I usually get to work by 9:00 am, after grabbing a large coffee from the local coffee shop and helping myself to some toast in the kitchen. I try to manage my day during my morning commute by reviewing meetings I'm required to attend, checking email and deliverables for the day, and if possible, browsing the news. This allows me to free up some time to tackle the immediate deliverables by mid-day. Client requests are usually urgent so I tend to deal with those before progressing on to more internal tasks. It is not uncommon to have a few conference calls interspersed into the morning's activities in relation to some of these tasks.

The buzz of the day usually heightens during the evening. Clients are gone for the day, so we can focus more on our tasks. We typically grab dinner together and then huddle back at our desks to number crunch and prepare analyses to send to clients and seniors overnight so they can review them first thing in the morning. Once the task at hand is completed, I order a taxi and enjoy the ride home knowing it's been a good day.

We recently closed a sell-side transaction for a healthcare client who was very appreciative of our execution expertise and hard work throughout the six-month process. The highly competitive process resulted in a secondary buy-out, an outcome I was particularly pleased with. Closing deals and achieving optimal results for clients remain my favorite parts of this job.

As for working at Jefferies, I have always been pleasantly surprised and refreshed by the level of responsibility I was given from the first day. Even with regards to client interaction and representation of my team at internal meetings, I was trusted by senior bankers from day one. Because M&A provides in-depth exposure to a variety of industries, it allows me to learn intricate details about different industries in a very short time spans. The members of my team are good-natured and have a great sense of humor, but also work incredibly hard and deliver great results for our clients.