Tell us a bit about yourself 

I was born and raised in Hong Kong, jumped about a number of primary and secondary schools before getting into the HKU Economics and Finance programme. E&F was not my first choice – I had originally preferred the HKU Quantitative Finance programme and the Risk Management programme at Chinese University of Hong Kong. This was mostly because Maths had always been my strong suite, although I was more of a scientist growing up. Anyhow, I never had any designs on what career I wanted to pursue, and finance didn’t run in the family.

So how did HKU inspire you to go into a finance career 

I had no such plans. I had some exposure to economics in my A-Levels, but this was not due to career preference. There was nothing during my bachelors, even during my internships, that led me on this path. As I was living in a hall at the time, I relied more on work experience than academics to find direction for my career.  

The longest I had was actually with a reinsurance company – I spent a gap year undertaking a 12-year contract with Munich Re. This was a corporate strategy role in the client management department, studying potential opportunities in the insurance markets in the region. I also interned at DBS, as well as FP Marine, a reinsurance broker. There was absolutely no linear path for these choices, I looked purely for work exposure, so I considered even contract roles, such as Munich Re.

So you had no plan? 

I didn’t have a career plan really, I was open to anything. However, at Munich Re, I had a senior that shared a lot of his experiences and thoughts of the industry. So, he gave me some more perspectives and career paths to consider, and I gained a better understanding of the industry as a whole. I gradually became more interested in getting into Private Equity, though I remained open to whatever came my way, and applied for everything.

What did you do after graduating? 

I joined a small family office after graduating, to do private investments. I stayed for a month however, as they had no spare capital to deploy, and my work output was subsequently inconsequential.

Surely that would have been quite challenging? 

At the time, I was confident I would find something better, I don’t know why. Perhaps I was a bit naive. But anyhow, I quit and went for a holiday. After coming back, I began applications again, to any opening available. However, it was definitely not management trainee programmes, buy-side roles at large firms, etc. I interviewed perhaps 10 roles per week, across a variety of roles. In the end, I managed to get close to a role with SCOR Re, a French reinsurer.

And that would have been interesting to you? 

The role was as an underwriter, and was indeed an interesting role for me. I got to the final round. The industry is very niche, specialised, and the role is quite stable as the industry is particularly risk-averse. The remuneration was good as well. I did consider staying within the reinsurance industry after the Munich Re experience, so I was happy to stay within this track. There would also be plenty of opportunities to travel for work, which would have been good. But then I got an offer from China Merchants Bank International to become an investment banking analyst, so I took that instead.

That was out of the blue! 

It took perhaps 3 interviews, and they were faster in offering a position to me. To be honest, I didn’t know that much about the role, and I didn’t have many alumni within the industry to check with. So I went into the interviews quite cold, not having much knowledge about ECM, DCM, M&A, and other services. I think I was taken on mainly for the hard skills I had developed in my internships, an example is MS Office, which was particularly useful for work like pitchbook drafting.

What made you take that offer instead of the reinsurance role?

Well, aside from the timing, it seemed to be an exciting role in an area I hadn’t tried before, and it seemed that so many people wanted this sort of job! 

So what’s your experience since?

Afterwards, I went to DBS as an associate, and now I’m an AVP here.

How come you moved to DBS? 

A colleague that was in CMBI, he moved to DBS first. And then he took the rest of the team over.

So this is the power of…networking? 

Somewhat. This is very important in this industry, as the people we meet and the transactions we do, can be quite repetitive. So, when you hire people, when they build out teams, they like to find people they can trust.

I see, that’s quite an interesting experience you’ve had! It’s about time to wrap this up, so maybe a few last comments. First, what advice would you give to prospective interns or even fresh graduates? 

I’ve interviewed a large number of prospects in this category. A common theme is the importance of work experience. Everyone’s CV is impressive, but you need to stand out. One of the things is key words within that CV. If you have these, I’d expect that you could get an interview, which is why the relevant work experience is very helpful. Academics aren’t something that I’d focus on, but I have colleagues who would screen out based on that factor too.

And if you make it to the interview, then personality is also definitely important. I expect for candidates to generally be above average, and to cover their weak points. We have to train all our interns anyway. So if you are humble, hardworking, and willing to learn, that’s good enough.

How do people demonstrate that? 

In our industry, we need people that are hard working, motivated to learn by themselves, and maintain a positive attitude. Our hours are long, so you need to be able to demonstrate this. Especially for when we get to crunch time in transactions, there is no time to hand hold people. For example, my first year had the steepest learning curve, with lots of work, lots to learn, but little guidance.

Final question. If you started over again, what would you have done differently?

I would have done a masters degree, perhaps in real estate finance…though I guess I would have needed a higher GPA! 

Oh? Why is this? 

Mainly as at DBS, our industry focus is more on the real estate side. A lot of buy-side real estate players have such a background. I’m a bit old now, so that’s just wishful thinking. Aside, I don’t think I would have changed that much, at least for what I could change. I think my approach of getting as much work experience, to offset my academic drawbacks, was the best approach. 

Thanks for your time! 

If you would like to reach out to Donald, please find his Linkedin in the following link.