Lessons learnt
STEPHEN CRANSTON: Why a CFA is better than a MBA
MBAs have their place, but they aren’t ideally suited to executives embedded in the investment management food chain
If you want to get ahead in financial services, what letters should you fish out of your alphabet soup? Historically everyone wanted to do an MBA. Today most people agree that business schools are fantastic if you want to climb the greasy pole at Unilever or General Electric. But I’m not sure they help much for entrepreneurs setting up a chain of dry cleaners. And, unfortunately, MBA students are taught to assassinate the English language with all those paradigms and narratives. MBAs have their place, but they aren’t ideally suited to executives embedded in the investment management food chain. They should rather look at those Siamese twins, the chartered financial analyst (CFA) and the certified financial planner (CFP).The CFP is by all accounts the less labour intensive of the two, but it plays a pivotal role in the personal development of financial advisers. Just as tadpoles become frogs, what used to be insurance salesmen are turned into financial planners. Time spent studying f...
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