrate you have that, Ithink the more valuable you're
perceived to be.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (23:11):
And on that was there other things that
you wish you would have knownwhen you were at Citi or as a
publishing analyst, that youlearned once you got into Palo
Alto.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (23:21):
Yeah, I would say when you're in equity
research again, you have yourteam, your franchise.
Sometimes, when you have to getsomething done, you just tell
everybody we've got to jump onit and it's kind of all hands on
deck.
Sometimes you do thatrepeatedly because that's just
how it works.
I would say, in a corporateenvironment and with a bigger
team that I have now, or youknow, or as the company's just
(23:43):
growing quickly, you've got tobe able to put process behind it
and be able to scale.
And I think I probablyunderappreciated that as I came
in and you know it's probablystill.
The lesson I learned every dayis you know we're a growing
company.
You know there's, there's.
We have to move quickly.
You can't, you can't do thatwithout, without process
established, and sometimesyou've just got to step back and
(24:04):
say, okay, we're not going to.
It's like ready aim fire.
You know you've got to kind ofput that, put that process in
place.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (24:11):
I'd say I'm reminded of that constantly,
even after being here for threeand a half years and being on
the corporate side now and maybethis is on the IR side, maybe
it's on the M&A side when you'redoing corporate development, is
it a lot different having tointeract with the CEO, cfo and
board of directors than anythingyou've done previously in your
(24:33):
career?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (24:35):
I mean, I think a good equity research
analyst has to distill down whattheir message is, to make it
simple and easy to follow,because you're often, as a
sell-side analyst, you're oftendealing with generalist-type
investors, not necessarily techspecialists that know all the
acronyms, specialists that knowall the acronyms.
(24:57):
So I would say being able to dothat is is a skill that has has
worked well when dealing withthe, you know, with our, with
our seat, especially our CEO onour board, and and I would say,
yeah, I've been able to leveragethat.
I've been able to leverage thatreasonably well.
I think I just have to.
I do have to constantly remindmyself you know your, I know
whatever topic it is.
You know I've I've spent.
You know you're, I knowwhatever topic it is, you know
I've spent.
You know 100 times more timefocused on it than the person
(25:17):
I'm presenting it to.
So you have to, you have tomake sure that you're constantly
remembering that.
I think that that goes for evencommunication outside to
investors, right?
Sometimes the folks that I'mtalking to, they kind of check
in on us once a quarter.
Right, you have to.
You have to level set, makesure you're putting things in a
common kind of framework and soforth that they can understand.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (25:37):
And were your communication skills?
Is that something that you justlearned over time, being on the
South side, having to go outand talk to people all the time?
Or was that something you veryconsciously have worked on how
to communicate?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (25:50):
Yeah, I think it's just happened over
the years, right, and I don'tthink I'm necessarily an expert
at this point, but yeah, I wouldsay you know, one of my
directors of research at Citisaid he's like I listened to you
on the morning call andsoftware becomes so complicated.
He said listen to the oil team.
When they come on the morningcall they say oil's going up.
(26:12):
Here's why you should buy this,sell this, you know, and so I
would charge my team at Citiwith oil's going up by.
I just had this joke like oil'sgoing up by software.
But but how do you makesomething that simple in
software?
And I haven't figured out whatthe what, the analogy is to that
in in in in my world right now.
(26:32):
But I think thinking aboutthings that way, you know, being
able to explain it to yourfather, being able to put it in
that context, something likethat is helpful for just honing
communication skills.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (26:44):
Being able to have it, being able to talk
to someone that doesn't knowanything about the industry and
convince them, at the end of theday, that this is something
that they should be interestedin.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (26:52):
Yep agreed.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (26:53):
And then be able to pivot and talk to
maybe some of the mostsophisticated hedge fund
investors out there.
Yeah, yeah.
And when you've kind of thoughtabout the different segments of
your career or what yourcurrent responsibilities are, do
you think of them holisticallyor is it very much?
You have your IR team.
You have your corporatedevelopment team.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (27:15):
Yeah, I feel like, at the end of the day
, my collective team's role isto make sure we understand
what's going on outside thecompany and make sure we bring
that perspective, you know, indifferent areas of the company.
So in CorpDev we spend a lot oftime out meeting with startups,
(27:37):
meeting with companies thathave some scale, like trying to
understand what is going onoutside our four walls and then
representing that to our teamsand then helping them understand
how what they're doing, howwhat's going on outside, relates
to what they're doing, becausesometimes they're not that in
tune with it.
Similarly, on the IR side, youknow, again, in finance,
everybody's focused on there.
(27:57):
They might focus on, you know,this part of it or that part of
it.
I think, to some degree,bringing it all together and how
does it get represented as aset of results that are digested
by.
You know the outside world isis something that you know we do
, and then and then making surethey're in tune with where the
outside investor sentiment isand what other companies are
saying, and so forth.
So I think bringing thatoutside perspective is something
(28:21):
that's tied commonly across.
I would say, beyond that, likeCorpDev and IR, we've done a few
acquisitions.
When it's time to communicatethe acquisition, I have an
advantage.
But I don't think there'snecessarily a synergy in those
two beyond that sort of focus onthe external world.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (28:38):
And you talk about managing expectations
and putting that in howdifferent is that versus the
internal audience, versus theexternal audience?
And maybe on the external side,how different is that managing
the long you know, plain vanillalong term holder versus some of
the faster moving money?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (28:58):
Yeah, I think I think on the external
side, the most important thingis to just make sure they
actually understand what we'resaying.
Because I think if you thinkabout like we don't have that
the number of conversationshappening in the, in the, in the
investment community, aroundour company, we're probably
involved in 1% of them.
The rest is like a sell-sidertalking to a buy-sider, a
(29:22):
buy-side talking to anotherbuy-side.
There's so many conversationsgoing on around our company.
We need to make sure that ourmessage is out there and that
it's understood by everybody.
They may have an opinion thatdisagrees with our view of the
market, something like that, butwe want to make sure our view
is out there.
I would say keeping it simple,keeping it consistent.
(29:46):
Externally, that's where wefocus.
We try to be very consistentacross long only hedge fund.
We want to know, we wanteverybody to know, what they're,
what they're, what we're saying.
It may their questions we haveto answer may be different, but
we want to make sure that it'sthat it's very consistent.
I would say externally it'salmost the reverse.
There's like a there can besometimes a lack of connection
(30:08):
between the inside and theoutside.
And and then if if we don'thelp everybody understand what
outside expectations are.
They sort of operate in a waywhere maybe outside expectations
don't matter.
So we need to make sure thatthere's enough information
internally such that people havethat perspective.
They almost won't make up theirown story if they don't hear
(30:30):
something, whereas if we're notout with a consistent external
story to investors.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (30:39):
I find that the market will make up
their own message if you don'thave a message out there.
And it seems to be thatcommunication is an incredibly
important part of your role,both internally, externally, and
doing that Maybe to change thesubject just slightly when you
were talking about how you'realways thinking about the next
five years.
You know, and you've been atPalo Alto networks for four
(31:02):
years- yeah, three and a half,yep.
So we're coming up on that fiveyear anniversary.
Maybe when you think about thenext five years, are you like
hey look, I got a great life.
Companies, companies you knowdoing really well, really enjoy
my job, built out my teams, youknow things, things are going
well yeah or are you thinkinglike hey, you know what, maybe
(31:23):
ir is the destination, maybeit's not um how do?
You think about that?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (31:27):
yeah, I, I would say like and even when I
was at city and I wasn'tcontemplating any, any change, I
would.
I would sometimes just just puttogether a chart and I would
show this to my team this iswhere I'm spending my time, this
is where I think I should bespending my time.
And how do I?
And some of it was likepersonal preference right, I
wanted to travel less.
(31:48):
So, like, let's adjust my time.
Part of it was like this iswhat I'd like to spend my time
on, this is what I'm better atdoing.
The team can do this otherstuff.
So I tend to follow this modelof I want to do more of what I
like and want to do less of whatI don't like, or more of what
I'm good at, less of what I'mnot good at.
That's the wrong way to put it,because sometimes you want to
challenge yourself in areasyou're not good.
(32:09):
So I would say, as I've thoughtabout what I'm spending my time
on in the job I'm in, and maybethinking about what I want to
do next, it's what do I enjoy?
Or where do I add more value?
I'll focus more there, and andso I've definitely, if I think
about, you know, 2024 now,versus I came in in 2021.
You know, I'll give you anexample.
(32:30):
I took on a product finance team, which I it was.
It was super interesting.
I learned a lot.
I don't know that that's mynext to almost be the head of
finance.
I don't know that.
That's it's been.
(32:51):
I've enjoyed it.
I'll enjoy keep doing it ifthat's part of what I do.
You know, the core dev piece Ithink is really fun.
I've always enjoyedunderstanding like external
innovation, and so you know,I've done a little bit of like
oh, I want to do more of this,less of this.
You know, that's kind of evenhow I think about the next role,
like what you know.
There's things I know I don'twant to be part of the next role
and there's things I'm spendingmore time on.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (33:13):
That I would like to double down on and
when you're out, thinking aboutwhat the audience is on here,
adding members to your team andthis could have been at Citi,
this could have been now PaloAlto Networks or even earlier in
your career.
Are there common traits thatpeople see when you watch
interviews or listen to podcasts?
(33:34):
Everyone like oh be curious becurious, you know outside of
being curious is there somethingelse that?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (33:39):
yeah, I, I would say I kind of bifurcated
in in in two, two, uh twosegments of people to hire,
right, you're kind of hiring you, they're hiring more at the
entry level.
You're hiring more experiencedright at the entry level.
I actually got very, veryexperienced right At the entry
level.
I actually got very, very goodat that at Citi.
You want someone, they've gotto have a baseline level of
skill set, right, so that'stable stakes and then you're
(34:01):
really hiring for.
Are they hungry?
Do we think they have a goodwork ethic?
Are they going to like theexample I'd always use if you
throw something at them, theyput it in Google and they don't
find the answer.
Do they come back to you andsay I can't find the answer?
Or do they keep, you know,banging, banging, banging on it
to find the answer and to solvethe problem, like that work
(34:22):
ethic, that hunger.
To me at the entry level, onceI've established they have the
baseline skill set to do the jobI need, that's what I would
focus on and that's never failedas a hiring criteria for me At
the more experienced level.
It really comes down to likeand this has been more here
rather than in equity researchit's like what am I good at and
(34:42):
what am I not good at, or what'sgoing well on the team and
what's not going well on theteam, and then you're trying to
hire for what you need, right,and what kind of person is that?
Like I mentioned, I wasprobably a little light on the
process side.
So I have some really strongpeople on my team here that are
process people and you know, oneof them was here when I got
here.
One of them I've elevatedbecause he's very good on
(35:05):
process.
So you just you compensate forwhat you don't have in your more
experienced hiring, becausethey ultimately have to they're,
they're, they're driving theteam forward.
They're sometimes representingyou when you're more experienced
hiring, because they ultimatelyhave to they're, they're,
they're driving the team forward.
They're sometimes representingyou when you're not there, like,
like.
You need to make sure you havethat.
You have that strength.
So I would say there, you knowI've only been here three and a
half years kind of using thatskillset.
I'm probably not as good atdoing that as I am, you know,
(35:25):
hiring hungry people at theentry level, but you know,
that's what I've learned so far.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (35:29):
And and when you're looking for that
feedback of understanding whereyour blind spots are.
I think this is important foranyone, no matter where they are
in their career.
How do you go about gettingthat critical feedback that you
need?
Is it from your peers yourcolleagues?
Maybe the CEO has no qualmstelling you what you don't do.
Well, you know.
Is there some process you gothrough in order to get that
(35:51):
feedback?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (35:52):
So, yeah, so I've been.
I think I've been.
So my style is I try to.
I feel like I should know thatbefore anybody tells me that,
right, I should be self-awareenough that I have a sense for
what I'm strong at and what I'mnot strong at.
I would say, then, establishingwith you know, with your boss,
which is actually not that hardright, if you tell your boss,
(36:13):
don't beat around the bush, justwhen something's going well,
tell me it's going well.
When something's not going well,give me feedback.
Like if you and most, mostbosses, they'd rather operate
that way than have to, you know,put on kid gloves and try to
nuance something.
Right, if you just establishthat with your boss and then
some are just naturally likethat right, they're just going
(36:38):
to give you direct feedbackbecause that's how they operate.
But I think that's very helpful.
I think if you help, like yourpeers understand that you're
open to that feedback, that'sthe next step.
And then I think the hardeststep is like making your team
aware that you're also, you knowyou'll take feedback as well as
a manager, right, and and Ithink that's harder that's both
harder to communicate becausebecause ultimately you know
you're the manager you don'twant to have have it be too much
like management by by committee, but I think if you're open to
(37:01):
that, they know that you are andthen they use it.
They use it sparingly, but theyknow they can use it.
I think that's.
That's all helpful, but you canget.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (37:16):
I think you can get 75% of percent of
that from your boss.
Okay, got it.
And um.
So if you were um you knowcoming out with a chemistry
degree again, um, you know fastforward to today yeah, would.
Would you be heading towardstechnology?
Would you be thinking, oh,let's head towards finance,
because it gives you such a coreunderstanding of businesses?
You know, how would you, howwould you guide someone at this
point?
Yeah, you know, it's funny.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (37:34):
I have a 20 year old, so like we're we're
talking this, and he's anelectrical engineering major and
he, he, he's enamored with youknow, he's really good at math,
so he thinks options tradingwould be the most exciting thing
in the world.
And I think, a look, I think itdepends on what type of person
you are.
There's, there's some peoplethat aren't going to end up in
tech or finance or whatever.
(37:55):
I think you figure out what youenjoy and what your core skill
sets are.
I think to do, I think, to bein most tech related roles.
I think to be in finance,you've got to be quantitative.
I don't think necessarily.
Nobody looks at my chemistrymajor and says, oh, you're not
qualified to be in finance,right.
They always ask like, oh,you're not qualified to be in
finance, right.
They always ask like, oh, how'dyou get into finance?
(38:17):
I think the mindset is, youknow I'll catch myself using the
term rate limiting step, whichis kind of a chemistry.
You know term.
I think you, just like I'vealways I started off in
chemistry because I thought itwas interesting, I thought there
was a path there.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (38:54):
I thought I knew what I wanted to do over
the next five years.
It turned out I didn't want tobe in the lab so I sort of
adjusted.
So I think you just keep goingdown the path that you find
interesting and definitelycourse correct.
As you go down the path andyou're never going to know where
you're going to ultimately endup, you know kind of which turn
you'll take in the next set ofoptions you have down the path
and as you were heading downyour journey was moving from
city to Palo Alto.
Was that a defining part ofyour career, just in terms of
what your next steps were or not, significantly, you were doing
some over here?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (39:11):
I think, like again, I think you're just
on a bit of a journey.
So maybe you and I haven'tthought about this way.
Maybe you retire right, you endyour career and you look back.
I would say there are a couplelike forks in the road for me
and a couple people at thoseforks in the road that I look
back right now and say that wasa big moment, like I actually
(39:33):
enjoyed the investment bankingwork.
And there was a the firstanalyst I worked for, who's not
in the business anymore.
He, he really helped meunderstand what, what, how,
where.
He thought my skills would fitin equity research and he
actually was kind of like youknow, it was a weird time, it
was like before all theregulation stuff.
So he said, oh, you can try itout a little bit.
(39:53):
You know you're a banker, butspend a little time with me in
research and we can learn.
You can learn if you want to dothis Right.
He took the time to help meunderstand what equity research
was about.
I would say, you know, there'sjust a couple of moments in my
career.
I'd say that was a criticalpoint where I decided to make,
to make a move, and it wasn'tabout the move I made, it was
about the process of me makingthat decision.
(40:15):
So in coming in here I didspend a decent amount of time
with our CEO, like what do youthink my role would be?
Why do you think you need ithere?
And if it just would have beena job posting at Palo Alto
Networks, like, oh, here's thejob, take it.
I don't know if that's the jobI want or what, but helping to
understand what they weresolving for here helped me
(40:37):
decide.
I wanted to take the role andyou know I probably wouldn't
have done it without that.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (40:41):
And it seems like there's been people
have been very key to yourcareer and your journey as they
always are.
Is there anything you do inparticular to keep your network
strong or, you know, in terms ofmaking sure when you're back on
the East Coast you're reachingout to maybe some of your former
colleagues to grab a dinner?
(41:01):
Maybe it's you do regularconversations, you know with
people.
How do you think about keeping?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (41:06):
No, I'm smiling because we have like a
private LinkedIn group of mywhatever 21 year equity research
team, like the people that workdirectly for me and equity
research, and we have a LinkedIngroup.
It's not maybe as active on theon the LinkedIn, but you know
I'm in New York to do dinnerwith those, that team, and you
know I it's been mostly New York.
(41:26):
I kind of catch up with peopleone off in other cities but no,
I enjoy that actually, likethey're all in, you know they're
all in different, uh differentspots they're.
You know, some are, some are onthe buy side, some are doing
random things, private equity.
So yeah, I've enjoyed thatquite a bit actually, just kind
of uh, staying in touch and and,uh, you know, kind of proud of
it.
Like there's, I don't know,there's 18 or 20 people in that,
(41:47):
in that group, so it's it'sbeen kind of a fun group to stay
in touch with and is that yourkey sounding board, or does it
just depend on what kind ofdecision you're making?
Yeah, no, like you know, not asmuch.
It's interesting like a coupleof them, yes, but but a couple
of them yes, because I value,like the perspective I probably
(42:08):
use others more than than themmy couple friends.
I have my wife like my wife's avery objective decision maker.
So, you know, I would say notas much, it's more just like
learning from them.
Right, they're all doingdifferent things, so you get to
hear what they're up to and soforth what their experiences are
and how they've managed theirjourney right.
(42:29):
Yeah, also just kind ofpractically like.
Think about like I spend as aresearch analyst.
I covered like a team, coveredlike almost 50 companies.
You know I was on the morningcall.
Every day You've had peopletelling you what's going on in
the markets.
And you know, now I sit here Iread some research but like I
have a very narrow view of theworld versus what I used to have
and so I actually use thosetypes of people to just hey
(42:50):
what's going on, what's going onof people, to just hey what's
going on.
What's going on Like what'sgoing on with Microsoft, why,
you know, stock's done well,stock hasn't done well, what's
going on right, I get to hearthe pitch and I actually can
easily digest like what's theinvestor pitch?
I hear that enough on things.
I can kind of understand what'sgoing on in the world.
It helps me understand what itmeans for us.
So I use it in very real terms.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CF (43:10):
Interesting .
Are there any other?
And maybe Tanya, I don't know.
Are we bringing people on toask questions or would you like
me to just do some of themoderated questions?
Tanya Suba-Tang (43:23):
We have some questions in the Q&A box.
Unfortunately our audiencecan't unmute themselves, but of
course they're welcome to submitthem to the Q&A box.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (43:33):
Perfect, thank you.
So I see a couple here likethere's there's a question on a
transition from IB into investorrelations and you know, what
would you, what would youhighlight during the interview
process?
I think I mentioned thisearlier.
Like I think you need tounderstand what they're solving
for, what, what a prospectiveemployer is solving for, and how
you can, how you can be thesolve right.
(43:54):
And if and if you're not thesolve, then maybe the roles,
maybe if you can't get that tomatch up, maybe it's not the
right role and you find anotherrole.
But but you know, I don't know.
I have specific advice for,like a coverage banker, but
again, I find that many of thesecompanies do not have a very
clear picture of what's going on, going on externally, and as a
coverage banker, you have, youdo have that view, so that that
(44:14):
might be a salt.
But I think figuring out whattheir pain points are, what
they're looking for to be solved, I think, I think can be
helpful.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (44:21):
And one of the other questions being asked
is how helpful has goingthrough the CFA program been in
your career in terms of eitherpeople you met, the knowledge
base how's that played a role?
Walter Pritchard, CFA (44:33):
I was at a fork.
I was at a fork in the road in2002 or three um and I was
trying to figure out no, 2001.
I was trying to figure out didI want to move into equity
research?
Did I want to do something else?
I actually took the cfa levelone.
I I did, you know it, studiedfor it, it did well and I was
deciding do I want to do an mbaor or just keep on with the CFA?
(44:54):
And I decided look, I likeinvestment research, I like what
I'm doing, I kept on with theCFA.
I would say, along thatsell-side journey as well as in
IR, people see CFA and they'relike oh, you must know this,
this and this, we can have aconversation using certain terms
.
And oh, this, this and this,like, we can have a conversation
using certain terms and speak alanguage.
(45:15):
And so I think it's just beenkind of a baseline that I never
wanted to like go into marketingor take a very sharp turn in my
career from a businessperspective where maybe I would
have said, oh, I need to go getan MBA.
So I think it's helped me morefrom just like establishing that
baseline of credibility andbeing able to be conversant with
(45:35):
folks.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (45:36):
And if you're looking at a stack of
resumes that the HR folks havegiven you, do you're like, oh,
they have their CFA.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (45:44):
Yeah, I think I did.
In fact, the first five years Iwas on the sell side I told
everybody I hired I said you'regoing to start working on your
CFA.
So I then kind of relaxed thatthey were like you know, I
started hiring people.
They were married, they hadkids.
They're like I'm keeping thembusy.
I'm not going to mandate theyspend more of their time on that
, but I did always value it onthe sell side world.
(46:08):
I would say in this world it'snot as directly.
I think it helps, again,establish credibility.
So if I were hiring at theentry level, there'd be a number
of things I would look at tohelp establish credibility.
That might be one I don't knowthat I I don't probably look at
it exactly the same way as I didwhen I was hiring on the sell
side.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (46:27):
Though and that makes sense.
I mean, you know, when you'reon the sell side, it's, it's.
The curriculum is tailored forthat.
Yeah, exactly.
Walter Pritchard, CFA (46:35):
Exactly.
Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA (46:37):
Well, I just want to say thank you so
much for your time.
You know I really appreciatehaving the opportunity to have
this call and look forward topotentially doing something like
this again in the future.
Lindsey Helman (46:53):
Thank you for listening to this month's chat
segment.
Chats is a monthly segmentfeaturing audio from our
recently recorded webinarsairing on the second Tuesday of
the month.
To view the video recording ofthis episode and discover
additional Society webinars,visit the CFA Society San
Francisco YouTube channel.
Join us next time for ourregularly scheduled Financial
(47:14):
Perspectives podcast episodeairing on the last Tuesday of
the month, and make sure to sendin a message to the show using
a link at the top of eachepisode description or emailing
podcast@ cfa-sf.
org.
We'd love to hear what youthink of our new chat segment or
any suggestions on futuretopics you'd like us to cover.
Thank you for being a dedicatedlistener.
(47:36):
This podcast is produced by CFASociety San Francisco, a
not-for-profit professionalassociation providing
professional learning and careerresources to over 13,000
investment industryprofessionals worldwide.
(47:56):
To learn more about CFA SocietySan Francisco, visit our
website at cfa-sforg or connectwith us on LinkedIn.
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