Our latest edition of Staff Spotlight shines a light on Kevin Kong, an Executive at Lexington who joined the team the beginning of 2024.
Tell us a little about your career to date.
I worked in financial accounting and corporate tax before joining the corporate finance team at Deloitte New Zealand, where I qualified as a chartered accountant.
During my time in Deloitte tax, I worked on some tax due diligence engagements for M&A transactions. The nature and the process of transactions fascinated me, so I studied CFA Level 1 before transferring to corporate finance. I worked on a wide range of projects in Deloitte corporate finance, including advisory, valuation and modelling.
What attracted you to working at Lexington?
Joining the firm was a natural choice for me as corporate finance aligns with my career goals, and I was met with a warm welcome from an enthusiastic team. Lexington has a great reputation in the marketplace and recent successes at the Wales Dealmaker and Fast Growth 50 awards are testament to both the quality of deals and clients that the firm works with. The firm is growing rapidly as a result of its reputation and achievements, so I am very excited to be joining the team at this time.
What is your role with the firm?
In the period since joining Lexington, I’ve been fortunate to work on a wide range of projects, primarily sell side mandates and growth capital advisory, across various industries such as technology, defence, distribution, industrial and retail.
I’ve particularly enjoyed working with technology and fast growth businesses – understanding what they do and working with them for an exit or further growth is extremely rewarding.
What does a typical day look like for you?
This may sound cliché, but no two days are the same, which is one of the reasons why I enjoy my job. On a high level, I’m involved in transactions from start to finish through different projects every day. I could be visiting a client’s site in the morning and be back in the office to coordinate financial due diligence for another project in the afternoon; or I could be having calls with potential buyers and reviewing the sale and purchase agreement from a commercial perspective for another deal.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
The entire team and culture are awesome, which has helped me to settle in very quickly. Various members of the team also offered to help me find my feet in Cardiff when I first moved here, which I really appreciate.
As a close-knit team, we do various activities together outside of work. Charity and networking are very important to us at Lexington and, since joining the firm, I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to a charity football tournament in support of Ty Hafan, the run club, and going to various networking events with the team.
I have also thoroughly enjoyed the transition to advisory – the advisory projects that we work on with our clients are highly commercial, and it’s great to be able to put ourselves in the clients’ shoes to maximise shareholder value.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
Now that I’m on the other side of the world, I want to travel and explore Europe as much as possible. I’ve been to a few countries this year and Budapest is my favourite city so far! I also make sure to spend time with friends, going to gigs, and keep practising krav maga when possible.
