Day in the Life: Enrica Marocco, corporate finance associate

0700 This is when I wake up on a typical morning. Sometimes I have to get up even earlier. If I have a meeting with a client outside Milan I might leave the house at 7am.

I always have breakfast at home: I can't leave the house without it. Then I get dressed and head for the tube, which takes about half an hour to deliver me to Lazard's central Milan office, door to door. Most of the time, the tube here is reliable. I prefer it to the tube in London, which seems claustrophic and narrow. But today the train broke down!

0900 I arrive in the office. Usually I get in by 8.30am but the problem with the train prevented that happening today. The first thing I generally do is read the newspapers and see if there is any mention of my clients or sectors of interest. I'm part of Lazard's generalist team and I focus mainly on automotive and industrial companies.

Then I read my emails, to see whether there's anything important there. Then I begin my job for the day.

My work is very varied. Essentially it revolves around mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The Lazard generalist team in Milan comprises about 20 experts and it is our job to arrange mergers, acquisitions and financing for companies in our sector.

As an associate, my role involves everything from preparing presentations, making valuations, meeting clients, as well as meeting staff from other investment banks, and other professionals such as corporate lawyers, consultants and auditors.

I've only been an associate for a couple of months: like all graduate recruits I began as an analyst and was promoted to associate in January 2003. As an associate, senior colleagues have higher expectations from me, in terms of personal initiative and reliability. This means more responsibilities, but also more freedom.

My new position also involves managing junior people, such as analysts and interns. It's a question of coordinating tasks, checking people's work and making sure my deadlines as well as those of others are met.

0930 Today we are preparing a memorandum for the board members of one of our client companies. It is part of a presentation for the board, and sets out Lazard's comments on an offer they have received.

We do not have much time to prepare the memo. It has to be ready for tomorrow, so an analyst and I begin working flat out. We read through the documents sent by the offering company to the client, and begin by making a summary of the key points. This will make it easier for the client to consider the offer quickly and easily.

At the same time, I am working on the complex valuation of a major division of the client company. The client has already sent us data and business plans and it is up to us to elaborate on them and to build complex financial models so that we can help the client evaluate the offer.

It's a team effort. The analyst will help with things like comparables and multiples. I undertake more complex analyses, such as the financial modeling and the forecasting. I also get some help from my immediate boss, a vice president (VP). Last night we had a brain storming session and the VP advised me what I should include in the memorandum.

1330 The morning's been so busy that time has rushed by. I go out and grab some lunch and bring it back to eat at my desk. Italy is the land of long lunches, but lunch is not a big issue for me. I usually prefer to finish my work and relax before stopping to eat.

If I have something to do I'm very focused and don't like wasting time. This means that I sometimes have lunch at 4.30pm, if at all.

1500 I've written about 10 pages of the memo, which is thankfully nearly complete. I read through it again, to check for omissions or mistakes, and then send it to our editing department to be reviewed.

1600 With the memo at the editing department, I'm free to begin work on another project. This one is large, about 150 pages. It is an evaluation of the different divisions of a large holding company, some of which may be sold to a third party. We have a meeting early next week with our client and their auditors to discuss our findings.

Today I have been almost entirely office-based. This is not unusual, but I do also go out to meet clients. Lazard puts a lot of emphasis on client meetings,and I've met clients from the beginning. It's interesting and good training for when you are more senior and have greater client contact.

Client meetings are most frequent when you're involved in a "live deal" - when a sale or purchase is actually going forward. Live deals are very exciting. You really own the field, and have a lot of contact with both investors and clients.

1800 The memo comes back from the editing department and I prepare to fax it to my managing director, so he can take it to the client meeting tomorrow.

When that's done, I spend more time working on the longer report.

2130 I get ready to leave the office. There are no fixed hours in investment banking. When necessary, I stay until midnight, 2am or 4am, and work Saturdays and Sundays. There are no limits.

An investment banker has to be available at all times when needed by clients. But on a normal day when we're not exceptionally busy and there's not a deal going on I leave around 10pm, by taxi (happily not the tube!). If I'm lucky, I'm even in time to catch the last show at the cinema.