maverick2k5 Says
Hi, I am an Indian who works in the IT space who wants to shift to Finance from IT specially Money Management by doing an MBA from the top schools. I am looking for the best Schools pertaining to Wealth Management.
First some career advice for what it's worth. Nice to see focus at your age. Clearly, you are looking for a post MBA career in
buy side investment management. This is NOT easy to get into, and it will take effort (the MBA included), patience and plenty of discipline & dedication from your side. There're two major skills required for a career in this line.
Financial knowledge and experience - You will need to know,understand and have experience applying the concepts of financial intermediation which is essentially what banks and financial institutions do at retail and corporate level. You'll need to understand complicated financial instruments, equities, and industries. Wealthy clients are are increasingly savvy investors on their own, with superb knowledge both of markets & the inherent or consequential risks of investing in those markets. You need to be absolutely ahead of your game.
Outstanding client & communication skills - we're talking the ability to hobnob, socialize professionally and personally communicate with the immensely rich without losing your composure (many do in front of intelligent clients). We're talking perfect, grammatically correct unaccented English + at least two more languages, which will widen your scope to interact with clients and make you an attractive hire to your employer. Basically your employer has to be 200% confident of your abilities in front of a client, anything less and you simply won't get the job.
How do you get there?- Start reading on financial basics - an extremely good book published by the Economist, called the
Economist Guide to the City (of London) will help you understand the history and basics of the financial industry, including sell & buy-side financial & investment services. It's a nice racy read which you'll enjoy.
- Enroll yourself for the CFA, run by the CFA Institute (
www.cfainstitute.org). The CFA is a globally recognized & respected qualification for the financial industry and in some companies almost required of investment professionals. This qualification comes in three levels, all of which you have to pass + gain experience in the investment management industry before you can call yourself a CFA. Don't confuse this with the CFA run by the ICFAI (Hyderabad) which is NOT recognized outside India.
- As you do the above, work for another 2 years and gain some experience which the big b-schools look for. Secondly, you might want to improve the GMAT score to come up to averages in Wharton and Chicago - pretty much the best finance b-schools in the world.
- IF & when possible get on projects for clients in the Financial services industry. It will help you understand their operations. Not really critical, but nice if you can get it.
- Immediately enroll yourself for language training in at least one European language (like German, French or Spanish) and Chinese. The market to financially service increasingly wealthy Chinese individuals is hot and will get hotter. Prepare yourself for those clients. Believe me, employers will be seriously impressed. You should be able to speak at least one European language & Chinese at a business level before you enter your MBA.
- If & when your current employer EVER offers cross-cultural or business etiquette training, be sure to enroll.
It will help you all your life. - During your MBA, target an investment bank (internship and job) to get into the sell-side of the financial industry, which is the path of least resistance; and work there for 3-4 years to build your network. Once done, make the jump to buy-side investment management. You need to work in investment banking for several reasons -
first to get into the financial industry,
second because this is the best way to build a network in the industry which is paramount for a buy-side investment management job,
third gain the platform to apply your financial knowledge gained in the MBA, and
last because unlike in investment banking you will compete not only with other MBAs for buy-side jobs (who also come from investment banking & financial consulting etc), but also with CFAs, Ph.Ds, M.Scs in finance/financial engineering and other seriously smart & experience investment professionals which the buy-side firms look for.
After the above, you'll probably understand why I used the word patience and discipline.
Good luck
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