Act I: Scene 1- A banker is born

""The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away""- Pablo Picasso

I turned 16 years old and was perfectly convinced that I knew the purpose of my life; I would become a banker- not just any African banker, but an American investment banker*.

* Definition of Terms
American Investment Banker = Ferrari + pit bull + multiple home ownership
Any African Banker = Toyota + puppy dog + subsidized single mortgage

This clarity can be traced to a single conversation with an investment banker during a routine parents career day at my high school. It is unclear whether it was his pinstripe suit and monogrammed shirt or perhaps the fact that his daughter (my class mate) was the single most beautiful girl I had ever met, but something told me to open up my mind and receive his wisdom. His wisdom can be summarized in the opening lines of our conversation which went as follows (give or take artistic license):
_______________

Investment Banker: Kid, whats your name?

Young Convert: Idealistic Tendo

Investment Banker: Let me tell you a fact, this year I am going to make more money than anyone else sitting in this room. Do you know what I am?

Young Convert: (mouth agape and eyes wide open) No sir, I don't

Investment Banker: I am an Investment Banker (musical cue: trumpets)

Young Convert: (Mental note: this is the first day of the rest of my life)

__________

At 18 years old I was shipped off to a wonderful middle-sized liberal arts university tucked away in Massachusetts, USA.  While my peers whiled away their freshman year in a smorgasbord of beer pong, frat parties, snow boarding and sleeping (around)- I immersed myself into anything and everything investment banker boot camp.

I hear some of you say: ""Pray do tell-but what the hell is investment banker boot camp?!" This was a ritual of activities that I created and imagined critical to achieving my conversion to an American investment banker. Including but not limited to: multiple subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal & New York Times, deciphering the nitty gritty of DCF valuation in my free time, browsing and highlighting the number one banker lifestyle aspiration visual tool: the Robb Report, taking style cues from the home of  Banker Preppy   and networking furiously with anyone and everyone remotely related to any investment bank.

Suffice to say I was one odd child.

My good friends often remind me that their initial impressions of me were closely aligned with that of Prince Akeem in the classic black american comedy: Coming to America. While I have never truly understood the correlation, I believe it may have something to do with a few episodes which included but were not limited to:

A. Showering with leather sandals because I didn't pack my rubber slippers during freshman orientation
B. My faint British accent (acquired from years of formal instruction in colonial era English private schools in Africa)
C. Referring to myself as KoK (King of Kenya)  
D. Paying $45 for a hair cut at a salon situated beside a Gucci store

But I digress...

As luck had it, my investment banker boot camp made me attractive to virtually any employer except investment  banks. This was my first introduction to the concept of the 'relevant past experience paradox': which stated that in order to acquire an investment banking internship it was crucial that you already had relevant past experience, in above all things, a previous investment banking internship. It would appear that my beer pong-frat party peers had one upped me while I slept dreaming of my Park Avenue co-op. How you ask? Well, while I was introduced to the notion of becoming an i-banker at 16, these chaps had spent 2-4 weeks each summer in high school engaged in paper-pushing related intern activities at the likes of Morgan Stanley and Fidelity. Naturally these arrangements would take a kind Uncle or two to engage human resources into letting the kids 'shadow' the work of the grown ups. Net result: name brand internship experience for future frat boy at 16 years old.

Much of my memory of those four years is blurred by the past but time flew by quick and soon it was make or break. Graduation approached and I had not secured the ultimate prize: a final job offer from a US based investment bank.

Not being one who gave up easily , I pushed on through tough times that included: spending the summer after graduation sleeping on the floor of my sisters college dorm room, riding one too many China town buses and eating a diet of pasta and cheap tomato paste.

I finally hang up the towel after 3 months of US based unemployment and quietly accepted my fate: I would return home and become an African banker. Thankfully an African banker employed by a multinational US bank.

Coming up next: Act I: Scene 2 - The Brotherhood of Banking