Vanessa Dager is building the BNP Paribas U.S. M&A banking practice from scratch, which is practically unheard of. Every hire, strategy and process belongs to her.
"It's very scary, and a lot of work," Dager says, but she's thrilled to take on the challenge.
Dager, head of North America M&A at BNP Paribas, joined the bank in the summer of 2023. At the time, BNP had no M&A or equity capital markets desk in the U.S., and Dager's remit was to build one.
"This is not an M&A job like in other places where you're part of a big group where everything works," Dager said. "It's been great, because in any other job, usually you're plugged into an M&A group that is already there, even if you're heading the group."
Dager said she modeled her team loosely on her 11 years at Credit Suisse, with senior bankers assigned to specific sectors, embedded with banking teams rather than waiting to be called in once a deal exists.
That means that her M&A bankers are meeting with clients whenever the investment bankers do. Together, they are constantly pitching the client with ideas about assets that they should consider buying or selling in the context of their M&A strategy.
"I want to make sure that we're not just an execution team that gets a call when there is a deal," Dager said. "I want to make sure that my team [is] close to the client, and [that] we work on a day-to-day relationship with the client as well as the sector banker."
She said that 2025 was version 1.0 of the team, with one senior banker aligned to each of the sectors.
A big win for the team last year: BNP served as financial advisor to Clayton, Dubilier & Rice on its $10.3 billion leveraged buyout of Sealed Air, announced in November, and as lead bookrunner on a €600 million tranche of the deal's $7.9 billion debt package. It was, Dager said, "the first big win [for us] on a buy-side" with a sponsor. BNP wasn't the only bank on the deal, but the deal was a first with a client the bank hopes to work with more.
Training, not just hiring, is how Dager describes building the team's credibility. Each level of the analyst-to-managing-director pyramid trains the level below it, she said, because a new team couldn't otherwise earn trust from BNP's established sector bankers. Her junior bankers, in turn, train sector-team colleagues who lack M&A expertise of their own.
Women make up eight of the team's 14 bankers, up from six when BNP submitted its nomination this spring, with two more hires pending. Dager traces the growth to her own three decades in the business, most of it spent as one of the only women in the room.
"I grew up on two teams, at Citi and then at CS, where I was one of the only ones for many, many years," Dager said. "I have women … who have worked with me their whole careers."
And diversity is self-reinforcing. "Having senior women on the team helps attract more women to the team," Dager said.
Revenue, growth and headcount are the real scorecard for Dager. Those are the numbers she says she actually tracks — not where BNP lands among Dealogic's U.S. M&A rankings.
"We're still very small," she admits. "But our aim is to be in the top 20 for sure." Dager thinks she can achieve that in the next five years. "We still have a road ahead of us."
Team Members
Vanessa Dager, Managing Director
Sardar Imra, Managing Director
Nicolas Descure, Managing Director
Tenzin Moenkyi, Director
Daniela Alejaldre, Vice President
Johannes Bolz, Associate (promoted to VP in March 2026)
Samantha Woo, Associate (promoted to VP in March 2026)
Akane Nakagawa, Associate
Alexia Bancq, Associate
Javier Porrua, Associate
Amees Hussein, Analyst (promoted to Associate in March 2026)
Pranav Garg, Analyst
Vedant Bapna, Analyst
