Why Hellman & Friedman: Interviews, Careers, & Portfolio

Hellman & Friedman Overview

Hellman & Friedman (H&F) is a private equity firm focused on making limited number of large-scale investments in outstanding and growing businesses in the following sectors:

• Software
• Financial Services
• Internet & Media
• Business & Information Services
• Healthcare
• Insurance & Insurance Services
• Consumer & Retail
• Energy & Industrials

Founded in 1984, H&F is considered to be one of the oldest and most experienced private equity firms operating today. The firm is well-respected for their distinct investment philosophy and focused investing approach.

Warren Hellman and Tully Friedman founded Hellman & Friedman. The two met during their careers at Lehman Brothers and Salomon Brothers, and they thought that there was an opportunity to establish an advisory and investment firm west of Mississippi.

H&F is located in San Francisco, California with additional offices in New York and London.

Hellman & Friedman AUM

As of March 24, 2023, Hellman & Friedman has $75.3 billion in assets under management according to most recent regulatory filings.

Hellman & Friedman Interview Process & Questions

Firms can change their interview process with each candidate as they see fit. However, you’ll find consistencies in the general nature of the process if you interview at Hellman & Friedman (or a firm like it) such as the following:

• The process consists of 4 to 6 rounds of interviews
• For the initial interviews, the HR team or junior investment professionals will supervise the process. For the later rounds, the more senior folks will be in charge.
• The entire process typically takes several weeks (unless it is “on-cycle” or “on-campus” recruiting)

Anticipate interviewers to ask a mixture of behavioral questions, fit questions, and technical / investing questions.

For in-depth lessons and guidance, check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide.

Why Hellman & Friedman

Firms often want to know the specific reasons behind each candidate’s interest to apply. That is why you’ll almost always get asked the crucial question “Why this firm?”

This is the perfect opportunity to mention whoever you’ve met at the firm and how they’ve made a really positive impression on you if you did some networking prior to the interview.

It’s also advisable to do research about the firm.

One of the best ways to learn about a firm is to hear the thoughts of the firm’s founders, investors, and executives. For this, I recommend listening to their interviews and podcast guestings.

For example, here’s CNBC interview with Patrick J Healy, Hellman & Friedman CEO:

More interviews

• Presentation by Blake Kleinman, Partner at Hellman & Friedman
• Presentation by Stefan Goetz, Partner at Hellman & Friedman

Hellman & Friedman Case Study

Case studies are an integral part of interviews at firms like Hellman & Friedman because these exercises help firms to assess their candidates’ technical knowledge and communication skills.

Most case studies revolve around investment recommendations and financial modeling. But for junior roles, a cold calling case study may be required as well.

To help with your preparations, I’ve tackled case studies in great detail inside my Growth Equity Interview Guide.

Hellman & Friedman Salary & Compensation

According to Glassdoor, the estimated pay for analysts and associates who work at Hellman & Friedman is $83,921 and $104,216 per year, respectively. These figures are median and can still change depending on many factors like experience, education, and skill level.

Analyst

Associate

From other publicly available data, recent associates have earned salaries of $144,240 – $200,000 per year, while there’s no recent data for analysts.

Hellman & Friedman Careers, Jobs, & Internships

To see what roles are currently open at Hellman & Friedman, check out our job board which also has a list of job vacancies from similar firms.

Hellman & Friedman Portfolio & Investments

According to Crunchbase, Hellman & Friedman has made 15 investments and manages three funds. Some of their notable deals include PointClickCare, Vantage Group Holdings, and Splunk

Notable Transaction: Sprinklr

Sprinklr is a cloud-based Customer Experience Management (CXM) platform which provides content marketing, social experience core, paid advertising, social media management, website management, and social listening functionalities to businesses of all sizes.

On September 9, 2020, Sprinklr announced that it had raised $200 million at a $2.7 billion valuation from the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, and also secured $150 million additional investment from Sixth Street Growth in the form of convertible securities.

Sprinklr will use the new capital to further improve the value they are creating for the largest enterprises, and accelerate their position as the pioneer of innovative enterprise software.

According to Tarim Wasim, Partner at Hellman & Friedman, they believe that Sprinklr has a unique opportunity to pave the way for the CXM market that’s already massive and still growing – as enterprises continue to realize the need for putting CXM at the core of their digital strategy.

Next Steps

Hellman & Friedman can be the right fit for you if you’re interested in software, financial services, internet & media, business & information services, healthcare, insurance & insurance services, consumer & retail, energy & industrials investing. The firm is definitely an excellent place to develop your career in finance.

If you want to send your application to Hellman & Friedman and make sure you stand out from the competition during the hiring process, I highly recommend you check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide.

It’s a self-paced online course which will help you get a good grasp of growth equity concepts (such as market thesis, valuation, financial modeling, and many more) which typically get asked during interviews. Take a peek and start learning!