I finished a two year finance program at a fortune 100 company doing M&A and FP&A and decided to turn down a promotion to Corp Dev. I consider myself an alpha type when it comes to my career and I truly felt I could do better than what I was given. I went out to the job market instead to find better opportunities and through a series of interviews and case studies, I beat out a few ibankers to land a Senior Analyst, Corp. Dev role at a MM tech company with huge growth prospects and are extremely acquisitive. This role will accelerate my career at least two years (it would've taken me at least two years to become a senior analyst at my previous company doing Corp Dev) and they are paying me top dollar (nearly 100K w/ stock options putting me over with 2 years experience). There's a good track record here as the last senior analyst did 3.5 years (combined with 4 years of prior mgmt consulting experience) and was promoted to manager. I also have a promising IB offer at a BB / Top MM, but will need to start as a 1st year. The IB job won't start until early 2016 (by then I would have 2.5 years of experience ). Now all of this is great, but my dreams out of college was to do IB -> PE or Corp Dev if I struck out in PE.
I am grateful to have all these amazing opportunities come my way and how my career has panned out thus far even tho I didn't follow the traditional IB route (not because I didn't want to, but because I struck out in IB recruiting out of a non-target), but I put in a ton of work into it as well and consider myself an exceptional worker.
With that said...I need career guidance. Do you think it would be better to stay on my accelerated path in corp dev and eventually be a decision/deal maker as I move up the corporate ladder or start over as a 1st year analyst at a BB / Top MM and put in my two years for PE opportunities? What I'm afraid is the worst case scenario....by doing IB and striking out in PE and taking a Corp Dev role as a senior analyst. This process would take 2-3 years and by then...I would have become a manager if I had continued my accelerated Corp Dev role instead. Opportunity cost!
Also, does anyone know of anyone that has done 3-4 years of Corp Dev (with an outstanding track record coupled with accelerated promotions) transition into PE? Or would recruiters not even bat at eye just because I didn't do IB?
Any and all feedback would be appreciated. WSO Veterans please share your knowledge!