Week 3 at GP
Week three at Graham Partners continued to facilitate learning and growth among our intern class. After two weeks everyone was aware of the expectations and culture of the company. The warm-up phase ended and we were now fully immersed as summer analysts.
To follow up comments on my earlier posts, I will touch on the dynamic of the employees as I continue to understand it better. First, things are extremely professional. One of the first items of feedback I received was that my emails need to be more professional. The analyst I work for wants this habit to become second nature so I don’t accidentally respond informally to a higher ranking employee. Formal email responses include always stating the persons name, addressing any attachments, always including a PDF form of any documents attached, adding a signature to emails, and inserting a dash or hyphen after saying the recipients name.
Graham Partners was founded by Steve Graham in 1999 as a spin off from the Graham Group. The company has always been family focused and the “humble beginnings” referenced on the history section of the website speak to the culture of the company. I believe the emphasis on formality is rooted in the industry. A huge part of being a successful private equity firm is establishing a strong reputation with bankers and the companies Graham hopes to purchase. By focusing on formality and strong communication, Graham has built a reputation for themselves that contributes to their success.
Next week, week four, will include four days of a financial modeling crash course and the last week of our accounting class.
Definitely good insights about the culture and interesting insights about the formality of the company in regards to communication. Presumably, the industry insight also speaks to the leadership focusing on some issues more than others (e.g. professional communication). You may find yourself in less formal environments in the future, but good to have this early experience where the formality is emphasized; always easier to dial-it back in future settings versus reorienting and needing to be more professional after many informal experiences. Sounds as though the leaders (your supervisor) are a bit more directed with you (and the interns) so that they can provide insights and advice that will serve you well in the future.