Mary Altaffer/AP
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marshall Plumlee, 32, an associate with Blackstone's tactical opportunities group. It has been edited for length and clarity.
When I started as an intern at Blackstone in May 2022, I was doing real work immediately: tinkering with financial models and shaking hands with management teams.
A few months earlier, I was sitting on a military base in the Middle East in the aftermath of the Afghanistan withdrawal. At the time, I never would have imagined that I'd be wearing a suit and tie and working on live deals with a leading investment firm.
The transition from Army Ranger to Blackstone intern and rising Harvard Business School student was abrupt, but it wasn't my first career switch. At 26, I left the NBA to become an active-duty soldier after years of juggling basketball and the Army reserves.
Blackstone's pre-MBA internship for veterans, MINT, helped me transition from the military to an MBA. My experience convinced me to come back for a second summer internship, and now, after graduating from business school, I recently started as an associate in Blackstone's tactical opportunities division.
Here's how I went from playing center for the New York Knicks and Milwaukee Bucks to serving as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan and, finally, to my current job at Blackstone.
I grew up in a basketball family. My brother Mason still plays with the Suns. But the sport brought me to the military. I vividly remember playing on the National USA team for an exhibition match on a US Army base in Germany. The stadium was filled with soldiers chanting, "USA!"
It also brought me to Duke, where I followed my two older brothers. And in Coach K, Mike Krzyzewski, the winningest coach in college basketball history, I found someone who understood basketball and the military. He was his team's captain at West Point, and after serving in the Army, he was head coach at West Point for a year before moving to Duke.
Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press
Coach K noticed my interest in the military and helped me realize that I didn't have to choose between basketball and the military. One of his former players, now-retired Army General Robert Brooks Brown, convinced me that I could juggle ROTC and Duke basketball if I wanted it enough.
There were compromises: a game the night before would count for my 5 a.m. physical training with the ROTC, and I had to spend one summer training in Fort Knox, Kentucky, instead of hitting the weight room with the rest of my teammates.
I don't think it would have been possible without Coach K. He was so smart and driven, and I saw myself as somewhat disorganized and not disciplined. He, and other ex-military people, became a role model. Soon enough, I'd get the chance for the military to change me, too.
Duke helped me realize that I love being part of something bigger than myself. One of my proudest moments was winning the national championship in 2015. My highlight reel makes it clear that I would never carry a team by myself, but with teammates like Jahlil Okafor, who I played backup for that season, I realized that I could accomplish some awesome things.
My NBA career started on the Knicks. I served concurrently in the New York Army National Guard while playing 21 games with the Knicks in my first year. The next year, I played eight games for the Milwaukee Bucks, but I realized that I wouldn't set the world on fire as a basketball player.
The search for something bigger than myself eventually brought me to the Army. In October 2018, I took advantage of the active-duty initiative and became an Army Infantry Officer.
My time in the NBA, surrounded by such a high baseline of talent and athleticism, made me a better version of myself by forcing me to focus on things that only I can do well. That sense of being challenged by the people around me led me to the prestigious Airborne School and Ranger School in the Army.
I wanted to be around people who would force me to grow again. I was constantly around people who were smarter, stronger, and faster than me, and I came out the other side a better version of myself.
Courtesy of Marshall Plumlee
I served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, a special operations wing of the Army, for two deployments to Afghanistan. I love those teammates. Their games weren't on ESPN like the Knicks, but they're some of the highest-character, hardest-charging guys I've ever worked with.
Our regiment was involved in the evacuation of Afghanistan in 2021. Afterward, we were stationed on a base in a stable part of the Middle East, unsure if we'd ever return to Afghanistan.
Some lifted weights, others played Settlers of Catan, while another group sat in the corner hammering away on their laptops. They told me they planned to apply to MBA programs. We all knew of other veterans who had followed that path and had success. It gives veterans time to pivot, learn new skills, and explore career opportunities.
We spent the next few weeks studying for the GMAT. If you had asked me on the base to define investment banking or consulting, I wouldn't have been able to give a good answer.
One of the biggest challenges was framing my military accomplishments in a way that made sense on my applications. The person reading it in a civilian setting may not appreciate or understand what I did, but I was able to lean on other veterans who have gone through this before me.
I remember hours-long phone conversations with former Rangers, Green Berets, Navy Seals, and other veterans who didn't know me but sincerely wanted to help me build my best application. I hope to pay this forward one day.
Shortly after, I found out about Blackstone's MINT program on LinkedIn. The program gives veterans a taste of corporate life at the private equity giant the summer before they start their MBA, so I decided to try it out.
I think Blackstone's commitment to veterans comes from our leadership: Steve Schwarzman served in the Army Reserve, and Joe Zidle, a senior managing director and chief investment strategist for Blackstone's private wealth division, served as an Army reservist for eight years when he began his career. Zidle is now the executive sponsor of the Blackstone Veterans Network, which helps with the MINT program.
I was placed on the tactical opportunities team — Blackstone's fund, which invests across asset classes, industries, and geographies. I was put on that team because I asked for the broadest possible opportunities to invest across the capital stack to make up for my lack of experience.
I had to learn the language of finance, but my military experience made it easier. The military loves its acronyms and slang, and finance is no different. Once I got past the jargon, the underlying concepts were intuitive.
The senior leaders didn't spend all day in their offices; they constantly came out to the bullpen to ask the most junior person on the team questions about current or future deals. I felt like I always had to be ready to speak my mind, which was quite a shift.
In the military, you often need to sit, be quiet, and do what you're told. Some veterans leave the service with imposter syndrome, which only worsens when you start working in the corporate world and see how much faster others can be on the keyboard.
MINT helped nip that in the bud. I remember one senior managing director pulling us interns into a room.
"Hey, at the next meeting, don't introduce yourself as an intern," he said. "You're one of us now, and you're all here for a reason. We want to hear your thoughts. Your rank doesn't matter here; your thoughts are just as valuable as the next guy's."
The MINT internship really helped me get through Harvard Business School. There aren't many conversations about combat zones or playing in Madison Square Garden in graduate school, so it was helpful to have real-world experience to point to. Plus, the hours of financial modeling took the sting out of some of the classes that are notoriously challenging for students without a finance background.
Between the internships and the MBA, it's taken me five accounting courses to build up my skills, and I still have more to learn.
But I now recognize that a career is a marathon, not a sprint. And I've been so lucky to have great people on this marathon. Like in basketball or on the Rangers, my teammates make this hard work easier.
The following summer, I was back at Blackstone for the Summer Associate program. That internship offered a path to a full-time role, and I was lucky enough to receive an offer to return to the tactical opportunities team. I just started my full-time role this month in New York.
Tactical opportunities keep me constantly on my toes. We might run one play for one deal and then switch gears. My team will say, "Marshall, scratch that. This time, we're doing something completely different."
