JP Conte: Five Skills Every Aspiring Business Leader Should Develop

JP Conte didn't learn about finance from a textbook. He learned it via a clothing shop in midtown Manhattan, where his father's clients, Wall Street executives, would talk to him about banking, investing, and trading. His father, Pierre, fled France following the Nazi occupation and built a life as a tailor to New York's financial titans. The lessons from those clients stayed with him.

Conte earned a bachelor's degree from Colgate University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Much of his career was spent in private equity before he founded Lupine Crest Capital, his family office. When Authority Magazine sat down with him to ask what it takes to build a lasting career in finance, his answers had less to do with spreadsheets than with character.

JP Conte Says Trust Comes First

Asked to name the skills that matter most, Conte led with something you won't find on any resume. "People want to work with people they like and trust," he told Authority Magazine. "Be a likeable, genuine person they can trust."

Another skill on his list is about follow-through. "Do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it," he says. "Especially as a young or junior member of a team, it is important to build reliability both internally and externally — this means producing deliverables and completing tasks with urgency and accuracy. In fact, do a little more than was asked."

^{Read more: It's All About Building Trust!}

Conte's own career started with that kind of effort. During a summer in between his studies at Harvard Business School, he took a job at a New York investment bank where the model was, in his words, "churn and burn." He wanted something different: the chance to spend real time with companies and help them get better. A deal team later put him alongside a private equity group working on an acquisition. Something clicked. "This type of work — spending time and helping companies unlock their full potential — was what I wanted to do," he told Authority Magazine. "And I never looked back."

JP Conte on the Value of Discretion

Finance careers run on information, and Conte puts discretion near the top of his list. "When working in finance, you will work on transactions, deals, and more that are both exciting and highly sensitive," he says. "It's vitally important that everyone on the team handles information with discretion to protect the integrity of the work product and preserve trust."

Confidentiality is what deal-making rests on, and Conte spent most of his career working across healthcare, software, industrial technology, and financial services where that rule was tested constantly. How seriously you're taken by colleagues and counterparties often comes down to one thing: whether they believe their information is safe with you.

Show Up and Keep Reading, Says JP Conte

Two of Conte's five recommendations sound deceptively simple. On physical presence: "This was less of a question when I began my career, but as remote work opportunities become more common, nothing beats showing up in person."

On reading: "Read the big daily papers, the trade publications, the weekend magazines, and the books you swore you'd get to last year. You never know what you may learn and how it'll apply to your career."

After joining a San Francisco-based private equity firm in 1995, Conte stayed for three decades rather than hopping between shops. His career was built on depth rather than breadth. That same standard is expected of the people around him. "I like having a team of experts in specific areas versus generalists," he told Authority Magazine.

Consistency Over Shortcuts

Beyond those five specific skills, Conte points to a pair of qualities he thinks matter more than any single competency.

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"There isn't a single skill or quality that guarantees success, but among today's industry leaders, a few stand out: consistency and passion," he says. "Consistently doing hard things, day in and day out, will set you apart. If you can commit to showing up and executing, even when it is hard, there is no ceiling for your career."

JP Conte grew up in Brooklyn and New Jersey, the son of immigrants who arrived in the United States from different corners of the world. His mother, Isabel, left Cuba; his father left postwar France. Neither parent attended college. Conte describes growing up with "big dreams, big aspirations, and lots of love" even without many resources. His advice for younger professionals is blunt: “Commit. The early years of one's career are vital, and you need to be willing to give 110% to your job at this stage, especially in finance.”