Help - B School for Wealth Management / Portfolio Management etc

[vineetdixit]

Hi,

I am in India. I am a Chartered Accountant by profession (something like CPA in US or ACCA in UK). I gave my GMAT and scored 740. I am looking out for schools where i can apply for MBA. I want to make a career in wealth management / portfolio management (in a profile that combines client interaction as well as designing and managing portfolios for the client).

Can somebody please help me. I am throughly confused looking at the rankings, list of collages . Please guide which collages should i look out for, which can give me the best of these profiles.

Any idea whether i can make it Big on these if i join IIM A (Exceutive program) / ISB - india

[GMATbong]

wealth management is totally different than portfolio management. One is sell side business and the other is buy side business.

If you are only targeting wealth management, you probably don't even need a MBA but one will help if you are in developing countries such as India. For buy side business, you need some real luck and a top school to get into the door.

[espyn]

what do you mean luck? i thought experience + CFA + top MBA = buyside win.

vineet -- you seems like a smart guy, so you probably want to think about port management. wealth management is mostly a sales type role with little analysis. you should do some homework and figure out what you are interested in before going to b-school.

[vineetdixit]

thanks espyn and GMATbong for your advices,

The ball was set rolling by you both. i tried to find out other profiles that are available for Finance grads. I found out about PE, IB, IM (I think this is investment management), Fund management. But frankly have been trying hard but unable to find out the profiles that are available after MBA in finance.

Here is my Profile

Personal Profile:Male, 28 yrsIndian Citizen
Undergrad – B.COM (70%) (how do you convert marks to CGPA??)
Above average performance in School
Chartered accountant – second attempt (2004), CS inter – first attempt (2002)
Left CS to pursue core finance profiles. Did not want to go to compliance or accounting profiles
GMAT 1st Attempt:740 (49Q, 42V)AWA - awaitedExperience – 4.5 years by the time I start MBA
Company A (1.25 years experience) : selected from campus. Placed in one of the Business Units (standalone) as financial analyst – Monthly MIS, performance analysis reports (customer wise / product wise etc), adhoc management requirements, costing, trade policy monitoring & annual plans. Apart from that handled sales and receivable accounting, excise and indirect tax accounting and compliance.

Company B: Part of corporate analytics and MIS group – working closely with top management (CFO primarily) for presentations, performance analysis (MIS along with qualified notes on performance of each Business unit), one – of adoc analysis and reports to attract attention towards potential area of improvements, Due diligence on BU (7 different segments) planning & preparing company plans, back office support to IR department, External benchmarking, preparing MD&A for annual report
I joined this company in Feb 06, was promoted in June 07

Extra Curricular:

• Vice captain in school
• Active participant in Plays in school and collage
• Black Belt Shito Ryu Karate. Prior Active member of social activities in karate school. Mostly involved teaching self defense to women and those who cannot afford the karate school.
• Core team member (3 members in total) – rolled out first ever finance magazine in company B – involved in conception, design & editing and final release.
• Creator and one of the first core member of cultural committee in collage
• Member of the organizing committee of annual day celebrations in collage

Target Schools:
India - IIM A, ISB, harvard, Wharton & Kellogs

PLease guide as to how i stand for these schools

[GMATbong]

IIM or ISB is VERY different than H or W. And if you are planning to go to buyside, a HWS degree will be needed. It seems you have a good set of ExtraCurr but I wouldn't talk about college much. As for WE, how large are those organizations? Are they household bluechip companies?

I mention luck since the type of exp. he had is not buyside before MBA school. The type of MBA school plays a big role if he can get into buyside as well. CFA will help but it doesn't matter much if you are HSW grad.

[vineetdixit]

GMATbong,
I have realised that my first query was wrong. I have dropped that idea as i understand now what is required in US to into equity. I
am interested in MBA. CFA will not be possible for me as i am weak
in maths, i left it close to 12 years ago. I managed GMAT maths but
having gone through the curiculam of CFA i think it will not be
possible for me. I will go ahead with MBA. May be complete CFA after MBA

I need your guidance to decide on schools.
1) If you can please tell me what chance do i have, based on my profile, in collages -
a) IIM A
b) Harvard,
c) Wharton.

2) till now i had a back office kind of job. Now i am thinking of shifting to a sales side job to get an exposure of client handling as well as moving into main operations as a manager. something like Relationship manager / personal banker.
Will this career move be helpful to me to get a better job after MBA

[espyn]

a couple of things...

vineet, if you can handle the GMAT math, you can handle the CFA math. they are about equal in difficulty (CFA is more applicable math while GMAT is more theoretical).

gmatbong -- how do you feel about u chi or colmubia for buyside?

[GMATbong]

Uchi is more suited for buyside since its more quant. Columbia is more suited for say, ibanking since its in the middle of the action.

I don't think earthlings understand that in order to get real CFA charter, just the 3 exams won't work. You need 3 years of prof. experience. And if you have 3 years of exp. with a top MBA, you don't need CFA to get you into buyside.

[vineetdixit]

GMAT Bong
Could you please evaluate my profile and tell what are my chances for getting in the collages that i have listed

[GMATbong]

So which companies have you been working with? If you are in a blue chip company, your chances at H/W will be around 50/50 given your profile. If, however, you are in a no-name company, you chances at H/W and in particular HBS will be very slim.