A conversation · July 14, 2026
Three Frameworks from a Conversation with Rudy Burger.
Selecting mandates, becoming a great banker, and knowing where to hunt.
Not all mandates are created equal.
The two dimensions that matter most when screening sell-side opportunities are the target's profitability and where it sits on the spectrum from tuck-in component to fully-baked offering.
Table Stakes
A strong buyer universe. Neither profile is sellable without a deep bench of motivated, strategic buyers — screen for the buyer list before you screen for anything else.
Great bankers live at an improbable intersection.
Personality and perseverance rarely coexist at high levels. Personality opens the door; perseverance walks the client through a twelve-month grind. Miss either axis and the mandate — or the close — slips away.
X · Relationship-building, likability, presence — the ability to open doors.
Y · Grinding through 12-month processes, resurrecting dead deals, relentless follow-through.
Table Stakes
Trust — born out through deep sector expertise and deep conviction. Personality gets the meeting and perseverance closes the deal, but neither works unless the client trusts you know the sector cold.
Fees follow deal velocity, not conviction.
The cleanest way to decide where to hunt is a supply/demand framework, because 'exciting to bank' ultimately reduces to one thing: deal velocity. Fees happen when sellable assets and motivated buyers exist at the same time.
X · Supply of bankable assets: how many companies have real revenue, clinical validation, B2B contracts, and a reason to transact.
Y · Depth of buyer demand: the number and diversity of buyer types — and their willingness to pay premiums.
Punchline
The pitch writes itself as a trajectory across the quadrants. Women's health has spent a decade migrating from bottom-left toward top-right — and 2025–26 is the first moment supply and demand are both high at once.
In closing
Three frameworks, one theme: velocity favors the prepared.
Pick mandates a deep buyer universe will chase. Be the trusted banker those buyers call — the one who blends the personality to open the door with the perseverance to walk through it. And hunt where supply and demand peak together, because fees don't accrue to conviction; they accrue to velocity.