• Blackstone's outlandish holiday videos have become must-see TV for Wall Street and beyond.
• Love them or hate them, they are smart marketing, and other companies are taking notice.
• Business Insider went behind the scenes to see how they're made and who's in charge.

On a Thursday in December, a small crowd stood outside the office of Blackstone's heir apparent, Jon Gray. A woman was holding a martini glass and asked the nearby film crew how she should toss its contents at her colleague.

Laurie Carlson, Gray's executive assistant, wanted to know how high she should throw the liquid and worried aloud about the office equipment, including a printer.

A member of the crew told Carlson to aim for the face — for comedic effect. A minute later, Joe Lohrer, the head of US retail sales for Blackstone Private Wealth Solutions, was dripping wet, and the head of Blackstone's video team, Jay Gillespie, called for another take.

"This is the first stunt we've ever done in a holiday video," Gillespie, who's spent his career in the film industry as a director, producer, editor, and cinematographer, told a reporter on set.

Since 2018, Blackstone has been releasing increasingly zany videos in time for the holiday season. Think of them as the house with the over-the-top Christmas lights: Some people love it, some hate it, but everyone is talking about it. It's become must-see-TV for Wall Street, and this year's video was among the zaniest. It included a series of mock reality-TV shows and ended with a country-western song-and-dance routine about leveraged loans and data centers.

Blackstone's viral holiday video is the work of Gillespie's team, which has been quietly helping to transform the public face of the private-equity giant since he joined the firm full time in 2019. The video operation now includes about 20 full-time staffers and produces an enormous amount of content, including 2,200 videos this year alone. It is the brainchild of Christine Anderson, Blackstone's global head of corporate affairs, who also oversees the team as the head of marketing.

While the holiday video is the most outlandish, much of what Gillespie and his team produce for Blackstone differs from other financial firms. Rather than focusing on how smart its employees are, the videos seek to humanize them, including by dressing them up in funny outfits and letting them sing and dance. Watching its videos, one can learn that Joe Zidle, the chief investment strategist for the private wealth group, is a Deadhead, and Kathleen McCarthy, the cohead of real estate, rocked out to indie band The Beths at the Coachella music festival in April.

It's arguably smart marketing in an era when being powerful and secretive can backfire, leading to questions and even conspiracy theories, especially for a firm as large as Blackstone, which manages over $1 trillion, making it the largest alternative asset manager in the world. On the "Today" show recently, Dan Roth, LinkedIn's editor in chief, said companies around the world are taking notice — even if some of the videos can attract haters on social media.

"They are watching to see what he's doing, and they're copying it," Roth said of a recent Blackstone video in which Gray discusses the company's earnings as colorful emojis (a handshake, a bicep, a gold medal) pop up on the screen. "We are seeing companies in Australia, companies in Europe, doing exactly the same thing," Roth said. "It's wild."

Origin story

Blackstone's holiday video tradition started in 2018 as a replacement for the New York holiday party, which was canceled because the investment firm, with more than 2,500 employees at the time, had grown too large.

Gray, together with Anderson, decided to mark the holidays instead with a video that parodied their workplace in the style of NBC's sitcom "The Office." Gray, who had just been tapped as president and COO, would play the role of the loveable but incompetent boss Michael Scott, played in the show by Steve Carell.

The video was initially intended for clients and employees, not the general public. Even as the videos have gained a wider audience, however, the company has continued in the tradition of using them to poke fun at the firm's inner-office dynamics.

One of the biggest jokes over the years was the firm's casting of Gray as the guy who drives his colleagues crazy with his special meetings and big ideas, several people who work with him said. Even the way he yells from his office for Carlson, his assistant, to jump on his latest pet project has a ring of truth to it, colleagues told BI.

"People tell me that I have an excess of enthusiasm, and many people I work with roll their eyes at it," Gray acknowledged to BI.

Other inside jokes included CEO and cofounder Steve Schwarzman's relentless hawking of his book, "What It Takes," and the head of tactical operations David Blitzer's obsession with teams he owns, including the NHL's New Jersey Devils. In 2019, the video featured Bennett Goodman, the cofounder of GSO, wearing a Hawaiian shirt in the office while sipping on a tropical cocktail — counting down the days till his retirement.

Over the years, the audience for the video has grown. In 2023, it attracted 8 million views across platforms, up from just 60,000 views in 2018, a spokesman told BI. The production has also grown more ambitious, with 200 of the firm's 4,900 employees starring in it this year compared with 20 the first year.

The video, which takes months to produce, is also popular inside Blackstone — so much so that it has raised Gillespie's profile within the halls of 345 Park Avenue. Indeed, one sign of his newfound status was his appearance in this year's video — as a reality TV show producer.

"People come up to me throughout the year, and they're like, 'My daughter is helping me rehearse so I might get a line next year,'" Gillespie told Business Insider. "People are really into lobbying to be in it."

Blackstone TV

Gillespie, 38, has been working on and off with Blackstone since 2012 but was only hired full-time after working on the 2018 holiday video. After graduating from Bard, a small liberal arts college overlooking the Hudson River, in 2008, he went straight to work in reality television, documentaries, and some corporate work. At Blackstone, he oversees both full-time production employees and outside contractors.

His team films, edits, and produces from Blackstone's headquarters at 345 Park Avenue. The company releases the content on its website and via email lists, as well as social media sites like LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and X.

Some of what they produce is traditional: an executive sitting in an office opining on the state of the economy or a growing business opportunity. Gillespie appears to have a lot of freedom, however, to get creative.

More recently, he has taken to interviewing the firm's executives using his iPhone in a series of walk-and-talk interviews the firm has dubbed "Between Two Meetings." In one recent episode, Gillespie catches the firm's head of private equity, Joe Baratta, in the hallway and asks about the company's portfolio of owned and operated companies.

As Baratta starts to answer, a black bar with the word "REDACTED" appears over his mouth, and a closed caption appears on the bottom: "NOT APPROVED BY BLACKSTONE LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE." The audio of Baratta speaking is replaced with some loungey bossa nova as he walks through the halls to the elevator.

The audience (hopefully) walks away from that video chuckling at corporate America, but also with a sense of what it is like to work at Blackstone. Before the censors cut him off, Baratta was explaining that he was coming out of the firm's "weekly private-equity Monday morning meeting," which includes the entire team from around the globe. Schwarzman had been at the meeting, Baratta says, telling them about his recent trip to Asia.

In another series, Gillespie's video team interviews a series of managing directors. It's shot with upbeat music and spiffy editing like something you might see on the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives." The series seems geared toward highlighting Blackstone as a place to work, with questions like," What qualities do you look for in junior employees?," and "How do you overcome a career setback?"

Gray acknowledged that the videos can help with recruiting.

"I was interviewing someone yesterday who said they wanted to work here because of the holiday video," Gray told BI while filming a scene for the holiday video. "'You guys know how to make fun of yourself.'"

Showing that you can laugh at yourself is an important "humanizing" touch, Gray said, adding, "It shows you're a human-scale place."

"Jon Gray's baby"

Blackstone declined to comment on the cost of its holiday video or its internal video team, but Anderson said the company is saving money with its approach instead of relying on outside contractors.

"We started realizing that by having an in-house team, you could produce this stuff so much more efficiently and cheaply, and then you could just use this stuff for more moments," she said.

A BI reporter watched the filming of a few scenes adding up to 45 seconds in the final video. It took more than an hour to film these scenes, with a coterie of video and marketing professionals on set.

A video professional who has worked with both Blackstone and other financial institutions confirmed much of what Blackstone's executives said about their video-production process.

This person, who asked to remain anonymous to protect career opportunities, said Blackstone differs from other financial firms in its decision to forgo a costly production studio in favor of a team that shoots from wherever they can within the office. The end product takes viewers inside the firm's hallways and executives' offices, giving the videos a documentary feel.

The video professional said too many financial firms are "trying to make one room with four walls look interesting." They also said few financial firms have realized the benefits of investing in full-time video teams.

This person referred to Blackstone's holiday video as "Jon Gray's baby" and said Gray appears to have a great working relationship with Gillespie.

"They met and had a meeting of minds and just got each other," said this person, adding, "They brainstorm very well."

Gillespie credited Gray and Anderson with having the vision to invest in video.

"It feels like if you're not fluent in video these days, you're missing something," he said. "I think Jon and Christine caught that really early."

Gray is usually the first person to come up with the idea for the holiday video, Gillespie said. Sometime in the early summer, Gray will reach out to Gillespie and Anderson with some themes. Then, Gillespie, Gray, and Anderson work together on the script before shooting starts later in the fall.

It's a far cry from the firm's first holiday party in 1985, which included just nine people, Schwarzman told BI. When asked about the new approach, the firm's billionaire founder took a philosophical view.

"This is like your home and this is where you spend more time than you do at your home," he said earlier this month while decked out in a 10-gallon hat between video shoots. "So you have to have a range of experiences from intense work stuff to more casual stuff to the theater of the absurd. So here we are, the theater."

• Blackstone has released a comedic holiday video for the last seven years.
• Last year's Taylor Swift-theme video attracted eight million viewers.
• Business Insider has watched and ranked them all so you don't have to.

Blackstone released its first satirical holiday video in 2018 as a way to liven up employees' spirits in lieu of the company-wide holiday party, a tradition that was canceled because the firm had grown too large.

Now, it's a viral sensation. Eight million people have viewed last year's video featuring Blackstone executives doing their best to match the success of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour with a pop song about alternative investments. It made headlines, with the Daily Mail questioning whether it was "the most cringeworthy corporate video ever."

This year, the company doubled down on the singing (and introduced line-dancing) in its most ambitious (and outlandish) holiday video yet. It also featured 200 employees, up from just 20 in 2018, a testiment to the video's popularity within the firm.

Jay Gillespie, Blackstone's head of video, joked that his role in producing the video has made him a hot commodity at 345 Park Avenue.

"People come up to me throughout the year, and they're like, 'My daughter is helping me rehearse so I might get a line next year,'" Gillespie told Business Insider. "People are really into lobbying to be in it."

If you don't get it, don't worry. We decided to help readers save time by watching and reviewing all of the firm's videos going back to 2018.

No. 7: 2020

This video came out in December 2020, during the depths of the pandemic. It stuck to the theme it launched in 2018 of depicting Blackstone as a version of the NBC sitcom "The Office," but executives wore face masks and pandemic jokes featured prominently. In an early scene one Blackstone executive has a hard time recognizing a colleague with out-of-control long hair. (Remember when all the barber shops were closed?)

While it was a bleak time, the video ends on an upbeat note, with Blackstone employees cutting loose to "I'm Walking on Sunshine," kicking off the tradition of holiday video songs, which have featured prominently since. Still, it's a bit stuck in the pandemic era, hence its place at No. 7.

No. 6: 2022

The conceit of this holiday season is fake news station "BX TV News" prompting Jon Gray to search for Blackstone's secret sauce. (It was a roundabout way for the firm to tout its plan to hit $1 trillion assets under management, which it has since achieved.)

Schwarzman returns to a role he often plays in these videos as the sincere elder statesman to explain that the firm's true secret sauce is its employees. But then, he notes that there is a secret hidden in the basement, setting two executives on an Indiana-Jones-referencing journey to find the scroll with the firm's secret. This weird twist is the highlight of the video.

The video successfully makes a number of self-deprecating jokes about Blackstone's love of acronyms (BCRED, anyone?) and Wall Street's notorious work hours. By 2022, however, the company has been going with "The Office" theme for four years, hence its ranking.

No. 5: 2021

The budget for the holiday video clearly increased this year, with a storyline about the birth of BX TV, the firm's weekly video call that Gray is incredibly enthusiastic about (and employees, less so). There are animals, special effects, and a Reese Witherspoon cameo.

The key joke is a fake award ceremony where Gray receives "'Best Weekly Internal Zoom Call at an Alternative Asset Management firm." The hope is that it will convince the firm's president and chief operating officer that it's time to move on with John Finley, chief legal officer, saying, "I make one call to the FCC and they'll cancel this clown car."

Employees chant "end it," and celebrate as they think Gray has decided to cancel the show after winning the award. But instead, it's clear that 2022's BX TV season is already being planned, and the internal video call is still a weekly requirement at the firm.

No. 4: 2018

Scranton, Pennsylvania, is a long way from Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, and Dunder Mifflin would be among its smallest portfolio companies, yet Blackstone successfully riffed off the NBC sitcom "The Office" for its first annual holiday video. The video begins with the theme music from the television show, and like "The Office," there is hand-held camera work and plenty of "candid" interviews with executives. There's also a Michael Scott look-alike. As with all the holiday videos that follow, this one starts with Jon Gray calling his executive assistant, Laurie Carlson.

This video started it all and set the tone for Blackstone's trademark style of mixing the firm's reality with jokes. The premise of the video is that Blackstone canceled its holiday party and replaced it with a video, which actually happened. And Jon Gray really does, sometimes, act a bit like Michael Scott in his enthusiasm for wild ideas, according to people who know him. There are fewer visual gags and no Hollywood cameos, but it's a classic.

No. 3: 2023

The 2023's holiday video marked the first time Blackstone moved away from being a parallel version of "The Office" (only the title card remains). Instead, it's an homage to Taylor Swift and the Eras tour, with Blackstone trying to replicate her success with its own song about alternative investments.

This is video that broke into the wider world, spawning more than a few mocking tabloid headlines. But for a video series that's main goal is to help the firm laugh at itself, that's a measure of success. Add that this immortal line: "Just this once, I do hope people confuse us with BlackRock." Also, you get to see Steve Schwarzman dancing while wearing some glittery fringe top.

No. 2: 2019

The 2019 holiday video revolves around Blackstone' absurd search for a company mascot, which turns out to be Mr. Stone, a mascot that looks like a cross of Hulk and Jon Gray. The international offices of Blackstone get cameos in this one, as does a plug for Steve Schwarzman's book, What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence"

Gray told BI that this was his favorite in the series because of the mascot. The firm not only hired a company to build the mascot suit, but also made dozens of bobbleheads which still show up in holiday videos, and on some people's desks.

We agree that that the mascot joke works, hence its ranking.

This video also ends with one of the best Steve Schwarzman gags of the series, when it's revealed that Schwarzman has been the mysterious person inside Mr. Stone the whole time.

No. 1: 2024

After last year's reception, leaned in to the cringe with a metaverse-like exploration of Blackstone executives as reality television stars that ends in a country song-and-dance routine.

It features appearances from famous friends. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, which was originally created within Blackstone before spinning out in the 1990s, gets in a joke about how the two firms get confused for each other.

An extended "Real Housewives" bit includes some shade from Jenna Lyons, "Real Housewives of New York" star, fashion designer and executive creative director at Fundamental Co, a branding agency spun out of Blackstone last year.

The highlight, however, was billionaire founder and CEO Steve Schwarzman playing Kendall Jenner attempting to cut a cucumber, which has to be one of the most mind-bending images ever put on screen. (We are still struggling to fully process it.)

Gray told BI that the turn to country was inspired by Beyonce's own embrace of the genre this year on "Cowboy Carter", which came in the wake of her 2016 snub by the Country Music Awards. And just like Beyonce, some of the firm's best work comes when they don't let the critics stop them.

• Blackstone's holiday video series is back, and this time the firm is going country.
• The video combines another original song with a slew of reality-television parodies.
• BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and fashion designer and reality-TV star Jenna Lyons make cameos.

Blackstone on Thursday launched its most ambitious holiday video yet on Thursday, featuring 200 employees, two cameos, and a country music song-and-line-dance routine.

The video series, which has become must-see TV for Wall Street, is in its seventh year. Last year's version attracted widespread attention, resulting in 8 million views across various platforms, the company said. The videos seek to poke fun at the people behind Blackstone, which manages $1 trillion in assets, while also touting its investment prowess.

This year's video ditched its usual framing around NBC's hit sitcom "The Office" in favor of reality-TV parodies and included a brief appearance by the "Real Housewives of New York" star and fashion designer Jenna Lyons. Some of Blackstone's portfolio companies, including Supergoop and Jersey Mike's, also got airtime.

It kicks off with a recap of last year's video, which depicted Jon Gray, Blackstone's president and chief operating officer, compelling the firm's executives to go on tour like Taylor Swift. In a "Behind the Music"-type parody, the executives lament the poor reception they received for their "cringeworthy" song titled "The Alternatives Era."

"People just stopped talking to me," Jon Korngold, the global cohead of technology investing and head of Blackstone growth, said. "CEOs, LPs, even my mom."

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink makes an appearance to turn his nose up at the company.

"Can you believe people confuse us with them," Fink says.

The story takes a turn when Christine Anderson, the head of corporate affairs at Blackstone and one of the masterminds of the firm's holiday video tradition, decides that the next logical step is reality TV.

The video, a metatextual reference to its own popularity, then hits overdrive with a series of reality television spoofs, from the "Real Housewives" to "The Bachelor."

"I'm private equity's biggest asset," Joe Baratta, the head of private equity, says in a braggadocious manner while being introduced in the faux series, "The Real Executives of Park Avenue."

Even the firm's international offices get in on the act with the London office starring in "Love Island Blackstone" and the Tokyo team competing in the infamous "Human Tetris" game-show stunt.

Back at 345 Park Avenue, Gray's executive assistant, Laurie Carlson, throws a martini into the face of Joe Lohrer, the head of US retail sales for Blackstone's private wealth group.

"Sorry, Joe, they wanted me to do something dramatic," Carlson says.

The head of Blackstone's video team, Jay Gillespie, makes an appearance as a reality-television producer and calls for another martini to try the shot again.

Perhaps the funniest bit is Schwarzman's appearance in a parody of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," in which he is filmed awkwardly cutting a cucumber à la Kendall Jenner.

Back in the conference room, Gray tells the firm that they're going down the wrong path. A running gag in the series is that no one wants to go along with Gray's hare-brained ideas and it seems like he's finally come to his senses. Instead, he proposes another zany idea.

"Blackstone needs to go country," Gray says.

The video is capped off by the firm's second original song as executives sing and dance around the office, in Midtown traffic, and on the back of a mechanical bull.

The song's chorus, lip-synced by Schwarzman in the video, is "You can build. You can build with Blackstone," a reference to the firm's first television ad, which was released earlier this year.

• Marc Rowan on Wednesday addressed succession at the private-equity giant Apollo Global.
• The remarks come weeks after he interviewed for a Trump Cabinet position.
• He flagged several key heads of businesses and the "next generation" of talent.

After Apollo CEO Marc Rowan's whirlwind candidacy for Donald Trump's Treasury secretary, questions remain about what could become of the firm after his eventual exit. After all, he's the last remaining "cofounder" of the newest member of the S&P 500 (Rowan and Josh Harris, the firm's former COO, were granted cofounder status by then-CEO Leon Black about the time the firm went public).

When asked about succession at Wednesday's Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference, Rowan laid out the private-equity giant's general plan, including the members of his team who could one day succeed him.

"Part of the responsibility that we think we have in stewarding a company is to make sure that everyone has a backup, myself included," Rowan said before delving into the firm's stable of senior talent.

He highlighted "two very, very senior partners" in asset management, likely referring to Scott Kleinman and Jim Zelter. As Business Insider has previously reported, Wall Street stock analysts view the two Apollo Asset Management copresidents as Rowan's natural successors. Rowan also mentioned "two very, very senior partners" in the firm's retirement-services business, Athene. The heads of that business include Grant Kvalheim, its president, and Jim Belardi, its cofounder, CEO, and chief investment officer.

But beyond these names, Rowan said there's "another 10 in asset management and another handful in retirement services" who represent "the next generation" of Apollo executives. He suggested they could soon start playing a more pronounced role in running the company.

"I think you should look to the next 12 months as we will start really pushing forward the next generation and making the transition before we need to," Rowan said, comparing Apollo's preparations for the future to those at any large financial firm.

Rowan, the CEO of Apollo since 2021, has been the visionary behind the company's transformation from a traditional private-equity firm to one that also issues loans and retirement products. The stock is up nearly 275% since he took the helm.

Last month, he was floated as a prospect for Treasury secretary under Trump and Puck reported he flew to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the president-elect, who ultimately tapped the hedge-fund manager Scott Bessent.

Rowan made the comments just days after Apollo was picked to join the S&P 500 index starting December 23, with its stock reaching record highs. Rowan, however, warned against complacency.

"It's just important to realize all of our industry has been really successful," Rowan said, adding that some might be "tempted to take a breath, take a victory lap, or they can keep trying to win."

As BI has previously reported, Rowan has gone to great lengths to keep his employees on their toes despite the company's success, including 4 a.m. wake-up calls and bringing in speakers to scare "'the bejesus out of them."

"I want to make sure that we have a team that is not tired that wants to win because winning is going to involve changing," Rowan said Wednesday. "The shape of our firms is not going to be the same in the next five years."

• The "Big Four" accounting firms employ about 1.5 million people worldwide. 
• Many of these employees make six-figure salaries and are eligible for annual bonuses.  
• Business Insider analyzed data to determine how much employees are paid at these firms. 

The so called "Big Four" accounting firms — Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), KPMG, and Ernst & Young (EY) — are known for paying their staff high salaries. 

An entry-level consultant who just graduated from business school can make over $200,000 a year at the four firms when you include base salary, bonuses, and relocation expenses. 

Several of these firms have faced layoffs and implemented hiring freezes over the past year as demand for consulting services has waned. Still, they're a good bet for anyone looking to land a six-figure job straight out of school. 

Business Insider analyzed the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification's 2023 disclosure data for permanent and temporary foreign workers to find out what PwC, KPMG, EY, and Deloitte paid US-based employees for jobs ranging from entry-level to executive roles. We looked through entries specifically for roles related to management consulting and accounting. This data does not reflect performance bonuses, signing bonuses, and compensation other than base salaries.

Here's how much Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY paid their hires.  

Deloitte paid senior managers between $91,603 to $288,000

With 457,000 employees worldwide, Deloitte employs the most people of any of the 'Big Four.' It pulled in close to $64.9 billion in revenue for the 2023 fiscal year, marking a 9.4% increase from 2022.

Deloitte did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its salary data or 2024 hiring plans.

Here are the salary ranges for consulting and accounting roles: 

• Analyst: $49,219 to $337,500 (includes advisory, business, project delivery, management, and systems)
• Senior business analyst: $97,739 
• Audit and assurance senior assistant: average $58,895
• Consultant: $54,475 to $125,000 (includes advisory, technology strategy, and strategic services)  
• Global business process lead: $180,000 
• Senior consultant: average $122,211
• Manager: average $152,971
• Tax manager: average $117,268
• Senior manager: $91,603 to $288,000  
• Managing director: average $326,769
• Tax managing director: average $248,581
• Principal: $225,000 to $875,000

Principals at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) can make well over $1 million.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is a global professional services firm with over 370,000 employees worldwide. The firm reported a revenue of more than $53 billion for the 2023 fiscal year, marking a 5.6% increase from 2022. 

PwC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its salary data or 2024 hiring plans.

Here are the salary ranges for both consulting and accounting roles. 

• Associate: $68,000 to $145,200
• Senior associate: $72,000 to $197,000 
• Manager: $114,300 to $231,000
• Senior manager: $142,000 to $251,000 
• Director: $165,000 to $400,000  
• Managing director: $260,000 to $330,600
• Principal: $1,081,182 to $1,376,196

KPMG offers managing directors anywhere between $230,000 to $485,000

KPMG has over 273,000 employees worldwide. The firm reported a revenue of $36 billion for the 2023 fiscal year, marking a 5% increase from 2022. 

KPMG did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its salary data or 2024 hiring plans.

Here are the salary ranges for consultants, accountants, and leadership at KPMG. 

• Associate: $61,000 to $140,000
• Senior associate: $66,248 to $215,000
• Director: $155,600 to $260,000
• Associate director: $155,700 to $196,600 
• Specialist director: $174,000 to $225,000
• Lead specialist: $140,500 to $200,000
• Senior specialist: $134,000 to $155,000
• Manager: $99,445 to $293,800
• Senior manager: $110,677 to $332,800
• Managing director: $230,000 to $485,000

Statisticians at Ernst & Young (EY) make salaries ranging between $66,000 to $283,500.

EY employs close to 400,000 people worldwide. For the 2023 fiscal year, the firm reported a record revenue of $49.4 billion, marking a 9.3% jump from 2022. 

The firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its salary data or 2024 hiring plans.

Here are the salary ranges for consultants, accountants, auditors, and chief executives at the firm: 

• Accountants and auditors: $54,000 to $390,000
• Appraisers and assessors of real estate: $166,626 to $185,444
• Computer systems analyst: $62,000 to $367,510
• Management analyst: $49,220 to $337,500
• Statistician: $66,000 to $283,500
• Financial risk specialist: $62,000 to $342,400
• Actuaries: $84,800 to $291,459
• Economist: $77,000 to $141,000
• Logisticians: $72,000 t0 $275,000
• Mathematicians: $165,136 to $377,000
• Computer and information systems manager: $136,167 to $600,000
• Financial manager: average $320,000

Aman Kidwai and Weng Cheong contributed to an earlier version of this post. 

• Business Insider selected 25 young professionals, 35 and under, as its rising stars of Wall Street.
• We asked these up-and-comers what TV show, book, or movie best represents the finance industry.
• They shared some parallels and even pointed to works about nonfinancial subjects.

There's no shortage of colorful characters depicting Wall Street. There's the serial-killer investment banker, the corporate raider who declares that "greed is good," and the crooked, if charismatic, stockbroker, to name a few.

Two of those are fictional movie characters, and one was based on a real person, but they've all shaped the public's perception of what working on Wall Street could be like.

If you ask successful people at some of the biggest banks, asset managers, trading firms, or hedge funds whether they see their reality accurately perceived on the screen or in books, they'll tell you that working on Wall Street is a little less colorful than it's often painted to be.

"I don't know that there's a great movie or book depicting life on Wall Street," Mark Zhu, 34, a managing director at Blackstone, told Business Insider. "The day-to-day is a lot more boring than you think. It's a lot of calls and a lot of emails. There's not as much flamboyance or out-there behavior. It's almost not movie-worthy. Why would you pay money to watch somebody just sit in front of a computer doing Zooms?"

So maybe they think all that partying on HBO's show about twentysomething investment bankers, "Industry," is a little overdone, but there are still some elements the entertainment industry gets right occasionally.

We asked up-and-comers on Wall Street about the shows, movies, or books that best represent their daily lives. While no one representation was perfect, the young professionals talked about some of the parallels they saw. Some even shared some nonfinancial references that give a window into their world.

Here are the shows, movies, or books that give a flavor of what it's like to work on Wall Street.

Shows: "Industry"

The hit TV show "Industry" — full of sex, drugs, and spreadsheets — just wrapped up its third season.

"My friends in the last few years have nonstop bothered me about 'Industry,'" Justin Elliott, 29, a vice president of institutional rate sales at Bank of America, said.

"They see a crazy show about the industry and say, 'My God, I can't believe that happens in your world every day.' From what I've seen, there's definitely some thrills from getting a trade done that might mirror the show a bit, but it's a very exaggerated depiction of life on Wall Street."

"I don't know that any of them do a great job, but I am quite a fan of 'Industry,'" Erica Wilson, a vice president at the private credit firm Blue Owl, said. "I am still behind on the third season, but I think that show is fun."

"Succession"

Though the blockbuster show "Succession" isn't specifically about the banking industry, Daniela Cardona, a 29-year-old investment banker at RBC Capital Markets, watched it in its entirety and found some similarities in high-stress moments.

"In the last season, when they're trying to merge the two companies, there's one scene that always makes me giggle. I don't think this is fully accurate, but I do think it's funny — they're in a conference room, and Kendall says, 'Just make it up!' and they're all with their laptops sitting in the middle, and the consultants are looking at him like, what do you mean, make it up?" Cardona said.

"There have been instances where it sometimes feels that way — where you're in a time crunch and it's 3 o'clock in the morning."

"Scrubs"

Ben Carper, a 34-year-old managing director at Jefferies, pointed to the medical comedy sitcom "Scrubs" as a better representation than anything that features board rooms and trading floors.

He said the show had a "similar high-pressure environment where there are some opportunities for amusement and humor, but generally a pretty vigorous focus on doing a job well done."

Movies: "Margin Call"

The 2011 drama "Margin Call" follows the 24 hours after an analyst at an investment bank discovers it has taken on more debt than it can handle — illustrating the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis.

"I think it picks up the cadence of working at a big bank the best," said Austin Anton, 32, a principal at Apollo Global Management.

"The Wolf of Wall Street"

"The Wolf of Wall Street" follows the story of Jordan Belfort, who actually only worked at a Wall Street firm for a few months before the 1987 stock-market crash. He goes on to run his own brokerage, which ultimately scams several people, but the movie highlights the debauchery, opulence, and excess that ensued during his run.

"This almost sounds weird, but I'm going to say 'The Wolf of Wall Street,'" Matt Gilbert, a managing director at Thoma Bravo said. "The absurdity of that movie, to some extent, I do think, kind of incorporates some aspect of our job."

While finance is the backbone of the economy and certainly has global implications, what bankers and investors do on a day-to-day basis isn't saving lives, the 35-year-old added.

"I think the fact that you could have a comedy wrapped around the finance world is important, and it always makes me take a step back and think through, sure, I want to win every deal," he said. "Our fiduciary duty at Thoma Bravo is to produce the best returns for LPs, but this job is supposed to be fun. I'm supposed to work with great people. We're supposed to laugh together. I think if people take this job too seriously, that's when burnout and other things happen."

"The Big Short"

"The Big Short," the movie based on the financial journalist Michael Lewis' book, chronicles how Wall Street helped fuel the US housing crisis in 2008 and the investors who profited from it.

"It's not our day-to-day, but I think it is an OK representation of what happened at the time," said Chi Chen, 34, a portfolio manager at BlackRock. " Maybe it is not all factual, but it is a good one that is representative."

"The Internship"

Patrick Lenihan, a portfolio manager at JPMorgan Asset Management, said "The Internship," which features two old-school salesmen trying to restart their careers through an internship at Google, reminds him of the importance of having and supporting a diverse team.

"I feel like that team with Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, the rest of them, and how they come together at first, you see there's just a variety of different people that you're like, 'Oh, this is going to fail,'" he said. "But I think a large part of my success is going back to that teamwork, getting the right people in, and ensuring that diversity of opinions."

Books: "Market Wizards"

BlackRock's Chen, who focuses on fixed income, said that to really gain insight into the investing industry, it's best to read the "Market Wizards" book series, which features interviews with top traders.

"A lot of those investing stories for that book series are more from two, three decades ago, when market volatility was much higher. But we have seen a comeback of market volatility since 2020," she said. "So I have always enjoyed that whole series of books."

"Free Food for Millionaires"

Elliott, the Bank of America VP, recommends Min Jin Lee's novel "Free Food for Millionaires."

"It's about a Korean woman navigating life who ends up on Wall Street in an admin capacity. But really, it's a story about belonging and identity — about trying to make it in a world and industry you didn't initially know much about," he said.

"To me, it's a lot more humanistic. It gives me a bit more of a personal perspective when I think about my journey on Wall Street. When I think about the people — and understanding people is so much of this job — I go back to 'Free Food for Millionaires.'"

"The Man Who Solved the Market"

There's no fictional piece of media Bridgewater's Blake Cecil has found to reflect life in finance; he said shows and movies "feel quite distant" from his day-to-day.

A biography of the late hedge-fund billionaire Jim Simons, "The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution," reflects how the deputy chief investment officer and his colleagues approached challenges.

"It resonated with my experience of working with people who are using algorithms to solve problems that often hadn't been asked before," Cecil said.

"The Inner Game of Tennis"

Harrison DiGia, a vice president at General Atlantic, had another book recommendation: "The Inner Game of Tennis" by W. Timothy Gallwey.

"This book is all about the mental game and trusting your intuition and yourself. You use practice and your preparation before a competition so that when the time is right, or you have a big opportunity, you're ready, and your mental game is as strong as it can be," DiGia, 31, said.

"When I think about investing, a lot of it is setting yourself up to get that big opportunity and making sure you're prepared and can have a clear mind when that pressure situation comes. I'm a huge tennis fan, so I think about this when I'm on the tennis court, but I think about it in a professional setting as well."

"Unreasonable Hospitality"

In the book "Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect" by Will Guidara, the co-owner and general manager of Eleven Madison Park describes how he manages his business, his customer-service style, and the things he'd do at Eleven Madison Park to go above and beyond.

Craig Kolwicz, an investment banker at Moelis, said the "unreasonable hospitality" described in the book (such as having an employee run out to get a hot dog for a customer who you overheard saying they hadn't had one in New York yet) isn't dissimilar to the type of service that could differentiate an investment banker.

"It depicts a restaurant that's an extremely expensive restaurant where there's an extremely discerning clientele base. They could go to all these other really fancy, really nice three-Michelin-star restaurants in New York or in the world," the 35-year-old managing director said.

"How do you differentiate yourself? There's a lot of investment bankers out there and there's a lot of really smart clients and folks that we work with all the time — and how do we get them to stay with us? How do we get them to hire us on the next deal? It's some of the stuff that we do," he said. For example, he'd recently flown to Los Angeles for an 11:30 a.m. pitch meeting and flown back.

"It's like hospitality, but it's kind of an unreasonable client customer service to do something like that," Kolwicz said.

• Donald Trump said he would impose 10% to 25% tariffs on goods imported from Canada and China.
• Blackstone's Steve Schwarzman was a trade negotiator for Trump during his first term.
• In his book, he sheds light on what it took to get Trump, Trudeau, and others to the negotiating table.

Donald Trump has retaken the White House, and hefty trade taxes are back on the table, including tariffs of up to 25% on goods imported from Canada and Mexico and up to 10% on products from China.

In an effort to gain insight into how Trump's tariff agenda might play out, Business Insider turned to Blackstone cofounder and CEO Steve Schwarzman, who served as a behind-the-scenes trade negotiator for the Trump White House during his first term. Schwarzman declined to comment for this article but described his experiences as a trade advisor during the first Trump White House in his 2019 book, "What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence," published by Simon & Schuster.

In the book, he said he was tapped as a trade negotiator because he the trust of members of Trump's inner circle and connections to foreign leaders like China's Xi Jinping. Indeed, Schwarzman traveled to China eight times on behalf of the Trump administration, he said.

He described his meetings with Xi and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to help them understand Trump's motivations, as well as his discussions with Trump on the dangers of taking on too many trade deals at once. He suggested a key to getting the various parties to the negotiating table, including Trump, involved stressing the political risks of not cutting a deal.

The billionaire businessman also described his experiences advising US Presidents George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama. Schwarzman, a Republican, said he is open to helping any US president, regardless of party, if he thinks it will help his country.

"When you take up any challenge laid down in Washington, you can never be certain of the outcome," he said. "But whether you succeed or fail, if the goal is to help your country, it is almost always worth doing."

Schwarzman, who declined an official role with the first Trump White House, declined to comment on whether he has been asked to advise Trump in his second term in office.

Schwarzman's relationship with Trump has had its ups and downs. After his book was published, the billionaire businessman distanced himself from Trump following the capitol riots in 2020, issuing a statement condemning the rioters and supporting the results of the election that removed Trump from office. During the Republican primaries for the 2024 election, the Blackstone CEO issued a statement suggesting he would not support Trump before ultimately backing him during the general election.

Here are the top stories from Schwarzman's book about his years working as a business advisor to Donald Trump, as well as Presidents Barack Obama and George H. W. Bush. The excerpts below are pulled directly from his 2019 autobiography.

Schwarzman's connections in the White House and abroad helped him snag the role.

With the President's support, I became involved in trade talks between the United States and China, and the United States, Canada, and Mexico for a simple reason: I knew the people on all sides and they trusted me. Aside from the president, I have known Steve Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, for years. We have apartments in the same building in New York and are close, personal friends. I have known Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, for just as long. …

I had met then party secretary Xi Jinping, the current president of China, in 2007, and knew many of the members of the Standing Committee and the State Council. I met the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, in 2015, and he had endowed two Schwarzman Scholarships for students from Mexico. His finance minister, Luis Videgaray Caso, often called me or came by to talk whenever he was in New York. And on the Canadian side, I had known the foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, since she was a journalist for the Financial Times. She had covered Blackstone, and I had always found her to be smart and well intentioned.

Schwarzman warned Trump that his trade wars could backfire.

The president had fired trade salvos at China and Europe, and even within the White House, there was concern that the administration was taking on too much. At the president's request, I met with him to offer my advice on the situation. We met in the private quarters of the White House. When the president arrived, I told him that the way I saw it, the United States was now fighting a multifront trade war with Asia, Europe, and the Americas. America's flanks were exposed, and as important as America is, we are only 23 percent of the global economy; give the remaining 77 percent time, and they would figure out a way to band together and make us miserable.

When Trump refused to meet with Canada's Justin Trudeau, Schwarzman stepped in to help.

Trade talks had once again stalled. The prime minister said Canada could not offer any more concessions and wanted to close out the talks. But the president refused a private meeting with the prime minister at the General Assembly. The White House had gone quiet. Prime Minister Trudeau thought a meeting with US CEOs might foster a better understanding of US business priorities and provide him with new ideas on how to progress negotiations. We held the meeting in my conference room at Blackstone.

Schwarzman urged Trudeau to do a trade deal with Trump.

I gave him my view on what it would take to successfully negotiate a deal and told him that the Americans wanted the Canadians to put their terms on paper. The prime minister said he was worried the Americans would leak them and use them against him. I told him that I did deals for a living and the moment had come for him to stop agonizing. If he refused to meet the US demands of a deal, Canada would almost certainly go into a recession, and no politician wins reelection in a recession. If he did a deal, at least he'd have a chance at political survival.

He urged Trump to make a deal with Trudeau.

Agreeing to a deal would show the rest of the world that the United States was serious about renegotiating trade deals, not just blowing them up. With the midterm elections approaching, it would also be useful to have a deal as proof of the president's campaign promises to voters, particularly in possible swing states in the Midwest.

He described a stressful 48 hours until there was a deal.

I told him [Trudeau] I was seeing the president that evening at 5:30 and that any deal needed to be signed by midnight on Sunday, which all parties understood.

The prime minister looked at me from the couch. He said it would be tough, but he would do it. When I met with the president that evening, he reaffirmed that in my discussions with the Canadians, I had accurately reflected terms that the United States would accept. I called the Canadians to let them know. It took another forty-eight hours of waiting and pleading from all sides before finally, at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, the Americans received the Canadians' written offer. Over the weekend, the details were worked out between the two countries, and on Monday, October 1, 2018, the president announced a revised NAFTA, the United States— Mexico— Canada Agreement, or USMCA.

Schwarzman also acted as a go-between for Trump and China's Xi Jinping.

At lunch, President Xi asked me to talk about newly elected President Trump and his views on China and how he had defeated Hillary Clinton. I explained to him the facts President Trump was dealing with, the economic dislocations suffered by many working and middle-class Americans because of globalization. A study by the Federal Reserve had found that nearly half the country was living paycheck to paycheck, unable to write an emergency check for $ 400. For the first time in American history, millions of people feared they would end up poorer than their parents. Among them were many of the president's voters in the Midwest. The trade deficit made China an easy target, and the strong criticism of China was only likely to get worse.

President Xi told me that if that were the case, he would be prepared to do a major economic reset with the United States. Given he knew that I spoke with the president on a wide variety of issues, including trade, he asked me to tell President Trump that we had spoken and to pass along what he had said. In front of the entire group, he also welcomed my participation on behalf of the administration in these talks, a sign of the trust I enjoyed with the Chinese.

As tensions grew, Schwarzman traveled to China 8 times for Trump.

In the meantime, the White House was ratcheting up its rhetoric, threatening higher tariffs and investigations into Chinese trade practices. China's concerns about a trade war began to grow. Given that the president trusted me, he asked that I continue to be involved by being candid with the Chinese as to the US position. I made eight trips to China in 2018 alone on behalf of the administration, trying to assure China's most senior officials that the president was not looking for a trade war.

Schwarzman guided Xi on how to cut a deal with Trump.

He should not assume the Americans would come to a meeting with President Xi prepared with a list of demands. I thought that President Xi should come with his own list, offer five or six substantive proposals, and control the meeting. If our president felt the proposals were compelling and significant enough, he would engage. It was as simple as that. This wasn't the Chinese way, Vice President Wang said, but he liked the idea. Both sides would have a chance to achieve their objectives. This was the way to a deal.

Schwarzman said no to the possibility of a formal role with the Trump White House.

There was little time to talk, but he called again a week later, this time asking if I might consider joining his team. I thanked him and told him I was very happy with my life as it was; I didn't want to disrupt it. He told me he thought I'd say that, but also that he needed to hear directly from America's business leaders as he tried to accelerate the economy.

Schwarzman also advised George H.W. Bush, the 41st president and the father of his former classmate at Yale

In the early 1990s, I was invited to a dinner at the White House. I was between marriages so I took a date, a magazine writer from New York. During the party, I approached President George H. W. Bush, whom I had met years before when he visited his son George W. at Yale. We stepped aside and talked intently for ten minutes. When I walked back to my date, she asked what on earth we had been talking about. Simple, I told her: I had some ideas for him about the ailing US economy, his biggest problem at the time. World leaders are no different from anyone else. If you talk about what's on their mind and have something to offer, they will listen, Democrats, Republicans, princes, or prime ministers.

Although he was critical of President Obama, he stepped in to help with contentious budget negotiations.

"I could really use your help," said the president.

If Democrats and Republicans failed to reach an agreement by January 1, they would trigger a set of automatic decreases in spending and increases in taxes embedded in previous budget agreements that would take the country over the so-called fiscal cliff.

"Are you saying you want to hire me to be your investment banker with no compensation?" I said. He laughed, gave me his private number, and said I could call any time of day or night— though preferably not after 11: 00 p.m. I admired him for reaching out to people outside Washington who might help break the logjam.

Schwarzman came back with a deal, but President Obama rejected it.

We got to what I thought was a fair offer from the Republican side— $1 trillion over ten years, $ 100 billion, or $ 10 billion a year, shy of the tax increases the Democrats wanted. The president wouldn't accept it. I pleaded with him. Ten billion a year was a rounding error in the federal government's $4 trillion annual budget. The Republicans had started these negotiations refusing to raise taxes at all, and now they were proposing $ 1 trillion of additional revenue by raising taxes, closing loopholes, and ending deductions. There was room here for a deal, but not much, and the window would likely slam shut if the Democrats continued to balk."

You might know about deal making, the president told me, but he knew politics— a fair point from a man fresh from winning his second presidential term. He did not want to start this second term spending precious political capital by pushing a deal he knew he couldn't get his own party to support.

• Apollo CEO Marc Rowan has transformed Apollo since he took over as CEO in 2021.
• Now, he's being floated as a potential Treasury Secretary under Donald Trump.
• Here's what could happen to Rowan's vision if he leaves and who might fill his shoes.

Since Marc Rowan took over Apollo Global Management in 2021, he's transformed the firm — sending the stock skyrocketing.

Now, the 62-year-old CEO is being floated as a potential candidate for Treasury Secretary under Donald Trump, raising questions about who could take his place, how his departure could impact the firm's ambitious growth plans, and how Apollo might benefit from the Trump White House.

Business Insider spoke to Chris Kotowski, a stock research analyst who covers Apollo for Oppenheimer. He said Rowan's five-year plan for Apollo, which includes doubling its lending business to $1.2 trillion by 2029, would proceed without him.

"I don't think that the vision changes any time soon if Rowan were to leave," Kotowkski told BI. "While Marc is in many ways the visionary leader, I think that APO is pretty institutionalized now and will get on fine without the founder," he said, referring to the company by its stock ticker.

Contenders to take over the top role, Kotowski said, include Apollo copresidents Scott Kleinman and Jim Zelter, as well as Grant Kvalheim, president of Apollo's insurance arm Athene, which has provided Apollo capital for its burgeoning lending business.

"The most likely outcome, in my view, is that the two copresidents, Scott Kleinman and Jim Zelter, would be made coCEOs," Kotowski told BI.

Representatives for Apollo didn't return a request for comment on Rowan's plans or the firm's succession plans.

Rowan is Apollo's second CEO since the firm was founded in 1990. Founder Leon Black ran the firm as CEO until he stepped down in 2021 amid a cloud over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. An independent investigation ordered by Apollo found Black had paid the convicted sex offender and financier $158 million in fees over the years for financial advice and tax planning (Black has previously told investors "I deeply regret" his involvement with Epstein).

Josh Harris, another founder, was also reportedly in the running for CEO, but Rowan got the job.

Black and Harris, owner of the Washington Commanders and other sports teams, remain large shareholders of Apollo with 7.5% and 6.0% stakes respectively. Rowan, also a founder, owns 6.1%.

Kotowski, however, ruled out any suggestion that either Black or Harris would reenter the picture should Rowan leave.

"Black and Harris are almost certainly not coming back," Kotowski said.

Representatives for both men declined to comment.

Since taking over the top job, Rowan's credit strategy has become the envy of the industry. Apollo's 2022 merger with Athene brought life insurance and retirement capital to Apollo's balance sheet, which it has leveraged to become the world's largest private lender.

This extra capital helped Apollo thrive during the last few years, stepping in to lend to corporate clients while banks and others took a back seat. Apollo has become the leader of an industry boom in private credit, which now makes up $598 billion of the firm's $733 billion of assets under management.

In a presentation to investors in October, Rowan unveiled plans to double down on the firm's lending business. More recently, he explained how the firm plans to attract more insurance dollars, which will fund the lending business, by expanding its annuity products for retirees.

Kleinman has worked at Apollo since 1996, and was named lead partner for private equity at the firm in 2009. Zelter, longtime leader of credit at Apollo, joined the company in 2006 after a long career at Citigroup where he rose to become CIO of alternative investments.

The men were named copresidents in 2018.

Kotowski called Kvalheim, president of Athene and CEO of Athene USA, a "dark horse" candidate, saying his "betting would generally be on Kleinman and Zelter."

Regardless of whether Rowan leaves or not, his vision could be helped by the Trump administration. Rowan often points to Australia's retirement model, which has been open to more private investment for decades and outperforms the American model, as a model that would boost Apollo's growth.

Trump previously opened up some 401(k) investing to private equity in 2020, and Rowan has signaled hope that it could expand further.

"Should we get access to 401(k) through broad-based reform or regulatory change or regulatory encouragement, I believe that would be upside not just for us, but for the entire industry," Rowan said earlier this month.

Of course, if Rowan were to leave, he likely would have to sell his 6.1% share in Apollo, worth nearly $6 billion, and have his assets put into a blind trust. It's unclear what that could do to the stock price, but given Apollo's recent stellar performance, it's not a bad time to divest.