This month,IMAP kicked off its coveted Analyst & Associate (A&A) meeting, this year being held in Barcelona. Over 50 IMAP M&A analysts and associates representing 18 countries were in attendance. Raja Gorle, Vikas Srivastava and Raghav Maheshwari participated the event from IMAP India.
IMAP recognizes that our analysts and associates are critical to our success and is committed to fostering and retaining key junior talent. Therefore, these two-day A&A meetings are designed to foster relationships between the international teams, as well as hone their all-important hard and soft skills to ensure they are equipped for whatever is thrown at them during often very complicated M&A processes.
Day 1: Presentation skills
Day one training focused on presentation skills, with interactive workshops led by Mark Andrews and Phil Ingle from Redcliffe Training. Based on the premise that everyone can present, and everyone can certainly present well, the sessions combined theory and practical activities, demonstrating that the secret of successful presenting is down to hard work, preparation, practice, and more hard work. The day ended with dinner where the team had the opportunity to try typical local cuisine, including seafood and paella in the emblematic El Poble Nou district.
Day 2: Soft skills
Day two analysts and associates’ artistic and collaborative skills were put to the test. In teams of three, they were challenged to paint individual graffiti-style squares, which “unbeknown to the artists” when complete and pieced together, formed part of a 20 square piece of art – which will soon be hanging pride of place at IMAP’s Headquarters.