Looking back on her 44 years in finance, Christina Mohr is pleased by the ways the industry has changed for women investment bankers.
"Everything has changed. Everything has changed. Everything has changed," Mohr repeated.
"I got my first job in the industry in 1978," she said. "There were no women ahead of me in investment banking. There were no senior people, so there were no role models."
By the 1980s, Mohr said that investment banking became less about who you know and more about what you know. She credited, in part, technology and the growth of data-driven decision making. For example, Mohr recounted how Lotus software made the spreadsheet a fixture on Wall Street.
"It became more fact-based and less emotional," she said. "And you didn't have to play golf to know the answer."
Today, Mohr wants to see more women get into banking. She cited raising her own children as an example, illustrating that a career does not shut the door on work-life balance. "The external perception is different from the reality," she said.
As vice chair of global M&A, Mohr sees a market that is shifting away from record deal volume to spinoffs, mergers of equals, and deals that are sometimes put on ice.
As an example, Mohr cited the spinoff of VMware from Dell Technologies. Mohr's Citigroup team served as lead financial advisor for Dell. The deal, which was completed in November 2021, created two stand-alone companies, while preserving several existing agreements between the businesses.
Mohr said that spinoffs like Dell and VMware can be good in uncertain markets, allowing each business to optimize its own funding. Overall, the veteran deal advisor sees an active market ahead — just one different from what preceded it.
"The economy is changing in so many ways right now," she said. "Dealmakers just have to be more creative and flexible."
