To:CS_Internal_Employees@email.com
Subject: Thank you and Farewell
Friends and Colleagues,
Today, I leave New York City, the only city I’ve ever called home, along with a life-long collection of friends and colleagues, to make a new home in the city I believe represents the greatest modern possibility in the world: Detroit.
My peers, family and mentors have been equal parts supportive and skeptical.
I’ve heard: Why Detroit? Are you from there? Nope.
Do you have family there? Nope (although you can never really be too sure)
Can’t you do “this” from New York? Negative.
After years of investment banking grunt work, are you sure now is the right time to leave a tangible career for some unknown possibility? For Detroit: Absolutely.
I’ve thought long and hard about the truest answer to the “Why Detroit?” question.
Detroit is a city with a unique and vibrant culture, an incredible legacy of innovation and a fascinating history both in its shining moments and its more challenged ones. Many forget it was the predecessor to today’s Silicon Valley, actually dwarfing it’s output, for the better part of the 20th century, spurred on by its world leading automotive technological innovation.
By the 1950s, Detroit residents held the country’s highest median household income. By the 1960s, Detroit was the fourth largest city in the U.S., with nearly 2 million residents. Before Henry Ford even set up shop at the turn of the 20th century, Detroit was already referred to as the “Paris of the Midwest” for its grand architecture and expansive boulevards, financed by the wealth of industry, manufacturing and shipping magnates. You can still see the vestiges of that wealth in the historic homes and basic infrastructure of the city. Many of the neighborhoods retain the look and feel of spaces built for incredibly wealthy people in an incredibly wealthy place during one of the wealthiest eras in American history.
With its bankruptcy in the rear-view mirror, the sustained momentum in the auto industry (the Big 3 are more profitable than they have ever been), increasing commercial activity in the city’s downtown and midtown districts in tandem with the modern generational and global shift towards urban living, Detroit offers young folks a rare operating environment to own and manage affordable real estate assets at a modest entry point, without excessive leverage.
How often does one have an opportunity to make a material lasting impact in a city with a story as rich and poignant as Detroit? A city that, notwithstanding it’s checkered history, continues to maintain its relevance within America’s broader economic landscape and a firm grip on our collective imagination.
During my time in investment banking, I worked closely with some incredibly talented and industrious individuals. I worked on small deal teams responsible for delivering a broad array of financing solutions to dozens of mid-size to Fortune 500 corporations and raised hundreds of billions of dollars in financing, primarily via structured instruments. Financing that, in part, allows American families affordable credit for back to school clothes for their kids, transportation to get to and from work, loans for college and homes in which to live.
From my time as an intern at Lehman Brothers, to working full-time at Barclays Capital, I learned how to maneuver through grueling hours to deliver actionable solutions within pressure packed environments. Following a move to Credit Suisse, I was promoted to Vice President and had grown to be a trusted advisor to my clients, leading some of their most strategic transactions.
What I loved most about the job was the people, particularly my clients. I sat in the middle of a highly developed but constantly evolving ecosystem comprised of people from all over the world with varying competing interests. For any single transaction, I was tasked with managing the interests of the client first and foremost, the lawyers, the accountants, the trustees, our syndicate and sales teams, the traders, my internal credit and business committees, operations and compliance teams, the money managers and investors. It’s a challenging proposition, but afforded me an opportunity to engage with and learn from a hyper-diverse array of individuals. That’s the GOOD.
Now for the BAD: there’s a lingering sense of impermanence inherent to the job. Clients that I loved would move on to other positions or companies. The focus is rarely on the now, but rather on the next: the next deal, loan facility or fee opportunity. For a senior banker, your entire livelihood hinges entirely upon your ability to grow and monetize the transaction pipeline, a tension that breeds an unyielding restlessness.
For me, Detroit represents an opportunity to forge a more permanent, lasting connection. I will be able to retain many of great things I loved about my old job: the relationship building, the thrill of the deal, the results oriented analysis and subsequent execution. Except with Detroit, I hope to measure my impact with something more substantial than dollars and cents. I hope to help stabilize and re-invigorate historic neighborhoods, in part by giving homes built 100 years ago another century of life. I hope to democratize a pathway to property ownership and wealth building.
Detroit is a city on an aggressive comeback trail that is now drawing a vast array of individuals to its core: agents who yearn for a new canvas on which to create, to make an impact and to obtain ownership. Detroit is not a blank canvas, but rather an open one with enough space for passionate individuals to make a lasting imprint amidst a rapidly evolving urban backdrop. Its streets are filled with palpable possibility, zealously anchored by a belief in the power of locally propelled transformation, even for the historical doubters.
So why Detroit? I could say it’s some combination of its people, its opportunities, the possibilities and its history.
But really, though I’ll always love New York, I’m moving to Detroit because, right now, there’s no other place like it.
With love and gratitude,
David