Financial Perspectives: Insights from Investment Professionals

CHATS: Navigating Careers in Finance: Transitioning to Investor Relations

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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.

Lindsey Helman:

Hello and welcome to this month's chat segment of the Financial Perspectives podcast. Our chats episodes feature dynamic conversations between industry experts from some of our recent and most popular webinar recordings. This month you'll hear from Walter Pritchard and Jeff Hamrick as they discuss career transitions and investor relations.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

Good morning. Thank you for having us. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Walter Pritchard from Palo Alto Network for joining us today for what will hopefully be an engaging conversation about his career and path along over the last 20 plus years. Walter, welcome.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Thanks. Thanks, jeff. Thanks for ha ving me

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

Absolutely. So maybe we'll start with just a little bit of background of you know. My understanding was, as you were a chemistry major coming out of undergrad, moved up to the Bay Area, what drove you from coming from chemistry, chemistry, to financial markets?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, so it's an interesting story.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

So I was, you know, as a typical undergrad. You go into college you're not exactly sure. You kind of know what you like, but you don't know exactly what you want to do. Ended up, you know, really interested in the sciences, did the chemistry major. Really liked the theory part of it. As I got further into it it's all about spending time in the lab. And I joke that I was all thumbs in the lab and really didn't envision my future kind of in the lab. And so I had a bit of a revelation.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

My beginning of my junior year had a chat with the guy who was my advisor, a great guy named Fred Greenman who just retired as a professor, and I sort of posed to him my conundrum and he's like well, my brother is, was a physics major and is now in the aerospace industry and he's on the business side and you should talk to him.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

So I had a chat with with his brother and sort of realized like I could continue on with this chemistry major but I didn't need to be in the lab. So I continued on with the chemistry major, ended up doing like some internship work after my junior year in finance actually the mutual fund and decided like I wanted to do something. I've always sort of said I think I know what I want to do next or I know which direction I want to point. So I did that internship, decided okay, coming out of college, what like, I like that direction so I'll take a job in that direction. Ended up doing investment banking for a couple of years, which I think is a typical. You know, you come out of undergrad and you want to do finance, but you don't know exactly what you do, like an analyst role, did that for a couple of years and then, you know, moved into equity research because you know, met some great people and they got me excited about it. So that was the progression.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And so you were. So it was about two years on the investment banking side before moving over to equity research, and in that a lot of people think of investment banking, equity research. It's all from these large global firms. Was there a significant difference in your day to day?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

You mean between banking and research Exactly.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, I mean, banking is very transactional and I did banking during a time it was like 98 to 2000. So it was just it was a very active time in the capital markets, lots of IPOs, and so you, you really get to like get deep on some some things and become an expert and and and and. So that's what got me interested. I would also say the pace and lifestyle. When I was in banking I, you know, I met my wife in college, like we got, we were getting married, you know, and it was a bit of like is this the lifestyle? You know, the banking lifestyle can be tough and I looked around at the guys in research and said that might look like a better lifestyle, so so that also influenced the decision. But I think really the opportunity to to kind of dive down in deep on on on a, on an industry was was what was attractive to me coming out of banking, where you're very transactional.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And when you started in research, has it always been on the technology side?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, yeah, so I did. You know. It's funny like when I so, when I was coming out of the chemistry with the chemistry major, 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 firms recruiting for tech and I had done I could. I could at least talk the talk on tech. I had done some like programming as it related to the chemistry work I had done. So there was a lot of opportunity in tech.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Tech was kind of where it was at. I was in California. So I went into tech and and I kind of got lucky between you know, there's a bunch of different areas of tech I chose. I kind of got lucky. Between you know, there's a bunch of different areas of tech. I chose. I went, ended up going into software, even in banking, doing a lot of work in software, which was kind of right place at the right time. I don't know that I was that scientific about it. It was kind of like that's where the opportunity was, so I went with it.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And I think software has been the right place, right time for 20 years now.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Right, no, that's what.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I'm saying yeah, exactly, exactly, I had it.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

It's funny my initial opportunity in banking it was between software and semiconductors, and now semiconductors are kind of back as well and I ended up choosing really really more personalities. There was a banker in software that I, that I had an opportunity to work with, that I really liked him and so I just was like, ok, I like working with him, so I'm going to do software.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

Wow, interesting. And so you started on research and, around the global financial crisis, you moved from a very well-respected boutique firm to Citi, which is a global financial institution. We all know. In that change was there things that were very surprising. In that career change of going from a smaller firm to a global shop, yeah, so it's funny.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Every time I've changed jobs I've tried to get ahead of it and like talk to people that are in that area.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

You know at that firm, at a bigger firm. So everything I was, I was sort of all the work I did about joining a bigger firm. It definitely all played out. I mean you're, there's so many more demands on your time, there's so many more salespeople there, there's so many more salespeople there's colleagues in all industries, and so it was. I mean, going from Cowan to Citi was drinking from a fire hose for the first year and a half and it was a big step up in just a number of companies.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

You know my team grew by probably two and a half times. You know we were global. You know I was, you know, first two months. It's like all right, you're going to spend a bunch of time in Europe. You know we're going to go to Asia, like it. Just it was I sort of sensed I was getting into that from talking to people that were at bigger firms. It was definitely, even with all the preparation, it was a major adjustment and you know I would say you know I was in over my head probably for the first year just trying to keep up. And then you, you know you figure it out and you, you learn and and and dig in and and it worked out fine, but definitely a challenge.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

So that initial belief that the sell side research lifestyle was going to be a little bit more manageable than investment banking was not true to start.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I mean, I found and I only spent two years in banking, so I don't know that I have enough experience to say this categorically but I did find that in banking the client made the choice right, the client's got something going on and you don't get to tell the client I don't want to participate in your IPO or your M&A transaction is not important to me. On the sell side, especially as I got to Thitty, I had a research manager who basically very much imparted on us. You run a franchise. If you have a successful franchise, you'll be successful. Here I'm going to give you some best practices on how to run your franchise, but I'm not going to manage your franchise day to day. So I did feel like I had at least the ability to make choices.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

But no doubt for that first 12, 18 months I was working very, very hard, and as hard as I was in banking at the beginning. And then, as you start to get control of it and hey, what drives success in a franchise? What's maybe not as important? I started to moderate it a little bit. But I think it is hard to be successful at anything without just investing everything you have in it. You just have to figure out where everything you have is and you've got to balance still other things family and otherwise.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And when you think about the skill sets of investment banker versus research, were there some specifics, some things that you needed to upskill about? Was it managing two and a half times as many people, or was it just dealing with the global travel? What were some of those.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

So I moved within from banking to research in my first firm. I was at SoundBee for about six and a half years. So there I would say, banking to research is you know you're. I think banking, especially the junior levels, is very quantitative. It's like you're running this analysis, that analysis. I think you move into research even at the junior level. You start to understand there's more to understanding a business and a company than just the spreadsheets and the numbers. So I started to, I think, appreciate that and that was a bit of a actually enjoyed that transition. I think that moving from you know smaller firm to to bigger firm I mean there I had one, I had one associate working for me at my my first equity research role and it was, it was very easy and you know you can, almost you can manage by micromanaging, right, you just you're like this is what we need to do.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

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 thinking about like what is the plan, setting people's, setting our team's goals? How do you contribute to those goals? Really kind of more traditional management. So I would say it wasn't until I got to Citi and had you know, I think when I started there were five or six on the team Like I really had to start learning how to manage versus just doing like, and even early on managing was an extension of doing and then managing not managing.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

You know you're managing in all different directions, right, I think that appreciating that aspect of it as well is something I started to learn, and that the aspect of being a global firm matrixed and you know a lot of people pulling you different ways of deciding who needs what.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

I would assume is very important being successful from like sitting.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, and you, I mean, you see every. It's funny, you see everybody's title and where they are in the organization, and then you really start to understand how the organization works. And there's like the, there's the, there's the org chart, and then there's how does our business work every day and who do you need to, who do you need to influence to get done what you want to get done, which is more than just where are they on the org chart? So so I would say, learning that kind of soft side of of managing and and, and you know again, managing, kind of laterally managing up, that became much more important.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

Absolutely. And how long were you at Citi?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I was there for 11 years.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

Okay, so a long time to get your processes in place and understanding how to run the research side.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, I mean it took me, you know, took me like really 18 months to sort of understand how it all worked. Sort of understand how it all worked. And then, you know, then I think during that period I mean software, really just the number of companies, the amount of market cap just kept growing. So for the for the middle portion of my career at Citi, it was just it was just trying to trying to scale what we were doing in software, because there were so many more companies and and then me, you know, I think at the end we had a team of nine or 10 people, and then we had okay, there's European software companies, we've got colleagues doing Europe software and how do we influence them? And then I took that part on and then we tried to staff that back up.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

So just a lot of trying to scale what we were doing, which I would say was I enjoyed that. Actually I always enjoyed like there were new companies, there were, you know, new people to kind of bring on board. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the franchise model which Citi really, I think, did a really good job of like instilling in us as analysts that build your franchise to the best it could be. There's no, there's no limit. You can be the number one franchise within equity research.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

So and so you have this your team built. Things are running smoothly. You know you're succeeded by any measure in the corporate world. What drove that change to? Okay, I've done this, but let's think about something different.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

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 of finance, we're looking for IR, we're looking for, you know, a bank's call. Hey, I'm looking for an M&A banker. I had some random pings over the years and sometimes they were from people like you respected, 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 a combination of three things. It was it was definitely like the travel was kind of a grueling lifestyle, that that was kind of always getting to me. The second was and these aren't necessarily in order, but that was, that was one of them. The second was I did kind of step back a couple of and say and my wife would almost like ask 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 to do next? But more almost in the context of equity research. And I just thought to myself like I don't want to manage the research department, I don't want to move into another role at Citi, don't want to move into another role at Citi. And then I started to look at it from the perspective of if I fast forwarded five years and I look back on those five years, like what would I say? Oh, I learned this, I did this. And it did kind of get to the point in equity research where I just said like I don't know that the next five years look a lot different than the last five years. And you know, I didn't dislike the job, but it was like what am I going to do over the next five years? What will I look back on over the last five years and say I did that?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

And then, you know, the opportunity 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 I talked to a company where they really understood, like what my skill set was. It wasn't like I have this role. Do you want to interview for? The role is more like I know what you do. We need help in that area. You know we should talk right. So so that I think, set it up well, and so I decided to investigate it more.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

As you know, maybe some they're dialed in may or may not recognize like a covering analyst, exploring an employment opportunity at a company that you cover is actually quite a sticky situation that you have to go by the book. And so you know, even deciding I was going to seriously engage in that conversation. Some of the other conversations I'd had were with companies I didn't cover, but if you're the covering analyst you actually have to. It has to be disclosed in your research if you're pursuing employment with a company you cover and you know went through the process here and it, you know it fit the criteria kind of what I wanted to do.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Next I looked back on equity research and said, well, if I do this new thing for the next five years, versus, you know, staying in that for five years, what do I think? And I decided like I don't know what more I'll get out of the next five years in equity research. Like I didn't dislike it but decided to try something new, and you know I was 45. Like it, but decided to try something new, and you know I was 45. So you're like at some point you know, if you're 60, you're not going to say, okay, I'll do something new. At some point you say, okay, not worth it maybe.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

Right and so in doing that, you likely built it sounds like you built a very large network of people at all different levels, different parts of city, people that had leftiti and gone and maybe done the same journey. Did you go through that process of reaching out to your colleagues and friends that had done a similar move to get the real take? I should say?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Definitely. There were two Citi analysts and one analyst who was a calendar that had all made a move from research into finance and I talked to all of them and I heard a very similar story. I didn't hear anything that scared me and in fact, after I talked to all of them I was like this sounds like the right next move. So yeah, I definitely, like I said, even when I went from Cowan into Citi, like spent a lot of time trying to figure out what it would look like. So I'm a I'm like a fairly conservative decision maker generally. So I would say, did all my homework, tried decision maker generally. So I would say, did all my homework, tried to learn as much as I could, and a couple of folks were pretty helpful.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

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 Palo Alto Networks here you're going from a financial firm to a technology firm works, you know, here you're going from a financial firm to a technology firm Was there a lot of culture shock of just how it's managed and how the people operate?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

So I would say the biggest thing I heard in doing my work was in a like an industry internal role. It's a lot more about how, how. So I guess the summary would be almost everything that I experienced in terms of like difference. I I heard, or was kind of like warned going going into the role, so um, but.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

But probably the biggest thing was it's not that, it's not what decision is made, it's how the decision 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 people observing companies externally, you just focus on what was the decision? Did they make the right decision? Internally, it's really more about how the decision is made and if you're trying to get to what you believe is a right decision, how do you kind of plot the path to get there? How do you influence the right people? How do you bring the right data? I would say I was very much that was very much imparted upon me by folks that I talked to and that's very much turned out to be a big difference between my old role and this role.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And has your management style or leadership style had to shift because of that?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

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 and you depend on other people for the success of your franchise. You can't completely be in your own world but you're much more doing your own thing, I would say, in the role. So I do investor relations, I do corporate development, which is our M&A. I was for the first three years doing some work, kind of core finance work, our long range plan. I managed a product finance team In're constantly, you know, influencing others, working across other businesses, and I would say I have had to develop that. I knew I would have to develop that. I've had to develop that. You know much, much more. And that's been almost like the key to having success here or not has been my ability to kind of work more laterally with colleagues, which I didn't have to do nearly to the same degree in the equity research world.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And as people are, you know, dialed into this call, thinking about hey, maybe I want to make a switch. I work in investment banking or I work on the buy side, I want to go to the corporate side. Any advice or thoughts of you know how they should approach that process? You know what skills might they not have? That you're like you have to be able to communicate well if you're an analyst and you never do one all day. That is not going to work over here, you know, is there.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, I think I think it's hard to build out every skill you're going to need for the combination of the role at a given company and maybe the way the company operates. So I think what you're better off doing is to get in the door, understand what you do well, make sure you can represent that to somebody in a corporate environment and then find the right fit for your skills in a corporate environment and then find the right fit for your skills. I think that's the. I think I think it's harder for me to say, oh, go out and take a course in this or develop this skill, because I think you know, for example, in IR, some, some companies are very heavy on the communications aspect of IR. It's almost like IR is an extension of corporate communications, right?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Others, ir is very, very tied into finance and like the strategic finance role and things like that. So I think it is hard to say this is the list of skills you need to build, but I think, like the collaboration and ability to work laterally with other folks I think is, as I've already mentioned, kind of a much needed skill. I'm just not sure how you represent that as you go into a new role. So I think, knowing what you do well and being able to articulate that, being able to align that with what a prospective employer needs, I think is important.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And how important at Palo Alto or another company do you think just industry domain expertise is. So if someone comes from a finance background in retail, is that going to translate? You know, maybe they're extremely good at modeling, extremely good at all. That Is the learning curve on the specific company. Actually a little bit easier than maybe some of the other students.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I think at a I mean, you know I did this in a more experienced level, right, I think at a more junior level.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I think there are, you know, like we hire, for example, in finance, you know, analysts and senior analysts and so forth who might just have a given skill set that we wouldn't really care what industry they're in.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I think at a more experienced level, I think it's harder to make an industry change and a role change. So I think making a and I would say also back in equity research, like I saw people make industry shifts but they're still doing equity research in a new industry, right, whereas here I feel like if I were to have gone into a different industry and try to do what I'm doing now make that shift. I think it's challenging. So I think you almost figure out what industries you know the best and then figure out how your skill set which you're going to have to explain to somebody why your skill set in equity research or in investment banking or on the buy side is relevant to their corporate role. At least you can talk the same industry domain knowledge and show your proficiency there. So I think it makes it harder if you're trying to switch industries.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

The binoculars say you know understanding what all those three letter, four letter, you know words are that that people are sitting on.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah. So the other thing maybe I'd say just it's not a direct answer to a question you've asked, but it relates to this topic. So the piece that I find like we've talked a lot about, like what I've had to upskill, what I've had to do, to kind of transition in I think the piece that is lacking in internal, you know, in the corporate world that I brought that I think maybe I almost I was told this as I was going in. But everybody in the corporate world kind of has their like. They're in treasury, they're in product finance, they're in sales finance. They sort of have their area, they have to collaborate with others but they don't know a whole lot about sometimes these other areas internally and they also have no idea of sort of the outside world. So like being able to bring the outside in perspective. I think in finance everybody's got the inside perspective. They don't have the outside in perspective. I think the more that's needed at a company and the more you can demonstrate you have that, I think the more valuable you're perceived to be.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And on that was there other things that you wish you would have known when you were at Citi or as a publishing analyst, that you learned once you got into Palo Alto.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, I would say when you're in equity research again, you have your team, your franchise. Sometimes, when you have to get something done, you just tell everybody we've got to jump on it and it's kind of all hands on deck. Sometimes you do that repeatedly because that's just how it works. I would say, in a corporate environment and with a bigger team that I have now, or you know, or as the company's just growing quickly, you've got to be able to put process behind it and be able to scale. And I think I probably underappreciated that as I came in and you know it's probably still. The lesson I learned every day is 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 that without, without process established, and sometimes you've just got to step back and say, okay, we're not going to. It's like ready aim fire. You know you've got to kind of put that, put that process in place.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

I'd say I'm reminded of that constantly, even after being here for three and a half years and being on the corporate side now and maybe this is on the IR side, maybe it's on the M&A side when you're doing corporate development, is it a lot different having to interact with the CEO, cfo and board of directors than anything you've done previously in your career?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I mean, I think a good equity research analyst has to distill down what their message is, to make it simple and easy to follow, because you're often, as a sell-side analyst, you're often dealing with generalist-type investors, not necessarily tech specialists that know all the acronyms, specialists that know all the acronyms. So I would say being able to do that is is a skill that has has worked well when dealing with the, you know, with our, with our seat, especially our CEO on our board, and and I would say, yeah, I've been able to leverage that. I've been able to leverage that reasonably well. I think I just have to.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I do have to constantly remind myself you know your, I know whatever topic it is. You know I've I've spent. You know you're, I know whatever topic it is, you know I've spent. You know 100 times more time focused on it than the person I'm presenting it to. So you have to, you have to make sure that you're constantly remembering that. I think that that goes for even communication outside to investors, right? Sometimes the folks that I'm talking to, they kind of check in on us once a quarter. Right, you have to. You have to level set, make sure you're putting things in a common kind of framework and so forth that they can understand.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And were your communication skills? Is that something that you just learned over time, being on the South side, having to go out and talk to people all the time? Or was that something you very consciously have worked on how to communicate?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, I think it's just happened over the years, right, and I don't think I'm necessarily an expert at this point, but yeah, I would say you know, one of my directors of research at Citi said he's like I listened to you on the morning call and software becomes so complicated. He said listen to the oil team. When they come on the morning call they say oil's going up. Here's why you should buy this, sell this, you know, and so I would charge my team at Citi with oil's going up by. I just had this joke like oil's going up by software. But but how do you make something that simple in software? And I haven't figured out what the what, the analogy is to that in in in in my world right now. But I think thinking about things that way, you know, being able to explain it to your father, being able to put it in that context, something like that is helpful for just honing communication skills.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

Being able to have it, being able to talk to someone that doesn't know anything about the industry and convince them, at the end of the day, that this is something that they should be interested in.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yep agreed.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And then be able to pivot and talk to maybe some of the most sophisticated hedge fund investors out there. Yeah, yeah. And when you've kind of thought about the different segments of your career or what your current responsibilities are, do you think of them holistically or is it very much? You have your IR team. You have your corporate development team.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, I feel like, at the end of the day, my collective team's role is to make sure we understand what's going on outside the company and make sure we bring that perspective, you know, in different areas of the company. So in CorpDev we spend a lot of time out meeting with startups, meeting with companies that have some scale, like trying to understand what is going on outside our four walls and then representing that to our teams and then helping them understand how what they're doing, how what's going on outside, relates to what they're doing, because sometimes they're not that in tune with it. Similarly, on the IR side, you know, again, in finance, everybody's focused on there. They might focus on, you know, this part of it or that part of it.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I think, to some degree, bringing it all together and how does it get represented as a set of results that are digested by. You know the outside world is is something that you know we do, and then and then making sure they're in tune with where the outside investor sentiment is and what other companies are saying, and so forth. So I think bringing that outside perspective is something that's tied commonly across. I would say, beyond that, like CorpDev and IR, we've done a few acquisitions. When it's time to communicate the acquisition, I have an advantage. But I don't think there's necessarily a synergy in those two beyond that sort of focus on the external world.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And you talk about managing expectations and putting that in how different is that versus the internal audience, versus the external audience? And maybe on the external side, how different is that managing the long you know, plain vanilla long term holder versus some of the faster moving money?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, I think I think on the external side, the most important thing is to just make sure they actually understand what we're saying. Because I think if you think about like we don't have that the number of conversations happening in the, in the, in the investment community, around our company, we're probably involved in 1% of them. The rest is like a sell-sider talking to a buy-sider, a buy-side talking to another buy-side. There's so many conversations going on around our company. We need to make sure that our message is out there and that it's understood by everybody. They may have an opinion that disagrees with our view of the market, something like that, but we want to make sure our view is out there.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I would say keeping it simple, keeping it consistent. Externally, that's where we focus. We try to be very consistent across long only hedge fund. We want to know, we want everybody to know, what they're, what they're, what we're saying. It may their questions we have to answer may be different, but we want to make sure that it's that it's very consistent. I would say externally it's almost the reverse. There's like a there can be sometimes a lack of connection between the inside and the outside. And and then if if we don't help everybody understand what outside expectations are. They sort of operate in a way where maybe outside expectations don't matter. So we need to make sure that there's enough information internally such that people have that perspective. They almost won't make up their own story if they don't hear something, whereas if we're not out with a consistent external story to investors.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

I find that the market will make up their own message if you don't have a message out there. And it seems to be that communication is an incredibly important part of your role, both internally, externally, and doing that Maybe to change the subject just slightly when you were talking about how you're always thinking about the next five years. You know, and you've been at Palo Alto networks for four years- yeah, three and a half, yep.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

So we're coming up on that five year anniversary. Maybe when you think about the next five years, are you like hey look, I got a great life. Companies, companies you know doing really well, really enjoy my job, built out my teams, you know things, things are going well yeah or are you thinking like hey, you know what, maybe ir is the destination, maybe it's not um how do? You think about that?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

yeah, I, I would say like and even when I was at city and I wasn't contemplating any, any change, I would. I would sometimes just just put together a chart and I would show this to my team this is where I'm spending my time, this is where I think I should be spending my time. And how do I? And some of it was like personal preference right, I wanted to travel less. So, like, let's adjust my time. Part of it was like this is what I'd like to spend my time on, this is what I'm better at doing. The team can do this other stuff.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

So I tend to follow this model of I want to do more of what I like and want to do less of what I don't like, or more of what I'm good at, less of what I'm not good at. That's the wrong way to put it, because sometimes you want to challenge yourself in areas you're not good. So I would say, as I've thought about what I'm spending my time on in the job I'm in, and maybe thinking 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 and so I've definitely, if I think about, you know, 2024 now, versus I came in in 2021. You know, I'll give you an example.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

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 my next to almost be the head of finance. I don't know that. That's it's been. I've enjoyed it. I'll enjoy keep doing it if that's part of what I do. You know, the core dev piece I think is really fun. I've always enjoyed understanding 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 even how I think about the next role, like what you know. There's things I know I don't want to be part of the next role and there's things I'm spending more time on.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

That I would like to double down on and when you're out, thinking about what the audience is on here, adding members to your team and this could have been at Citi, this could have been now Palo Alto Networks or even earlier in your career. Are there common traits that people see when you watch interviews or listen to podcasts? Everyone like oh be curious be curious, you know outside of being curious is there something else that?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

yeah, I, I would say I kind of bifurcated in in in two, two, uh two segments of people to hire, right, you're kind of hiring you, they're hiring more at the entry level. You're hiring more experienced right at the entry level. I actually got very, very experienced right At the entry level. I actually got very, very good at that at Citi. You want someone, they've got to have a baseline level of skill set, right, so that's table stakes and then you're really hiring for. Are they hungry? Do we think they have a good work ethic? Are they going to like the example I'd always use if you throw something at them, they put it in Google and they don't find the answer. Do they come back to you and say I can't find the answer? Or do they keep, you know, banging, banging, banging on it to find the answer and to solve the problem, like that work ethic, that hunger.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

To me at the entry level, once I've established they have the baseline skill set to do the job I need, that's what I would focus on and that's never failed as a hiring criteria for me At the more experienced level. It really comes down to like and this has been more here rather than in equity research it's like what am I good at and what am I not good at, or what's going well on the team and what's not going well on the team, and then you're trying to hire for what you need, right, and what kind of person is that? Like I mentioned, I was probably a little light on the process side. So I have some really strong people on my team here that are process people and you know, one of them was here when I got here. One of them I've elevated because he's very good on process.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

So you just you compensate for what you don't have in your more experienced hiring, because they ultimately have to they're, they're, they're driving the team forward. They're sometimes representing you when you're more experienced hiring, because they ultimately have to they're, they're, they're driving the team forward. They're sometimes representing you when you're not there, like, like. You need to make sure you have that. You have that strength. So I would say there, you know I've only been here three and a half years kind of using that skillset. I'm probably not as good at doing that as I am, you know, hiring hungry people at the entry level, but you know, that's what I've learned so far.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And and when you're looking for that feedback of understanding where your blind spots are. I think this is important for anyone, no matter where they are in their career. How do you go about getting that critical feedback that you need? Is it from your peers your colleagues?

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

Maybe the CEO has no qualms telling you what you don't do. Well, you know. Is there some process you go through in order to get that feedback?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

So, yeah, so I've been. I think I've been. So my style is I try to. I feel like I should know that before anybody tells me that, right, I should be self-aware enough that I have a sense for what I'm strong at and what I'm not strong at. I would say, then, establishing with you know, with your boss, which is actually not that hard right, if you tell your boss, don't beat around the bush, just when something's going well, tell me it's going well.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

When something's not going well, give me feedback. Like if you and most, most bosses, they'd rather operate that way than have to, you know, put on kid gloves and try to nuance something. Right, if you just establish that with your boss and then some are just naturally like that right, they're just going to give you direct feedback because that's how they operate. But I think that's very helpful. I think if you help, like your peers understand that you're open to that feedback, that's the next step. And then I think the hardest step is like making your team aware that you're also, you know you'll take feedback as well as a manager, right, and and I think that's harder that's both harder to communicate because because ultimately you know you're the manager you don't want to have have it be too much like management by by committee, but I think if you're open to that, they know that you are and then they use it. They use it sparingly, but they know they can use it. I think that's. That's all helpful, but you can get.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

I think you can get 75% of percent of that from your boss. Okay, got it. And um. So if you were um you know coming out with a chemistry degree again, um, you know fast forward to today yeah, would. Would you be heading towards technology? Would you be thinking, oh, let's head towards finance, because it gives you such a core understanding of businesses? You know, how would you, how would you guide someone at this point? Yeah, you know, it's funny.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I have a 20 year old, so like we're we're talking this, and he's an electrical engineering major and he, he, he's enamored with you know, he's really good at math, so he thinks options trading would be the most exciting thing in the world. And I think, a look, I think it depends on what type of person you are. There's, there's some people that aren't going to end up in tech or finance or whatever. I think you figure out what you enjoy and what your core skill sets are. I think to do, I think, to be in most tech related roles. I think to be in finance, you've got to be quantitative. I don't think necessarily.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Nobody looks at my chemistry major 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'd you get into finance? I think the mindset is, you know I'll catch myself using the term rate limiting step, which is kind of a chemistry. You know term. I think you, just like I've always I started off in chemistry because I thought it was interesting, I thought there was a path there.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

I thought I knew what I wanted to do over the next five years. It turned out I didn't want to be in the lab so I sort of adjusted. So I think you just keep going down the path that you find interesting and definitely course correct. As you go down the path and you're never going to know where you're going to ultimately end up, you know kind of which turn you'll take in the next set of options you have down the path and as you were heading down your journey was moving from city to Palo Alto. Was that a defining part of your career, just in terms of what your next steps were or not, significantly, you were doing some over here?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I think, like again, I think you're just on a bit of a journey. So maybe you and I haven't thought about this way. Maybe you retire right, you end your career and you look back. I would say there are a couple like forks in the road for me and a couple people at those forks in the road that I look back right now and say that was a big moment, like I actually enjoyed the investment banking work.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

And there was a the first analyst I worked for, who's not in the business anymore. He, he really helped me understand what, what, how, where. He thought my skills would fit in equity research and he actually was kind of like you know, it was a weird time, it was like before all the regulation stuff. So he said, oh, you can try it out a little bit. You know you're a banker, but spend a little time with me in research and we can learn. You can learn if you want to do this Right. He took the time to help me understand what equity research was about.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I would say, you know, there's just a couple of moments in my career. I'd say that was a critical point where I decided to make, to make a move, and it wasn't about the move I made, it was about the process of me making that decision. So in coming in here I did spend a decent amount of time with our CEO, like what do you think my role would be? Why do you think you need it here? And if it just would have been a job posting at Palo Alto Networks, like, oh, here's the job, take it. I don't know if that's the job I want or what, but helping to understand what they were solving for here helped me decide. I wanted to take the role and you know I probably wouldn't have done it without that.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And it seems like there's been people have been very key to your career and your journey as they always are. Is there anything you do in particular to keep your network strong or, you know, in terms of making sure when you're back on the East Coast you're reaching out to maybe some of your former colleagues to grab a dinner?

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

Maybe it's you do regular conversations, you know with people. How do you think about keeping?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

No, I'm smiling because we have like a private LinkedIn group of my whatever 21 year equity research team, like the people that work directly for me and equity research, and we have a LinkedIn group. It's not maybe as active on the on the LinkedIn, but you know I'm in New York to do dinner with those, that team, and you know I it's been mostly New York. I kind of catch up with people one off in other cities but no, I enjoy that actually, like they're all in, you know they're all in different, uh different spots they're. You know, some are, some are on the buy side, some are doing random things, private equity. So yeah, I've enjoyed that quite 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, in that group, so it's it's been kind of a fun group to stay in touch with and is that your key sounding board, or does it just depend on what kind of decision you're making?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, no, like you know, not as much. It's interesting like a couple of them, yes, but but a couple of them yes, because I value, like the perspective I probably use others more than than them my couple friends. I have my wife like my wife's a very objective decision maker. So, you know, I would say not as much, it's more just like learning from them. Right, they're all doing different things, so you get to hear what they're up to and so forth what their experiences are and how they've managed their journey right.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, also just kind of practically like. Think about like I spend as a research analyst. I covered like a team, covered like almost 50 companies. You know I was on the morning call. Every day You've had people telling you what's going on in the markets. And you know, now I sit here I read some research but like I have a very narrow view of the world versus what I used to have and so I actually use those types of people to just hey what's going on, what's going on of people, to just hey what's going on. What's going on Like what's going on with Microsoft, why, you know, stock's done well, stock hasn't done well, what's going on right, I get to hear the pitch and I actually can easily digest like what's the investor pitch? I hear that enough on things. I can kind of understand what's going on in the world. It helps me understand what it means for us. So I use it in very real terms.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

Interesting. Are there any other? And maybe Tanya, I don't know. Are we bringing people on to ask questions or would you like me to just do some of the moderated questions?

Tanya Suba-Tang:

We have some questions in the Q&A box. Unfortunately our audience can't unmute themselves, but of course they're welcome to submit them to the Q&A box.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Perfect, thank you. So I see a couple here like there's there's a question on a transition from IB into investor relations and you know, what would you, what would you highlight during the interview process? I think I mentioned this earlier. Like I think you need to understand what they're solving for, what, what a prospective employer is solving for, and how you can, how you can be the solve right. And if and if you're not the solve, then maybe the roles, maybe if you can't get that to match up, maybe it's not the right role and you find another role. But but you know, I don't know. I have specific advice for, like a coverage banker, but again, I find that many of these companies do not have a very clear picture of what's going on, going on externally, and as a coverage banker, you have, you do have that view, so that that might be a salt. But I think figuring out what their pain points are, what they're looking for to be solved, I think, I think can be helpful.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And one of the other questions being asked is how helpful has going through the CFA program been in your career in terms of either people you met, the knowledge base how's that played a role?

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I was at a fork. I was at a fork in the road in 2002 or three um and I was trying to figure out no, 2001. I was trying to figure out did I want to move into equity research? Did I want to do something else? I actually took the cfa level one. I I did, you know it, studied for it, it did well and I was deciding do I want to do an mba or or just keep on with the CFA? And I decided look, I like investment research, I like what I'm doing, I kept on with the CFA.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

I would say, along that sell-side journey as well as in IR, people see CFA and they're like oh, you must know this, this and this, we can have a conversation using certain terms. And oh, this, this and this, like, we can have a conversation using certain terms and speak a language. And so I think it's just been kind of a baseline that I never wanted to like go into marketing or take a very sharp turn in my career from a business perspective where maybe I would have said, oh, I need to go get an MBA. So I think it's helped me more from just like establishing that baseline of credibility and being able to be conversant with folks.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

And if you're looking at a stack of resumes that the HR folks have given you, do you're like, oh, they have their CFA.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Yeah, I think I did. In fact, the first five years I was on the sell side I told everybody I hired I said you're going to start working on your CFA. So I then kind of relaxed that they were like you know, I started hiring people. They were married, they had kids. They're like I'm keeping them busy. I'm not going to mandate they spend more of their time on that, but I did always value it on the sell side world. I would say in this world it's not as directly. I think it helps, again, establish credibility. So if I were hiring at the entry level, there'd be a number of things I would look at to help establish credibility. That might be one I don't know that I I don't probably look at it exactly the same way as I did when I was hiring on the sell side.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

Though and that makes sense. I mean, you know, when you're on the sell side, it's, it's. The curriculum is tailored for that. Yeah, exactly.

Walter Pritchard, CFA:

Exactly.

Jeffrey Hamrick, CFA:

Well, I just want to say thank you so much for your time. You know I really appreciate having the opportunity to have this call and look forward to potentially doing something like this again in the future.

Lindsey Helman:

Thank you for listening to this month's chat segment. Chats is a monthly segment featuring audio from our recently recorded webinars airing on the second Tuesday of the month. To view the video recording of this episode and discover additional Society webinars, visit the CFA Society San Francisco YouTube channel. Join us next time for our regularly scheduled Financial Perspectives podcast episode airing on the last Tuesday of the month, and make sure to send in a message to the show using a link at the top of each episode description or emailing podcast@ cfa-sf. org. We'd love to hear what you think of our new chat segment or any suggestions on future topics you'd like us to cover. Thank you for being a dedicated listener. 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 at cfa-sforg or connect with us on LinkedIn.

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Tanya Suba-Tang

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Lindsey Helman

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