Aspiring Manager? No, Aspiring Entrepreneur!

Marc J. Kelly

Funny thing happened to me on the way to my career on Wall St. I graduated during a time when the economy was booming, the stock market was racing to the moon and interest rates were low. The year was 2006 and I had heard tons of stories of how people got rich in tech bubble of 2001 and by flipping houses in the real estate market. I was a young undergraduate with several years of work experience looking for my chance to make my millions. Heck, I would've been good with a few hundred thousand.

My Ups and Downs on the Corporate Ladder

Those years of work experience were a patchwork quilt of retail, sales, banking and restaurant jobs that had given me a taste of management. I was always the ambitious type that looked to over achieve in every job I had. I was young, foolish and full of zeal. I would work long hours (I still do), pick up extra days, any and everything asked of me (the foolish part). I once took a cab from White Plains to get to work in Harlem upon request of my manager to cover for someone who called out. What makes that story significant was that it was after a full day of classes, a part time shift at my other job in White Plains and combined made for a day of about 20 hours when all said and done.

After all of this hard work, I had only flirted with management positions. Assistant manager work without the title, extension of duties such as training employees without the commensurate pay, and beating metrics on reviews all for what?

A bachelors degree in finance and economics, and a few years on Wall St. later, I found myself in the same spot. Working myself to the bone without getting where I really wanted. I wanted to make it to the C-suite and be a high level manager. I knew I had the vision and the ability to see the big picture and that I could craft and execute strategy someday. I just needed to learn the business and get my shot.

At this stage, I had grown tired of being passed over for promotions and having been downsized twice through the '08 recession I knew management roles were few and far between. Shoot, most companies used the downturn as an excuse to get rid of layers of management and troublesome employees with tenure.

What Business School Taught Me About Creating My Own Opportunities

I had to reassess my goals and figure out why wasn't my hard work paying dividends. The ethic was there, the results were there, but where were the opportunities? During my first year in business school I realized that I could no longer wait for opportunities to present themselves, I had to go out and create them. The old recipe of work hard, get noticed, move up doesn't work anymore. Many organizations don't operate solely as a meritocracy. Politics play a huge role and if you fail at that, you're dead in the water.

Management Skills are Entrepreneurship Skills

If you're not good at navigating the corporate campaign trail and you want a corner office, you will need another outlet. I realized that my desire to be a top level manager couldn't be left to fate, I had to take it into my own hands. At this point I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted the latitude to make decisions, influence strategy and direct change. Think about it. The same skills it would take to run a Fortune 500 company are the same ones needed to run a successful startup.

As an entrepreneur, you will need to be a person of many talents. If you don't have the skills you will have to either pick them up on the fly or manage people who do. You will be in charge of the decisions made and responsible how things go. You will eat what you kill and go hungry if you refuse to hunt.

I found my motivation in the thrill of having an opportunity to make an impact. Leading the charge at the helm of my own enterprise is what I have always wanted and now have the opportunity to do. I just shifted my focus and put my efforts toward creating for myself. You can do it too! It's just a matter of figuring what matters to you and going for it.

About Marc J. Kelly

Marc is an entrepreneur, mentor and coach in the Greater New York Area. Marc comes from a strong financial background with a varied skill set and a wealth of experience. Marc earned his B.B.A. from Iona College and is currently studying in the MBA program at the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College.

Marc began his career with premier financial firms, tenures with firms which have included Alliance Bernstein, Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan. Marc is an expert in Operations Management and Financial Advisory. He also currently holds a Series 7, Series 66 and Life, Accident & Health Licenses.

Marc also volunteers his time as a mentor for iMentor, a premier youth mentoring group in New York City. He has also volunteered as a tax preparer for the United Way’s MoneyUp program.