From the Fed to Field Services: Max Thompson’s Path to Orion

In our quarterly Shooting Star series, we profile a team member who has exemplified Orion’s core values. Through our second spotlight, the team champions Max Thompson, Orion VP of Investing, for his dedication to growth and his commitment to empowering his team members.

As an Investing VP, Max Thompson has handled a wide variety of partnerships since joining the team. His career journey has taken him through a handful of finance and strategy roles before bringing him to Orion.

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Finding a Fit

Growing up, I loved playing with Legos, and I enjoyed math, so everyone told me I should be an engineer. I assumed that was what I would do until my senior year of high school, when I took micro and macroeconomics, and I fell in love with it.

In those classes, we read books like Freakonomics, where my teacher would take what we were learning in theory and apply it to real-world situations. The concepts were fundamental ideas like supply and demand or pricing, but he would teach us how they showed up in everyday life, which was exciting. Economics felt like a combination of math and human behavior to me, since you’re essentially modeling how people make decisions.

I also loved reading growing up – except for a three-year gap where I just played Call of Duty – so I started reading about the financial crisis and all the big players at the time, like the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. And I thought, I want to be one of those people.

In my senior year of high school, I entered a competition at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve and got to tour the building for a day and meet their economists. I thought it was so cool: everyone was giving presentations on exactly what we were learning, but it was real life. I decided I wanted to work there some day, so I majored in economics and math when I got to college.

As a sophomore, I applied to all the Federal Reserve branches and got accepted at the Boston location for the summer. It had been a dream of mine for several years in the making at that point, but it was also pivotal to my switch to business.

I enjoyed working with people at the top of their field and solving interesting problems with them, but I ultimately found the work too independent to focus my career there. I wanted to work in a team where we moved fast and focused on excelling together.

Diving into a New Team

I had a couple different jobs in finance and consulting before coming to Orion – including a role on a team that had worked with the Fed during the ’08 and COVID-19 crises – and I learned a lot. While I worked on high-impact projects with amazing colleagues, I had always been curious about joining a smaller firm and was interested in an investing role.

In the summer of 2022, my friend and classmate from college told me his company was hiring for their investing team. It was a field services strategy called Orion, and it would be a chance to be an early employee on a small team tackling a huge market. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to get a lot of reps quickly and learn the investing space.

When I interviewed at Orion, there were probably fewer than eight people at the office. This was scary coming from my prior firm, which at the time had nearly 20,000 employees, but it was also thrilling: on a small team, I knew each person would be critical to the success of the company, and that level of responsibility excited me. I ultimately decided to join the team, knowing it was a risk – and an opportunity.

At Orion, you show up in the office every day and get to learn from the most critical leaders in the company. And then once they’ve trained you, you’re quickly trusted with a high level of responsibility. On our team, we aim to move fast, think independently, and grow from our mistakes.

I wouldn’t have been able to improve as fast as I have if I didn’t have the level of ownership I do here. We have a lot of responsibility because we have the chance to change people’s lives with our work, and if you enjoy that level of freedom, this is the place for you.

The Relationships We Build at Orion

In finance, companies are often seen as tickers on a screen. Here, it’s much more personal. There’s the buyer – us – and there’s the seller, who is oftentimes also the founder of their company. We spend a lot of time not only getting to know their business but also showing them that partnering with Orion is a better option than selling to any other buyer out there because of the incredible opportunity for their people.

Here, you’re expected, from day one, to get on calls with owners and to speak with them about what Orion can offer. The major focus on relationship building was something I didn’t anticipate about this job, but I think it makes the role more well-rounded as opposed to a pure-play analysis role where 100% of your time is spent with data.

And the business owners we partner with are, as a rule, very inspiring people. They’ve built a company from the ground-up, they are experts in their domains, and I get to learn a huge amount from them.

A Growing Team

As an investor, there are a hundred different decisions you’re going to have to make. Whether it’s understanding a new market or negotiating a legal contract, you’re constantly learning and having to make decisions using your best judgment, which is extremely energizing.

However, one of the best parts of the job is seeing our team grow and develop. It makes me happy, more than almost anything else in the job, to see the people I work with grow and succeed.

I’ve had the privilege to train and manage multiple members of the team, and it’s been inspiring to see teammates rapidly ramp up and become leaders. The team has nearly doubled since I joined; when I compare where we are now to when I joined, it’s incredible to see how everyone on the team has stepped up – and it feels like we’re just getting started.