Launch Career Strategies
This podcast is all about young professionals and their careers. College students or those first years into your career. Sit in on conversations with hiring managers and professionals of all levels who’ve found success across a variety of industries. Hear from professionals at Fortune 500 companies to start-ups. What has helped them stand out and be successful in their careers? How have they networked? How did their undergrad studies and internships shape the path they chose? Did they stay on their original path or take a few detours? We’ll also cover topics around personal finances and budgeting, company culture, diversity, and really anything that seems relevant to twenty-somethings and their career. Hosted by Karen Elders of Launch Career Strategies.
Launch Career Strategies
Breaking Into Finance: The Buy Side, Sell Side, and Everything In Between | Guest: JD DeGulis
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JD DeGulis, President and Portfolio Manager at Soundshore Management, joins host Karen to discuss navigating a career in finance. Soundshore is a long-only, value-focused boutique managing roughly 35 concentrated positions, with about two-thirds of assets coming from institutional clients like pensions and endowments.
JD's core advice for young people entering finance centers on two big decisions: understanding where you fall on the analytical-versus-sales spectrum, and broadening your search beyond the well-known names. He emphasizes that selling is far more pervasive on Wall Street than most people expect - even roles in banking and private equity are largely about persuasion and relationship-building. He also encourages candidates to explore smaller and mid-size firms, where opportunity and compensation are often comparable to the big banks.
On AI, JD is direct: get in and start using it now. He sees a real advantage for younger professionals who can not only use AI tools fluently but also explain them to senior colleagues who are less familiar. He recommends building your own agents, running repeated experiments over time, and using AI to prepare thoroughly for networking conversations and interviews.
The conversation also touches on the importance of intellectual curiosity - following industries and stocks you genuinely care about, going deep on resources like the Acquired podcast and Farnam Street, and reading consistently every day. JD closes with a reminder that the investment business demands accountability; the market gives you clear, unforgiving feedback, and being willing to pitch an idea, be wrong, and learn from it is exactly what separates candidates who stand out from those who don't.
A few of the reading/listening resources that JD suggested:
- Digital news mainstays:
- Wall Street Journal and WSJ What's News Podcast (short episodes 2x/day)
- The New York Times
- Bloomberg
- Podcasts
- Farnam Street - Newsletter and Farnam Street’s The Knowledge Project Podcast by topic (Business & Leadership, Wealth & Investing, etc)
- All In podcast
- Colossus Business Breakdowns podcast - HERE is the episode with JD DeGulis discussing Vistra Corp. and the rapid evolution of the renewables industry
- Acquired podcast - Incredible, you can search for in-depth conversations by topic
- Resources for learning AI
- Anthropic Academy
- Coursera -
LAUNCH Career Strategies was founded by Karen Elders and Elyse Spalding. We help young professionals launch a successful career path with expert coaching services. Reach out today for an initial FREE coaching session.
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