Ex-top Deutsche M&A banker perfects the art of switching jobs, keeping clients onside

Jason Gurandiano has had a very busy month. Until August, the 41 year-old was working for Deutsche Bank, where he was head of financial technology banking in the U.S. When he quit, Gurandiano was orchestrating the $1bn sale of J.C. Flower's interest in Ascensus, a retirement plan provider. Cue surprise that he'd left mid-deal. 

A few weeks later, however, we reported that Gurandiano had resurfaced as the head of his own Fintech consultancy - RoGi Consulting.

And then earlier this week, it emerged that Gurandiano isn't actually striking out on his own: he's joining RBC Capital to run the bank's technology group.

What's going on?

Gurandiano declined to comment, but as far as we can discern, RoGi was an interesting exercise in keeping clients onsite. "RoGi consulting was set up at the request of Jason's key relationships who wanted him to execute near term transactions and provide strategic insight and planning heading into year end," said one source close to the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity.

If this is true, Gurandiano has pulled off an interesting move: he's quit one firm mid-way through a deal, seamlessly continued to advise his clients by setting up his own consultancy firm, and then agreed to join a rival bank after his notice period has played out. That's pretty impressive. It's also pretty strange - by working with Gurandiano at RoGi, Deutsche may have lost fees on the Ascensus deal. We surmise that J.C. Flowers requested Gurandiano's continued involvement, irrespective of any objections from the German bank.

It might help too that Gurandiano himself is very well connected in North America - his father is Jay Gurandiano, founder of Canadian paperboard company St Laurent Paperboard, a former TSX and NYSE listed company which was sold to Smurfit Stone Container in May of 2000 for $1.6bn.