'The Ideal Career Path'
Johnson lays out what he considers an ideal career path for a recent college grad committed to asset management: Enter the CFA program while working full-time. With the work experience and the CFA designation, enter a MBA program - also while working. "Think about it," he says. "You are 28, 29 years old with both a CFA and an MBA and six years of work experience." In addition, he notes, "most employers in the investment management business will subsidize the cost of a CFA program and an MBA."
Meanwhile, Korn/Ferry's Wimberley believes a junior-level asset management professional with a CFA alone should succeed. "If you're talented and a high performer and all you want to do is asset management, I would say get an CFA," he says, adding that the treasurers of many Fortune 1,000 companies, CFOs and controllers have Level 3 CFAs only.
To those who suggest the CFA is replacing the MBA, Dave Wilson, president and CEO of the Graduate Management Admission Council, says: "Not a chance." The CFA charter produces "first-class analysts," he says, but an MBA covers the fundamentals of business relevant to every type of organization, from entrepreneurial start-ups, to multinational corporations, not-for-profits, and government agencies. "An MBA prepares someone to work within an organization as it relates to margins, strategy, mission, marketing and human resource issues," he says. "That will always make the MBA a relevant degree."
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