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Hi, I am being offered 27L + 2L Variable for Manager (M1) at KPMG India. Will I also be eligible for year end performance bonus? Or is variable pay the only amount that I’d be eligible for?
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Rising Star
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Chief
So I was an MBB partner and now am a Big 4 partner. Being a consulting partner is a great gig. Some observations:
1) The work is fun and interesting and challenging. For me personally this is by far the most important thing. Not everyone will think so of course, but if you like the work being a partner is great (if you don’t like the work obviously you should find something else to do).
2) you have far more independence than you would in almost any other job. If you do it right, it feels like entrepreneurship with a safety net. Whatever consulting offering I feel like delivering, if clients will pay the firm will support me. I don’t have to worry about keeping the lights on or running out of cash in my startup business. I can pretty much do what I like. That has huge value to me.
3) the trade offs are ones I was more than willing to make, considering the alternatives. Everyone talks about the travel, but few think about the alternative — every job I ever seriously looked at in industry would have required me to move every few years. That’s just not something I was willing to do or put my family through. My wife has her own career and I’m not going to ask her to give it up so I can climb the ladder in a corporation. I’m happy to get on a plane a couple times a week if it means my kids don’t have to change schools every 3 years.
4) the money is really good. Risk-adjusted, this is probably the highest earning path there is. I’ll never get private jet rich, and of course there are tons of people who make far more than I do — but the people who got there ran a far, far higher risk of ending up making senior manager money their whole lives (not that there is anything wrong with that!) than getting to where they got. There’s only a few C-level executive slots in public companies, and far more people gun for them and fail than make it.
Bingo. You do what you want and you get paid well. Not sure why deferred compensation is a bad thing. But most importantly to me, if I’m doing well, people are happy. I’ve never felt like anyone had knives out for me. My wife is in corporate and she has felt it (the knives) viscerally since she made VP.
Like others have said, there ain’t that many $1.5MM jobs out there in corporate that aren’t about stock as a key part of the comp. I haven’t worked at tech or finance, but B4 consulting Partner seems a more reasonable path.
Rising Star
I’m not a partner, but my parents are both EVPs in industry. I think we often forget how rare it is for ANYONE to make 1.5+ million in total comp. In industry, much of your comp will be tied to RSUs at that level, with bases closer to 500k-1 million IF you’re at a F500.
Most Big 4 have thousands of partners making 500k+. How many industry companies have that many SVPs+? None.
I’m not going to say it’s “easier” to be a partner, but from a pure numbers stand point if you stick around long enough and are a decent performer, you can end up on partner track or know VERY quickly if you won’t be. In industry, you just kind of wait for people to leave, die, or for companies to be acquired/sold to make openings for you.
Partner looks mighty attractive if you don’t want to do all that waiting and still want to make a very healthy living for many years.
I wanted to be partner at big 4. But left after my first year being an associate
Unfortunately for me my whole team was not welcoming to me and my director and manager were trying to push me out and succeeded. It was a horrible first year. If I was on another team with different people, I probably would have stayed forever
Like to hear from partners and ppl going for partner’s perspective
There is a lot of talk about money above. Let me start with and finish with money but the more important items are what comes in between.
I make more than 1.5m as a partner, and I am single mom. It is not about the money but finding a role that does not feel like work. For me that is being a partner in a big 4. I had an industry role for a few years in global insurance and also my own small boutique firm for 5 years.
I love being a partner to augment what is said above because:
1. I am always working with smart and driven people. That includes the recent grad hires to the Management Committee. I did not find this was the case in industry. There was some top talent but also a lot of B and C players who had been in their role for 10+ years.
2. Freedom and flexibility. Yes I put in a lot of hours but when I want and wanted when my daughter was young. I made partner when she was 4. I have missed my one of daughters swim meets and she ranked up to National level so there were a lot of them. Sometimes I flew on red eyes to make this happen but i was always in the stands to see her race. I never missed a school play, ski race or a bday party Ect. No one was asking me where I was and clients if you are good understand. This did mean I got less sleep than the average mom. But for me it was worth it.
3. Travel. I love travel so this works well for me. And the Big 4 are great as every country I visited I was welcomed by other partners and taken to amazing local events eg soccer in Europe, plays in London and sailing in Sydney Australia.
4. Clients. As I am in advisory I feel like my clients like me. This gives me a great feeling on a daily basis. This is important if you are the type of person that likes to be liked. You also get to meet c-level individuals and talk about global trends and exchange ideas which is pretty cool.
5. Young workforce. On average the Big 4 average age is below 30 so it keeps me on my toes, feeling young and I am always learning the new technology, new trends including I&D given I am surrounded by two generations younger than me.
6. Trust. There is far less knifing than corporate at senior levels based on my experience. My friends at VP, SVP and c level are always focused on protecting their jobs and don’t trust their colleagues. My partners can be difficult (jerks) at times and there is some competition but I trust them and I don’t fear for me job as we have a common goal of creating a better firm.
Finally back to money. I also agree finding seven digit roles in industry outside of PE and tech which are not abundant. We get the cash where as in industry it is about the market value creation play throw warrants, RSU, options. My perspective only. It is important to know what you value i addition to money. Money helps but it does not bring happiness.
The chance of you landing in an industry role making 1.5m seems pretty small. If that amount of money isn’t worth it to you then none is. If you don’t enjoy it move on.
Maybe some tech and some finance. But if you had those skills you’d already be there.
Chief
Had the option to go the Partner (Principal) route or the Executive Director route.
The pension is a major component of the analysis as is the combination of travel and hours and what you want from life. I really thought I wanted it until I saw it and lived it.
Long term viability of the respective firm given their already existing pension obligations to retired partners and revenue (growth) needs is also worth evaluating.
I chose to go the industry route and while I have made more than more junior partners thus far, $1.5M is a tough compensation level to reach in industry. At amazon that is one to two levels up from where I am now and the talent and competition is fierce for those positions. I will rise to the next level but I’m honest enough with myself to recognize that will likely be as high as I can go, at Amazon at least.
The barriers to making that kind of money in the Big4 are lower but it is a grind that comes at a high personal cost due to travel and working so much.
When you make partner, the climb starts all over again. There is also the politics and dealing with nepotism and games necessary to share sales and revenue credit, in order to get support needed to be effective long term. Being a B4 partner is a decades long grind.
Chief
I am an L7 Product and migrating to Product Tech.
I travel a fair amount but nothing like I did in consulting and my hours are also much better.
Not sure what you are specifically calling out in stack ranking related to stress. I havent found that and I have consistently been rated as higher performing or meeting expectations of my level (mainly role /scope dependent).
Not having to deal with the business development especially given how many are boondoggles that suck up the weekend on top of client delivery during the week, has improved my WLB significantly.
Pro
The better question is what exactly are you trying to afford with 1.5M that you can’t afford with like 500k HHI? Then does the extra hours and travel still seem worth it to you? Keep in mind in either scenario you can afford 99% of things in life. But if you want that 1% life like a 10M home and a Ferrari, you’ll still be a long ways from doing that. Better take on a higher risk-reward career
Marginal return matters. I have extended family that is rich beyond belief. Once you see that, you realize it’s pointless to try and keep up. Do what makes you happy, take some entrepreneurial risks, and have a life while you’re still working. You’ll never make yacht money working as an employee
Partner 1 is spot on. Big 4 partners, make, on average 800k plus benefits (many tax preferred, especially at KPMG).
If you are wired to do consulting, it’s a fantastic role made even better as clients are buying significant amounts of work without F2F travel.
Can you share how that realistically works ? Like you file in each state ... then what? Each state gets a portion of your earnings based on firms revenue in that state? Never quite understood this one.
B4 delays your earnings potential as a partner by setting aside a good chunk of your money as a pension. Go to a place that will reward you financially now, not in 20-30 years
Partner 1 said it best.
My 2 cents - if you like the work / people then its worth it but don't just stay for the money. If you hate what you do, go somewhere else.
Many people who can make partner could make more money elsewhere but usually it comes with other types of stress and with a lot more frustrating / less interesting work and with lower skilled coworkers / direct reports