Harvard Leads In Top PE & VC Jobs

Five Schools Make Up Most of MBAs At Private Equity and Venture Capital Firms

 

“So you want to work private equity or venture capital?”

If you posed this question at many top business schools, half of the student body would probably raise their hands. And why not? These firms are generally where the money is! The real question, however, is where do the top firms recruit their MBA talent?

This week, PitchBook Platform, a leading research firm for private equity and venture capital, released its latest data on this very topic. Based on data collected from the top 200 U.S.-based private equity and venture capital firms, the results speak for themselves: Five business schools account for nearly 60% of the staff at these firms.

In particular, Harvard is the leader in both categories. Harvard MBAs comprising 26.1 percent of the professional ranks at private equity firms and 24.4 percent at venture capital firms. Not surprisingly, Wharton ranks second in private equity at 11.2 percent, while Stanford earns the silver in venture capital with 17.1 percent. Here is a breakdown of the results:

Business School	Private Equity	Venture Capital
Harvard Business School	26.1%	24.4%
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	11.2%	8.4%
Stanford Graduate School of Business	7.7%	17.1%
University of Chicago (Booth)	6.6%	4.3%
Northwestern University (Kellogg)	5.6%	4.0%
Other	42.7%	41.9%

Source: PitchBook

Mark Cuban-Backed HourlyNerd Links Small Business To MBA Talent

 

A new MBA start-up is going into the tank…The Shark Tank, that is.

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban, star of ABC’s “Shark Tank,” recently contributed $450,000 to HourlyNerd, a startup launched by a second-year Harvard Business School student.

The company was started by Patrick Petitti in a Harvard class that gave students $5000 to launch a business. Conceived as a way to help MBA students pay off their loans and gain experience, HourlyNerd aids students in finding freelance work. Employers can post potential projects to the HourlyNerd site. A matching engine identifies members whose skill sets fit the employer’s specss. From there, students bid on the project by “providing a quick pitch, hourly rate, estimated time of completion, and a proposed list of milestones.” Once an employer chooses a student, they keep in touch on the site through messaging and document sharing, with a video chat feature being added shortly.

Businesses pay students anywhere from $200 to $10,000, with employers paying HourlyNerd a 15 percent fee and students chipping in a 5 percent commission. According to HourlyNerd, projects can range from $200 to $10,000. Since its launch in February, the site has posted 50 projects, while another 500 businesses and 1300 MBAs enrolled in the program.

Currently, HourlyNerd is based out of Harvard’s Innovation Lab. Along with Mark Cuban’s $450,000 investment, it has attracted an additional $300,000 in funding from various investors, including Accanto Partners. In the future, HourlyNerd intends to “build out parternships with major organizations,” according to Petitti. He adds that HourlyNerd will eventually launch a recruiting platform and provide enhanced toolkits and templates to aid students in completing projects.

Source: Boston Business Journal