Membership Experience
The Inner Circle brings together investment banking VPs to explore the challenges of progressing as a leader, developing business and building relationships beyond their own bank.
Across the year, you’ll hear from senior bankers and clients, work through practical challenges with peers and develop a familiar circle of people navigating similar career demands.
Four in-person gatherings in New York
Four virtual sessions
Your own peer group of around 20 VPs
Senior perspectives. Practical discussion. Meaningful connections.
Each New York gathering combines time to connect across the wider membership with a panel discussion and structured work in your peer group.
Senior bankers and invited guests bring perspectives on the evening’s theme. You’ll then explore those ideas with your peers through guided discussion and workshop activities, relating them to the challenges you face in your own role.
The evening begins and ends with networking, giving you time to build relationships within your group and across the wider Inner Circle.
Connect
Meet fellow members and reconnect with familiar faces.
Explore
Hear senior perspectives and put your questions to the panel.
Apply
Discuss what the ideas mean in practice with your peer group.
A familiar circle beyond your own bank
Within the wider membership, you’ll join a consistent group of around 20 VPs from across banks. It’s an opportunity to build closer relationships with people navigating similar challenges, compare experiences and develop a trusted network beyond your own firm.
We’ll shape groups around similar experience levels, a variety of sector specialisms and a balance of banks. We’ll also consider location to support opportunities to connect between events.
You’ll spend structured time together at New York gatherings and reconnect following virtual sessions. We’ll introduce your group before the programme begins and encourage you to keep the conversation going, including arranging informal meet-ups of your own.
Fresh perspectives throughout the year
Four virtual sessions create further opportunities to hear fresh perspectives, explore relevant challenges and put questions to senior leaders throughout the year.
After the main discussion and questions, you’ll move into a separate video room with attending members of your peer group to share reflections and catch up.
Explore the challenges that matter
Our discussions will explore the commercial, leadership and career challenges facing investment banking VPs. Themes we expect to explore include:
Making the step up to MD
Understanding senior expectations, demonstrating readiness and building support for progression.
From execution to origination
Developing commercial confidence, identifying opportunities and building relationships that lead to business.
Building a network beyond the bank
Creating and sustaining meaningful connections with clients, industry contacts and peers.
Becoming the trusted adviser
Understanding what clients value and building confidence through insight and commercial judgement.
Leading teams and managing up
Delegating effectively, developing junior colleagues and managing senior expectations.
Making time for business development
Balancing immediate deal demands with consistent, longer-term relationship building.
Developing leadership confidence and an authentic style
Contributing confidently and developing an approach to leadership and origination that feels your own.
Navigating your career and building support
Finding mentors and sponsors, assessing opportunities and making informed career decisions.
These are illustrative themes. Topics and formats will develop with input from members and the Leadership Council, including emerging challenges such as leading teams in the age of AI.
Learn from people who understand the next step
Speakers will include members of our Leadership Council alongside other invited senior bankers, clients and industry voices.
Council members bring their experience to panel discussions and help shape the community’s direction. Selected sessions will also bring perspectives from clients, including private equity professionals, exploring what they value in advisers and what builds lasting trust.
What an evening looks like
Sample agenda for a New York gathering
Example theme · From execution to origination
Hear how senior investment bankers made the shift from executing deals to winning business, then explore how to apply their insights in your own role.
Time (New York)
What happens
6:00–6:45 pm
Arrival and networking. Meet other members and catch up with your peer group over drinks and canapes.
6:45–6:55 pm
Welcome and introduction. Get an overview of the evening’s theme.
6:55–7:40 pm
Senior banker panel and Q&A. Hear how experienced bankers built client relationships, spotted opportunities and began winning mandates.
7:40–7:50 pm
Short break. Move into your peer group for the workshop.
7:50–8:50 pm
Peer group workshop. Compare approaches to a practical challenge, such as how to stay in touch with a client after closing a deal and earn the next conversation. Agree your group’s key takeaways.
8:50–9:30 pm
Networking drinks. Continue the conversation with members from across the programme.
Space for the questions that matter
Inner Circle discussions operate under the Chatham House Rule, supported by expectations of confidentiality, respectful participation and no unsolicited selling.
Through Ask the MD, members can submit anonymous questions during both in-person and virtual events, creating another way to raise career, leadership and commercial challenges with senior leaders.
After each New York gathering, members will receive a concise summary of the peer groups’ key takeaways, shared without attribution or identifying details.
Build your next chapter with the Inner Circle
Join a community of investment banking VPs developing their leadership, commercial judgement and relationships beyond their own bank.
Still have questions? Please see The Inner Circle FAQs
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