William Blair

Investment banking Full Time (MBA) Associate 2025

William Blair Chicago, IL

Solutions for Today’s Challenges. Vision for Tomorrow’s Opportunities.

Join William Blair, the Premier Global Boutique.

William Blair has delivered trusted advice for nearly nine decades, and we continue to deepen our expertise and relationships across regions, asset classes, and markets throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

We are committed to our people and culture, values, clients, and local communities.

What sets us apart is that we are an independent partnership, with employees who have unique experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds. We provide advisory services, strategies, and solutions to meet clients’ evolving needs amid dynamic market conditions and varying industries.

We strive to attract the most qualified, passionate candidates who specialize in investment banking, investment management, private wealth management, and a variety of other business functions.

We work tirelessly to create an inclusive culture and take pride in fostering employees’ professional and personal growth. We empower our people to bring their best thinking each day so we can deliver the tailored, thoughtful work and problem-solving abilities that our clients expect.

Equally, we are proud of our long-term partnerships with the communities in which we live and work, a legacy we inherited from our founder.

We invite you to learn about how we are seeking excellence in everything we do and empowering our clients’ success with passion, creativity, and rigor. For more information, visit williamblair.com.

Execute in-depth analyses to support new business development, transaction execution and the delivery of investment banking products and services to clients and prospects. Perform extensive research and financial modeling, apply valuation methods, and complete due diligence activities. Work closely with client staff to advance projects, gathering necessary information, conveying complex financial modeling outcomes and presenting analysis results. Provide training and mentorship to less experienced staff.

Responsibilities Include But May Not Be Limited To

  • Perform extensive financial/valuation analyses to value debt and equity for mergers, acquisitions and capital raising transactions. Utilize creative approaches to analyses that illustrate key concepts/messages. Carefully review and provide guidance to Analysts’ work.
  • Build advanced financial models to value potential and actual clients and/or industries, leveraging broad understanding of valuation and broad finance/accounting topics. Demonstrate thorough knowledge of multiple client sectors. Assimilate information to perform insightful analyses.
  • Lead due diligence, research, analysis and documentation of potential and live transactions. Anticipate potential deal issues and pass concerns through to team members in real time.
  • Actively participates in presentation development and hypothesis testing to highlight financial analysis and research results.
  • Develop, produce and deliver proposals and presentations to clients and prospects, which exhibit broad knowledge of IB product solutions and underlying components. Engage, with analysts, in the development of marketing materials that highlight the competitive advantage of William Blair.
  • Actively participate in client meetings and drafting sessions.
  • Research and expand expertise of industries and/or sectors. Leverage knowledge to target certain clients or industries. Monitor key industry drivers. Offer insights into business trends in sector to facilitate processes. Evaluate and improve BIC content.
  • Identify improvements to processes and propose solutions to complete tasks more efficiently.
  • Take ownership of client relationships. Foster effective dialogue with finance and accounting staffs to facilitate processes. Anticipate needs and challenges and provide seamless solutions.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of macro factors related to client industry, investment banking products and potential implications.
  • Act as “on the job” trainer for analysts, providing constructive feedback. Focus on improving the quality of analyst and summer intern work product. Ensure senior team knows the valuable contributions of all team members.
  • Ensure all activities are in compliance with applicable rules, regulations, policies and procedures.
  • Additional responsibilities as requested.

Qualifications

  • Currently enrolled in an MBA program with an anticipated graduation date between December 2024 – June 2025
  • 2-5 years of prior work experience desired
  • Internship or prior work experience in banking strongly preferred
  • Project and process management experience
  • Excellent mathematical, writing, verbal, and computer skills
  • Deep, sophisticated understanding of accounting and finance
  • Ability to adapt to new tasks with little notice
  • Ability to manage expectations of senior bankers while working on projects simultaneously
  • Detail oriented with strong analytical abilities
  • Effective leadership and coaching skills
  • Strong desire to win
  • Sound judgement
  • Committed to satisfying internal and external customers
  • SIE Exam, prior to beginning employment, and Series 79 and Series 63 within 90 days of employment (for US Campus hires only)
  • SIE Exam, Series 79, and Series 63 must be acquired within 150 days of employment (for US experienced hires only)
  • Travel required: approximately 10% to 30%

A reasonable estimate of the current base salary is below at the time of posting. Base salary does not include other forms of compensation or benefits.

Salary

$175,000

William Blair is an equal opportunity employer. It complies with all laws and regulations that prohibit discrimination in employment practice because of race, color, religion, creed, ancestry, marital status, gender, age, national origin, sexual orientation, unfavorable discharge from the military service or on the basis of a physical or mental disability that is unrelated to the employee's ability to perform the duties of the job applied for. EOE m/f/d/v

Be aware of hiring scams: William Blair has clear processes and guidelines with regards to recruiting. We do not request personal financial information in connection with an employment application nor does William Blair extend any employment offers without first conducting an interview through one of its registered offices. William Blair does not use instant messaging services such as WhatsApp, Telegram, or iMessage as part of the recruiting or interviewing process.

Note to External Recruiters / Search Firms: William Blair does not accept unsolicited resumes and will not pay for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume. Any unsolicited resumes received will not be considered as a valid submission.

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Contact us should you have any questions or concerns.
  • Seniority level

    Internship
  • Employment type

    Full-time
  • Job function

    Finance and Sales
  • Industries

    Financial Services

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