Excellent posts by naturalight and ocean’s mist Few things to consider: Most CPAs I know in finance got the designation while they were accountants and then transitioned to finance. The designation is respected but will not add enough value to justify your work. Your efforts will be better spent networking.
comp_sci_kid Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > quant will always look down on CFA, as requires > almost 0 math skills I know we use quants as straw men, but do quants know any history? Especially say, 2001-2008?
Can CFA lead to good private equity/venture capital jobs?
No, CFA in and of itself can’t lead to good private equity/venture capital jobs. In fact, in most cases, having requisite work experience is by far the most important factor to get into these industries. Most of the people in private equity came from investment banking; a minority came from big 3 consulting, and an even smaller percentage came from other fields like corporate strategy and equity research (such as myself). Private equity is about dealmaking as well as providing high-level oversight to companies, so the CFA has little relevance. For venture capital, some people came from investment banking and strategy consulting but an overwhelming number of them were entrepreneurs, or still are entrepreneurs. Launching, growing, and selling a successful company from its earliest stages to high-growth or mature growth stage equips you with a multitude of leadership, management, and transacting skills. I think that many people in VC have the most well-rounded business knowledge in terms of both execution and financing, and so it probably seems obvious that the best way to acquire these skills is to run a successful start-up on your own. At the end of the day, relevant work experience matters most when it comes to PE and VC…and I’d argue that relevant work experience probably matters most in just about any other field or industry that I can think of. I’d say that for a career switch, an MBA is more beneficial than CFA because the education does give you some insight into management/leadership for a lot of the reasons other posters have mentioned; yet, even so, work experience is critical. In other words, just because you have a top tier MBA doesn’t mean you can just into PE or VC; certainly a place HBS does land a lot of its graduates in PE/VC jobs, but that’s because most of these people did PE/VC before going to business school. Frankly, these people could probably go back to PE/VC if they wanted to if they went to any of the top 10 schools, even ahead of people that went to “top 3” but that didn’t have the relevant work experience.