Ray Dak Lam for BI
- AI is changing what it takes to stand out as a newbie on Wall Street.
- We asked our Rising Stars of Wall Street to share the skills workers need to thrive in this era of work.
- Here's what they said, from practicing soft skills to
AI is raising the bar for entry-level Wall Street workers.
With technology taking over more of the grunt work, early success depends less on how many hours an analyst has spent meticulously formatting pitch decks or compiling reports. Instead, it's more about how well they communicate what's in that deck or model, and how good they are at generating ideas or building relationships.
We asked the latest class of Business Insider's Rising Stars of Wall Street what skills those on the finance path need to master in the AI era. Their answers suggest that the technology has not necessarily changed the skills needed to succeed on Wall Street. Instead, it's making those skills more important earlier in their careers.
Here's what they said someone starting out on Wall Street should zero in on.
Don't let AI do your thinking for you
What Jim Tilson, a 35-year-old senior managing director at Evercore, stresses to his junior team is that they be active learners.
He sees the biggest risk for juniors using AI is that they rely on the tech too heavily, which could prevent them from developing pattern recognition.
Courtesy of Jim Tilson; Ray Dak Lam for BI
"The best performers are going to leverage it as a tool and get way smarter, and the worst performers are going to let AI do their job and be replaced," the banker said.
Blue Owl Capital investor Diana Liu recently heard someone complain that young employees are increasingly asking AI to solve problems rather than developing their own approaches.
Her advice is to develop a framework for solving a problem, then use AI to refine the solution.
"Let it be your helper, not a replacement," the 33-year-old principal and data center investor said.
Analytical skills will be tremendously valuable, said Asher Hecht, a principal at General Atlantic, echoing some of Tilson and Liu's concerns.
"The ability to drive insight from what that tells you and the right questions to ask and observing the shapes of data and trends, I think that is something that people risk losing sight of."
Have your own point of view
Evercore banker David Oppenheim, a 35-year-old managing director, said that in his experience, "some of the highest performing juniors tend to be those that are thinking about the bigger picture rather than necessarily just performing the task that they've been asked to perform."
Daniel Borkenstein, a 31-year-old private equity principal at Apollo Global, said he's been using AI as a thought partner to help him think through a thesis, its risks, and the best way to communicate nuanced topics.
"In no circumstance was AI able to tell me the answer," he said. "I needed to come with a point of view and work with AI to refine what that answer was and be prepared for whatever conversations I had with people about the deal."
Judgment is your value add, said Borkenstein.
"No one's going to sell their business to Claude," he said. "If you say 'because Claude said so' at the investment committee, that's an unacceptable answer for hopefully obvious reasons."
Make people want to work with you
The ability to connect with people will become an even bigger differentiator, Kate Casey, a 32-year-old principal at KKR, told Business Insider.
"What differentiates you and why a management team would want to work with you is your ability to connect as a person," she said.
Fiona Ismail, global head of investment-grade private credit at JPMorgan, recommends that young professionals double down on listening. That means paying attention to colleagues as they explain their work and understanding what clients are ultimately trying to accomplish.
"AI can answer what you've told it, but it can't get to the crux of what someone is actually trying to say," the 34-year-old executive director said.
Her colleague, John Ballard, a 28-year-old executive director at JPMorgan, believes being in sync with managers will also become increasingly important.
"The people who will succeed are the ones who are incredibly in tune with their direct managers: what they need, what they like, how to navigate situations where you're being asked to do things, and maybe the timeline isn't clear," he said.
Courtesy of Ryan Febles; Ray Dak Lam for BI
Ryan Febles, the global head of equity capital markets at hedge fund Capstone Investment Advisors, recommends putting yourself in situations outside your comfort zone to work on your emotional intelligence. Company leaders want to know that the person they've hired can thrive in a situation outside the confines of a cubicle.
The 31-year-old said leaders would ask themselves, "Who am I confident I can put in front of a management team to represent our business?"
Master the basics before automating them
While AI can accelerate much of the work traditionally performed by junior employees, several Rising Stars warned against neglecting the technical skills that are core to their investments, deals, or the financial solutions they structure.
Jake Epstein, a 28-year-old investor at Blackstone, tells first-year analysts that they have two jobs: producing the work they're assigned and, arguably more importantly, learning.
"It's always worth doing something yourself at least once to learn how," he said.
In real estate investing, that might mean learning how to conduct due diligence or order environmental reports and property condition assessments before turning to AI to help with subsequent tasks.
Epstein also sees AI as an opportunity to learn about parts of the business that junior employees might not otherwise have time to explore.
For example, a first-year analyst may not be responsible for negotiating purchase agreements, but can use AI to understand the back-and-forth between lawyers and learn more about the process.
Maya Venkatraman, a 34-year-old managing director at Morgan Stanley, similarly stressed the importance of mastering the fundamentals.
"You still need the technical understanding to know when an assumption is weak, when an answer doesn't make sense," the US head of transportation and infrastructure leveraged finance said.
A willingness to experiment
For young professionals willing to put in the time to master AI, the technology could also provide an opportunity to stand out early on.
Mike Washington, a 32-year-old managing director at Goldman Sachs, recommends learning how to use large language models and experimenting with vibe coding, or using AI to write software and automate everyday tasks. He said some of Goldman's best young analysts are getting more exposure to senior team members because they are "fluent" in how AI processes work.
Courtesy of Mike Washington; Ray Dak Lam for BI
"Taking some of these external courses, spending the extra five, six hours a week in an already busy schedule will pay dividends and then some down the road," he said.
Bridget Chaudhry, also a managing director at Goldman Sachs, believes the ability to teach yourself new skills has always been an important predictor of success for junior employees.
"One of the mindset shifts when you start as a junior person on Wall Street is that you shouldn't expect people to teach you, but you should expect to be in an environment where you learn," the investment banker said.
Get comfortable solving unfamiliar problems
Cody Kiechle, a 33-year-old managing director at Bank of America, sees AI as an opportunity for bankers to spend more time on creative work, to develop better ideas, advice, and deal structures.
"It pushes us further into the creativity element, as opposed to some of the more rote tasks that we've done historically, which is really exciting," he said.
For Matthew Caltabiano, a 31-year-old portfolio manager at Millennium Management, problem-solving is the most important skill young professionals can develop.
He recommends that students publish some of their work online to put them on the radar of innovative investors and companies.
"Come up with one good idea and execute it incredibly well," he said.
Venkatraman, who is helping finance the unprecedented data center build-out, also emphasized the importance of becoming comfortable with uncertainty. She said often, the most interesting work happens when there isn't a template or a precedent.
"Get comfortable with ambiguity, get comfortable with the unknown," she said.
For Rex Johnson, the head of equity volatility at Walleye Capital, success in market-facing roles requires learning how to operate without perfect information.
The 32-year-old recommends being willing to make mistakes, learn from them, and move on.
"Be good at failing quickly — and get up when you get knocked down," he said.
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