IAIP – Career Event

October 9^th 2012

Mumbai

IAIP organized its first Career Event on October 9^th 2012 in Mumbai, which received overwhelming response. The evening was packed with action. It started with opening address by Amit Khurana, CFA, Director, IAIP, followed by replay of HBR audio interview of Dorie Clark, a strategy consultant and author of the article “A Campaign Strategy for your Career”, two presentations one from Biharilal Deora, CFA, Director IAIP on “Accessing and Using Career Centre of the CFA Institute” and second from Tanvi Dixit, Consultant, Michael Page on “Hiring Trends in Capital Markets” and finally panel discussion focusing on Career Prospects for CFA Charter holders moderated by Vidhu Shekhar, CFA, Vice President & Director, IAIP. The panelists included Navneet Munot, CFA, Director, IAIP & CIO SBI Mutual Funds, Navneet Ajmera, CFA, SGM Corporate Strategy, Mahindra & Mahindra, Namit Arora, CFA, Director IAIP and Director at Standard Chartered Private Equity, Yashpal Madan, Founder & HR Consultant, Mainstream Technologies and Aditya Gadge, Founder & HR Consultant, Flagship.

In his presentation Biharilal Deora, CFA walked through the resources available on CFA Institute’s website like Job line and Career Center. Jobline helps in searching jobs of your choice across countries and industries, and also allows you to set alerts for your saved search criteria. Career Centre includes all the tools required to get to your dream job including Organizer/tracker, Job Talk by experts including videos and podcasts, Access to Career Coach, Discussion forum, Resume builder tool and personal assessment tests etc. He discussed ways of accessing and leveraging these tools by current and aspiring CFA charterholders.

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Tanvi Dixit ran through her presentation highlighting current trends in the job market. She divided the market into four quadrant with the first “Hard to find/low supply”, second “In demand”, third “Available in bulk”, and fourth “Proactive Initiative”. The first comprised of quant & high frequency traders, structured products etc. The second include mid-level quant and high frequency traders, equity sales for foreign geographies. Third referred to equity research and sales traders due to oversupply, dip in volumes and DMA (Direct Market Access) used by institutional investors. Fourth consists of returning Indians and diversity at workplace. She felt that the job markets for credit research, quantitative trading, corporate finance, back office and off shoring roles were buoyant. She urged candidates to be open to working in various fields.

A panel discussion moderated by Vidhu Shekar, CFA discussing the topic “Converting your potential into real success” was also conducted. Vidhu posed a number of questions for the panelist ranging from the importance & relevance of CFA Charter in investment management, brokerages, corporate finance, investment banking, & corporate world to what it takes to get the first job and succeed later on. The following are the excerpts of views from various panelists:

Aditya Gadge: sees a lot of preference for CFA charter holders in the wealth management, private banking and advisory functions as people know about various asset classes and valuations. How you differentiate from others is as important as your qualifications.

Yashpal Madan: thinks that if you already are CA then CFA gets high preference. Having only CFA as a designation may not be first preference in the country. Again MNCs/Global banks/firms are more likely to select CFA as has been his firms experience over last 2 years where 60% were CFA charter holders. Apart from qualifications clarity of thought and right attitude are very important personal traits.

Namit Arora, CFA: emphasized on the ethical behavior saying that as a private equity investor they are always looking at the quality of management which include integrity and willingness to reward other stakeholders. If one has passion for investing then he could start with the same irrespective of his day job. There is nothing glamorous about bulge bracket names. One could start with smaller brokerages where there is independence to showcase ones skills & talents.

Navneet Munot, CFA: sees clear difference in the approach of analyst having a CFA designation and one not having it whether it is equities or derivatives or fixed income or macro. Besides these ethics, which is extremely important in fiduciary roles, is the biggest differentiator. Non-CFAs may not be aware of the legal aspects of their roles.

Navnit Ajmera, CFA: who has always been on the corporate side of the world says that CFA can bring a lot of value to the table especially in the areas of mergers & acquisitions, treasury, corporate finance, business consulting & new business evaluation / incubation. Also, with many conglomerates setting up their own private equity funds / adopting quasi-private equity practices, CFA would be a natural fit for these roles. On the soft skill front communications and inter-personal skills are as important.

All the panelists touched upon the soft skills part for achieving ones goals in life. This includes attitude, flexibility as against rigidity of having a particular role or firm, clarity of thought, inter-personal skills, networking, and so on. Vidhu concluded by saying for gaining more knowledge and opportunities to network, members of IAIP should regularly attend its various events and volunteer in whatever form possible.

About the speakers & panelists:

Aditya Gadge is founder & CEO of Flagship HR, an HR consulting start-up, catering exclusively to the financial services sector in Asia. He brings with him 9 years of experience in the Financial Services sector in varied disciplines like Training, HR, Strategic Planning, Brand Building, PR, Media Planning and Buying. In his last job, he was heading the Marketing & Business Development team at Financial Planning Standards Board India (FPSBI) and played a key role in enhancing the visibility of the CFP brand in the country. He has done his Masters in Human Resources, Masters in Economics and is a Certified Financial Planner.

Amit Khurana, CFA is Director and Head of Institutional Equity Research at Dolat Capital. He is also Director at IAIP and Chairs Employer Outreach Committee. He has been key person in organizing Annual Forecast Event for IAIP. He has more than a decade & half years of experience in capital markets in the function of equity research and fund management. He graduated in Sciences, is MBE (Masters in Business Economics) and a CFA Charter holder.

Biharilal Deora, CFA is an independent investment consultant and advisor. He has nearly a decade of experience in the fixed income and credit research having worked with CS and Fidelity. As a Director at IAIP, he has been instrumental in the societies various initiatives like Research Challenge, Technology, Volunteer Management, Employer Outreach, Advocacy etc. Last year under his leadership IAIP won CFA Institute’s Society Excellence Awards for Best Volunteer Management Program. He is a CFA charter holder, Certified Financial Planner, Chartered Accountant and holds Certificate in Investment Performance Measurement.

Namit Arora, CFA, is a Director at Standard Chartered Private Equity and represents the firm on number of boards of its investee companies. He is also a Founder Director of IAIP and has lead the association in organizing and popularizing IAIP Challenge (www.iaipirc.org), an investment research challenge in the country the winners of which represent India at APAC and Global level of the competition organized by CFA Institute. Namit has done B Tech from IIT and MBA from IIM Lucknow.

Navneet Munot, CFA is the Chief Investment Officer of SBI Funds Management Pvt. Ltd. He is Director at IAIP and Chairs the Advocacy Committee. Navneet has over two decades of experience in Indian capital markets. As CIO, Navneet leads one of the largest investment team in India, which manages assets of over Rs50,000cr across various asset classes. Navneet holds a number of degrees viz. CA, CFA, FRM, and CAIA and is an avid reader.

Navnit Ajmera, CFA works as a Senior General Manager with Group Strategy Office of the Mahindra & Mahindra Group assisting multiple businesses with strategy formulation & implementation and other internal consulting assignments. He has 16 years of experience with Indian & Multi-National companies across industries in the areas of business planning, financial analysis, treasury, procurement, business development & strategy. Navnit is a CFA Charter holder, ICWA and an MBA.

Tanvi Dixit is a consultant with Michael Page in India, a leading global HR consulting firm listed on London Stock Exchange. Prior to switching to HR function she has worked as derivatives sales trader at Avendus Capital and investment advisor at Sun Global Investment. She has graduated in engineering from the University of Mumbai.

Yashpal Madan, is a founder of Mainstream Technologies India an HR consulting firm focused on MNCs expanding their base in India. He has more than 2 decades of experience in the capital markets having worked with custodians, brokerages and merchant banking. Last decade he has spent time in HR consulting. He is B Com and Company Secretary by qualification.

Vidhu Shekhar, CFA is Vice President, at National Stock Exchange responsible for Product Development and Business Excellence. He is a Founder Director and Vice President at IAIP as and such key person to spearhead IAIP’s various initiatives including India Investment Conference. Vidhu is associated with capital markets for more than 2 decades. He is a CFA Charter holder and MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad.

Dorie Clark is a former presidential campaign spokeswoman and a frequent contributor to several high profile publications, including Harvard Business Review and Forbes. She is also a columnist for Mint, India’s second-largest business newspaper. Clients including Google, Yale University, and the Ford Foundation hire Clark to help increase sales and enhance their brand reputation. To hear her interview click on to http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2012/10/campaign-for-your-career.html

Contributions from: Chetan Shah, CFA, and Sitaraman Iyer

Photographs from: Santosh Samal

Presentations: Some of the presentations made during this event have been uploaded on the CFA Institute’s India page (http://www.cfasociety.org/india/Pages/ContinuingEducation-Presentations.aspx) and www.iaip.in. 

Video links: Please find the video clips of the presentations and panel discussion on the following links:

Please find the Links for the webcasts below

Career Day – PPT by Amit Khurana CFA, Tanvi Dixit (Michael page) and Biharilal Deora CFA : Webcast Part 1, Webcast Part 2, Webcast Part 3

Career Day – Panel Discussion :  Webcast Part 1, Webcast Part 2, Webcast Part 3 featuring Vidhu Shekhar CFA, Navneet Munot CFA, Navnit Ajmera CFA, Namit Arora CFA, Madan (Mainstream) and Aditya Gadge (Flagship HR)