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KKR’s Alisa Wood runs a top division at the buyout giant KKR.
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She applied to work at the company in 2003, and KKR cofounder Henry Kravis turned her down.
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Wood ended up scoring another job interview. Here’s how.
We all know the feeling of getting a rejection letter from HR: Sorry, you’re not the right fit, but thanks for applying. It just usually doesn’t come from the CEO.
Curiously, that’s what happened to Alisa Wood, a top partner at the private equity giant KKR, when she applied to work for the investment giant more than twenty years ago.
Wood received one of those rejection letters — only it wasn’t signed by HR, but by Henry Kravis, the company’s cofounder and then-chief executive.
In a new video for Business Insider, Wood recalled the harrowing incident—and how she bounced back, ultimately scoring an offer and igniting her career.
It was 2003, and Wood, who holds a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Columbia University, recalled facing the prospect of paying down significant student loans. Despite not having studied business, Wood chose to pursue a career in finance, hoping the field would enable her to pay off the debt by age 30.
She applied to KKR, sending in a “blind résumé and a pitch book, which said, ‘Here’s why you should hire me, and here’s how you can think about private equity differently,'” she recalled in the video.
Then she got the letter from Kravis, who remains the investment firm’s co-executive chairman. Wood shared a copy of the letter with Business Insider. It read: “I regret there are no executive positions available within the KKR portfolio of companies at this time.”
About 24 to 48 hours later, however, her fortunes changed. Another KKR partner contacted her and asked her to come in for a meeting.
What did the trick? “I clearly sent it to a few people,” Wood said of her application package—a lesson that you miss all the shots you don’t take.
It’s a good thing, too. Today, Wood is the co-CEO of KKR Private Equity Conglomerate, LLC, one of the firm’s flagship private equity vehicles.
Beyond this anecdote, Wood opened up about how to succeed at KKR, at work, and as a mom.
“There were going to be days that I was a great KKR partner, and there were going to be days that I was a great mom. And most likely, those two things never happened on the same day,” she said. “And that was ok.”
She talked about the “taxi driver test”—e.g., being polite to whomever you come into contact with—and a memory in which her young daughter shared in a FaceTime call how she planned to travel overseas to go buy companies, just like her mom. Wood says she felt pride.
