Sales & Trading
Bee Chandhok
18 years in Sales & Trading at Morgan Stanley
The New York Investment Banker Experience · July 2027
One company. Two weeks. Every door on Wall Street.
A company stands at the biggest decision in its history: whether to list on the New York Stock Exchange. Our students spend two weeks inside an investment banking world we have created around that decision, splitting their time between the M&A and sales & trading divisions. Pitch the board. Build the valuation. Negotiate the buyout. Sell the deal. Run the floor as it opens. Defend the stock when a short-seller comes for it. They then learn exactly how to become an investment banker themselves.
CityNew YorkAges15–18DurationTwo weeksTeamsTeams of six
Elite access.
Investment bankers, sales and trading professionals, private equity and hedge fund executives. In the room, all fortnight.
The work itself.
They experience the actual work through simulations based on real-life activity.
Ready for what’s coming.
How these professions use AI — and what still can’t be automated.
Proof they can use.
Scored, signed, verified. Evidence no other applicant has.
The Experience
Eight days inside investment banking: the deal side, then the markets. Two days on your own career.
On the Investment Banker Experience, you step inside the investment banking world. Across eight days, you take on simulations based on real-life activity, from valuing a company and pitching for a deal to a private equity negotiation and trading the stock market. Real industry professionals show you how they actually do their jobs, then hand over the reins and give you feedback on how you did. Two further days focus on landing a career on Wall Street. And it all happens in real industry venues across Manhattan — prestigious skyscrapers and more — so you experience professional life from the inside, not from a classroom.
Week One
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Day 1
Enter the Boardroom.
investment banking divisionThe company is at a crossroads: go public, sell to a strategic buyer, or accept an offer from a private equity firm. Students step into the boardroom as the first call gets made and pitch their recommendation to a board.
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Day 2
The Valuation.
investment banking divisionStudents are handed the company’s financials and asked to build the valuation that will decide everything that follows: what the company is worth, what the story to investors will be, whether the whole deal is even sellable.
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Day 3
The Pitch.
investment banking divisionStudents go head-to-head against rival teams in a live, high-pressure pitch for the banking mandate, defending their valuation and their story in front of a panel of investors.
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Day 4
The Private Equity Offer.
private equityThe private equity firm is back with a full buyout offer: leverage, structure, and a management incentive plan built to tempt. Students build the case, negotiate the terms, and watch the board decide which path the company actually takes.
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Day 5
The Sales Desk.
sales & trading divisionThe mandate’s won and the board has chosen its path; now someone has to sell the stock. Students become the sales desk, pitching the deal alongside a handful of comparable names to institutional investors, taking the pushback, and building the order book that decides how the stock is priced against its peers the day it lists.
Week Two
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Day 6
The Trading Floor.
sales & trading divisionThe company lists alongside several others that morning. Students run a live floor against the clock, managing a small book rather than a single name — pricing the book, laying off risk, and deciding what to hold as the market decides, in real time, what each company is actually worth.
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Day 7
The Hedge Fund.
hedge fundsA short-seller report lands and the stock wobbles. The room splits in two: half the students stay on the bank side, defending the position — the other half become the hedge fund, building a pairs trade against a sector rival and defending it to a professional panel. Two sides, one market, no script.
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Day 8
The Squeeze.
sales & trading divisionThe company reports. The numbers move the stock hard — and depending which way, either the hedge fund’s short thesis is vindicated or the bank’s position is. The side that’s wrong has to decide, in real time, whether to cover, cut the loss, or hold and fight; the side that’s right has to decide how hard to press it. Every name in the book, long and short, gets closed out live, at the bell.
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Days 9 & 10
Landing a Career on Wall Street.
Two days that take students from exactly where they are now to the moment they walk into an investment bank for their first day of work.
The Roadmap.
Choosing a college and major that keeps every door open. Which clubs, competitions and internships matter — and which are just noise. When and how to start applying for that first internship.
The Training.
Building a resume that gets pulled from the pile. Cracking the first-round interview, video screens included. The technical questions every candidate gets asked, and how to answer them cold. The behavioral questions that trip people up, and how to never freeze. How to excel in an assessment center.
The Assessment Center.
Then they do one — a real assessment center, run by real recruiters.
The Result.
All of it becomes The Forefront Report: the evidence of exactly where they stand today, and exactly what it takes to get from here to the desk.
The Method
Watch. Work. Win.
Every day runs the same way. Nobody is thrown in cold.
Watch.
A professional demonstrates the technique, then students put it into practice.
Work.
Teams of six run the brief themselves, in role, under real conditions.
Win.
Each team pitches its outcome to a professional panel and defends it, on the spot.
That is what Watch is for. No prior knowledge of business or finance is expected — every day begins with a professional teaching the skill from first principles.
10am to 5pm. Five days a week.
Who Teaches
They lead the fields they teach.
Investment bankers. Sales and trading professionals. Private equity and hedge fund executives. Drawn from Europe, the US and Asia.
We choose them on two things.
Pedigree.
The firms, the deals, the track record.
Passion.
A real commitment to the next generation — the energy it takes to hold a room of teenagers.
The professionals don’t lecture. They show our students how the work is actually done, then watch them do it — correcting, pushing, mentoring them through it. Every professional stays for networking and questions.
Teams of six. Small enough that a professional knows every student by the end of a day. Below you can see a small selection of the professionals we work with.
Private Equity
Jon Read
Head of Mid Market Private Equity Coverage at KPMG
Mergers & Acquisitions
Ash Tiwari
Partner in Mergers & Acquisitions at Baker McKenzie
What They Leave With
The Forefront Report.
Two weeks of observation by the professionals who worked with our students, and the assessment center run by recruiters in the final two days. Forefront draws that evidence together into The Forefront Report.
The Scorecard.
Strengths and gaps, with the evidence behind each.
The Case File.
Dated and specific. Not opinions about your child — evidence of what they did.
The Letter.
Signed by the professionals who worked with them.
The Roadmap.
What to do next, and why — based on two weeks of evidence.
The Record.
Held by Forefront and verifiable by any college or employer, for years.
Not just a certificate of attendance. Evidence of your preparation for professional life.
Dates
July 2027.
I
Monday, July 12 – Friday, July 23, 2027
Places available
Ten working days across two weeks. Residential students check in on Sunday, July 11 and check out on Saturday, July 24 — thirteen nights.
The Venues
The venues.
Work alongside leading professionals at locations including One World Trade Center and 140 Broadway—two distinctive addresses in the heart of New York City.
One World Trade Center.
An iconic New York address. An extraordinary setting to take your first steps into professional life.
Inside One World Trade Center.
Light-filled meeting space with sweeping harbour views, bringing the scale of New York into the room.
140 Broadway.
The landmark Marine Midland Bank Building. A distinctive setting in New York’s Financial District.
Inside 140 Broadway.
A closer look at the workplace setting at this Financial District address.
Where our students stay
Residential students will stay in Columbia University Residence Halls in New York, with Forefront staff on site 24/7. Students are accompanied to and from the program each day. Breakfast and dinner are included, alongside a schedule of social activities and evening and weekend experiences.
The Fee
Two ways to attend.
Non-Residential $7,950
The full Forefront program — Monday, July 12 to Friday, July 23, 2027.
Two weeks · every professional-led session · all venues · materials and AI tools · The Forefront Report
Residential $12,950
Everything in the program, plus the below — check in Sunday, July 11, check out Saturday, July 24:
Thirteen nights in supervised university halls in New York · breakfast and dinner · the evening and weekend program · care around the clock
Non-residential: days at Forefront, evenings and the weekend at home in New York.
Payment. Reserve a place with a $2,000 deposit, or pay in full. The remaining balance is due on March 1, 2027. A place is confirmed once we receive your deposit or full payment.
Questions
Asked, and answered.
Who is Forefront for?
Ambitious 15- to 18-year-olds drawn to Wall Street — the deal side of an investment bank, then its sales and trading floor, with the private equity and hedge fund work a listing draws in. No prior experience is expected.
Does my child need to know what they want to do?
No. Most don’t. For a student who already knows they want investment banking, this is the closest thing to living the job before they apply to university. For one who hasn’t found their direction, two weeks inside the deal give more clarity than any careers questionnaire.
Is it competitive between students?
It’s demanding, not adversarial. Teams work against a situation, not against each other — though some days one team does sit opposite another.
What if my child is quieter than most?
Every student takes their turn individually, not only the most confident.
Do students need to know how to use AI?
No. They use it exactly as the professionals in the room use it — the banker’s model, the sales desk’s research, the trader’s risk numbers. They learn to direct it well, and to see where it is confident and wrong. The tool does the first draft. The judgment is theirs.
How are students supervised?
Our trained Forefront team is on site every day. Every session is led by a top professional and staffed by our team for the support and pastoral aspects. Residential students are supervised around the clock. Full safeguarding details are shared on registration and more details can be found here.
Do the professionals’ employers deliver the program?
Professionals participate in a personal capacity. Employer names identify their professional backgrounds, not program partnerships.
How do I pay?
A $2,000 deposit reserves a place, or pay in full. The remaining balance is due on March 1, 2027. We never take payment from a card without asking.
What if we need to change or cancel a booking?
Please contact us at hello@forefronteducation.com. All requests to change or withdraw from a program are handled directly by Forefront in accordance with the applicable Booking Terms.
Our family is traveling from abroad. How does that work?
Most international families choose the residential program — students check in on Sunday, July 11 and check out on Saturday, July 24. We advise on arrival, travel and airport transfers once a place is confirmed.
When should we arrive and leave?
Residential students check in on the Sunday before the program starts and check out on the Saturday after it ends, and have leisure weekends with Forefront. Non-residential students attend the working week, starting on Monday and leaving the following Friday; weekends are spent at home. We advise on airport transfers once a place is confirmed.
Take a place.
Places for July 2027 are highly limited. Registration takes a few minutes. Choose a cohort, choose how you’ll attend, then pay in full or reserve with a $2,000 deposit.