The CFA Charter: Licence to (a career in) Finance?

Hello and welcome to this CFA Society Switzerland webinar about the CFA program. In the next hour, it's our goal to give you a good overview about the CFA program, what exactly it is about, what are the expectations to future candidates, and what are the benefits of the designation in real life. My name is Sabine Feierabend, and I'm very happy to introduce you to our panelists for this session. Louis Martin Leblanc Harper, CFA, is the presenter of this webinar. He's Canadian, has two masters in music, got his CFA charter in 2019, and he's working for a boutique investment firm. Alina Georgita, CFA, got her charter in 2019 as well, and works for a bank as head of money market and foreign exchange. Olli Müller, CFA, is a season charter holder and works for Credit Suisse as a director and head of investment delivery, investment solutions, and products. He strongly supports his team members to stay in education. Alina, Louis, and Olli are volunteers of our society. We are grateful that they support us on giving you an insight about their CFA experience. We strongly encourage you to ask questions. On the bottom of your screen, you see a Q&A button. Whenever you have a question, please type it in. The audience will be able to vote on questions, which will bring the question up in the list. Louis and I will pick them up, and we'll do our best to answer them all. As a small reminder, this is a webinar. The audience is on listen and view mode only and the webinar will be recorded. With that said, the floor is yours, Louis. Thank you very much, Sabine, for the introduction. Um as uh Sabine mentioned, today we'll be discussing with you uh some of the advantages and the reasons for considering to do your charter. Um in terms of the order of the day, there's a number of points that we'll be touching base on. And if I can enumerate them here with you, the first one being who is the CFA Institute and what are its programs? The second one being what is the value of the CFA charter and why should you consider it? Thirdly, what is the process like and how best to prepare? What services are provided for CFA Society Switzerland candidates? And lastly, how to talk to your line manager about taking the CFA? And once we've gone through all those points, we will have we'll have some time together to go through the Q&A where you'll be able to ask all of your questions. Here, normally we would have played a little video. We had some uh challenges with playing it. However, if you do your research on uh YouTube, there are a number of great videos discussing uh the CFA Institute as a whole. I think the first and most important point to touch base on in regards to the CFA Institute is its mission statement. I'll read it here with you. Our mission: to lead the investment profession globally by promoting the highest standards of ethics, education, and professional excellence for the ultimate benefit of society. There are a number of ways by which it does this. The first one is through producing educated professionals that will represent the CFA Institute's beliefs and values in the financial markets, which essentially will create global financial markets that serve the public interest. And I think here the keyword is the fact that it serves the public interests. The CFA Institute itself has three different programs. The first one being the CFA program, which has a goal as a goal, excuse me, to produce educated and well-rounded professionals. The second program being the CIPM program, which itself has the as a goal to develop professionals that will be able to accurately assess performance and as such choose investment managers more proficiently. And the final program is the Investment Foundations program, which is to provide foundational knowledge of the investments industry in an accessible manner. As a recent program with the CFA Society Institutes in London, what it has done is a program that is a certificate in ESG investing to essentially help bring up the next generation of investment leaders. Once again, dedicated, as I mentioned earlier, to the improvements of of society. The CFA Society itself is a global organization. It was founded around 1947 and it is the brainchild of Benjamin Graham, the father of modern valuation and as I can mention here, Warren Buffett's mentor. It has over 170,000 charter holders and 300,000 candidates in any given year in over 150 societies worldwide. It is also recognized internationally. As you can see, I am Canadian, Alina is Romanian, and Ollie here is Swiss. We are a diverse crowd. In terms of the value of the charter, that's actually an excellent question. If I would have to say one thing, I think it's that it's simply the gold standard of the industry. The curriculum itself is more extensive even than a Master of Science in Finance. And not only helps you become a more educated investor, but also one that understands the ethical implications of decisions. The network is an international one and it will be recognized wherever you go. As we mentioned, I'm Canadian, Alina is Romanian and Ollie is Swiss. And the CFA Institute also supports you in your career by providing a stream of valuable educational and also professional developments resources. Charter holders work in multiple fields in finance. If I can start off with a quote, a man once told me that earning a CFA is a little bit the opposite of most other careers. The more you advance, the more you discover how broad your expertise becomes. On a personal basis, I've worked in equities and I've worked as a generalist. And if we take a look here at the number of roles that you can do, if I take as a as per example a personal example here, I've been a relationship manager. I've also worked in valuation and modeling and now I currently work as a strategy consultant. And if we move on to the type of employers that hire charter holders, on the list here we can see that there are Canadian, that there are American, that there are British and German and Swiss employers. Personally, I've had the chance to work for three of them. If we talk about the equation itself to become a charter holder, there are a number of things to be aware of. The first one is to hold a bachelor's degree or be in the final year of your bachelor's degree. There are exceptions as well if you hold an apprenticeship in Switzerland. You have to successfully complete the level one, two, and three exams and have four years of qualified work experience. By work experience, we mean four years of full-time paid work experience. By this, an an internship can also count. And lastly, once you succeed in all of this, you may be granted the CFA charter. Here we'll take a look more specifically at what the exams cover. All three exams follow a logical evolution to bring you from the knowledge comprehension level all the way to the synthesis and evaluation level passing by the analysis. Exam one has a focus on the tools. Think here financial reporting and analysis, economics, quantitative methods, et cetera. The second exam focuses on the asset classes and the evaluation and analysis thereof. You will look more broadly at equities, fixed income, derivatives, and alternative investments like hedge funds, private equity, and real estate. The final exam itself is the application of the two prior exams in the context of portfolio management. In essence, how do you integrate everything in a way that makes sense for an investor or an institution? It is commonly said that the difference between levels one and two is that the level one is a mile wide and an inch deep while level two is an inch wide and a mile deep. Unfortunately, I don't have a smart quote for level three. If we take a look at the keys to CFA program success, I I the keyword here is effort. It takes time and dedication. What I normally say is that the average candidate studies for 300 hours, but the average candidate also fails. So, it is quite logical to assume that to have the best chances of passing, a higher number of hours will be meant necessary and often minimum. On average, candidates take 4 years, whereas some take as short as a year and a half, while others take 5 years. I personally took 4 years even though I passed all levels the first time around. So, this can give you a little bit of an idea. Third-party prep providers can also provide good material that will help in the studying, but the curriculum is simply the best material. Exam writers will always and only take materials from the curriculum. So, this is what should take priority in your studying. If I can give an example that Alina kindly reminded us earlier this week, is that the CFA Institute itself provides a high amount of material, and you can think here online resources like a question bank, like mock exams, and at the end of the day, I have taken exams and courses to help myself uh study for the CFA exam, but truly nothing is better than what comes from the Institute. And I'm not saying this just because I'm presenting for the Institute. If we take a look at the enrollment details, the deadlines of June and December 2020 CFA programs. Unfortunately, we will not have a June exam this year uh thanks to our friend the coronavirus. Uh however, we will have an exam for all three levels in December. Not only levels 1 and uh levels 1, but also levels 1, 2, and 3. Um and of course, we will be offering as well, if I'm reminded here, mock exams on October 31st and a mock exam for level two on November 21st. And this one here in December 2020 will be the last one which offers a level one paper exam, where in the future we'll be offering computer-based exams. If we move on to the fees, the fees for enrollment in the CFA program are quite low when compared to a lot of educational programs. I personally completed an MBA, and let's simply say that it was multiples of what the CFA program costs. There's a one-time registration fee when you sign up for level one of 450 US dollars. Then you have the the early registration fee, which is 700 and a US dollars. Unfortunately, the deadline has passed, and so now we have still the standard registration for 1,000 US dollars and the late registration for 1,450 dollars. The CFA societies across the world organize themselves to provide support for members. As our generation, it is one that tends to move a lot for personal or work reasons. There is true value in knowing that where are you and you can find yourself a society to belong to. As a CFA society charter holder, you do not have to belong to a society, but as I said, if you plan on having a life that brings you to different places, it's always a plus to know that you will be able to find somewhere to get involved with and meet people everywhere. If I take a look more specifically, uh the CFA Society Switzerland organizes a number of programs and events to help support both candidates and professionals in their development. CFA Society Switzerland has over 3,300 members and also as candidates, more specifically the CFA Society Switzerland allows you to join as a member. And the support that the society offers you ranges from study groups to mock exams to mentoring programs when you are a member of the institute. And to come what is currently in the works is a mentoring program for candidates. And now that we've reached the end of the conversation here, we'll be opening up a very shortly the Q&A to all of you. Um but if I can, there are a few questions I would like to ask Ollie and Alina. Ollie, uh if I can start with you here, um could you tell me a little bit more? Uh we've had the chance to discuss it together in conversations, how important and precious to you uh continuing education is. So, could you describe in your own words maybe the importance that you attach to the CFA designation and continuous learning? Well, indeed I attach a lot of importance to continuing education whatever form and also encourage and support all my team members in doing so. CFA uh program of course is certainly the gold standard in terms of continuing education if you work in the banking, finance, asset management, insurance industry, um but there are also other ones of course and that is uh one which is highly appreciated, globally recognized, and really has a lot of value not only because of uh know-how, because it gives you a very deep and also very broad know-how in in in finance, but as it adds also a lot in terms of credibility, it adds a lot uh in it signals also that you are dedicated to go above and beyond for your clients. And it shows also a lot of ethical commitment to to your work. Excellent. Thank you. And I think another question that a lot of people will have here is how do you think you could best approach your line manager about signing up for the CFA Charter exams and also getting the appropriate support from your company? Well, a good line manager usually talks to his employees to his team members or his her team members at least once a year. That's typically called the development meeting and I think that's a good starting point to discuss the development in general at one of these meetings and then basically express the wish to sit for the CFA program. In terms of support, I think there are two types of support that is required. On one hand, there is the financial support and as we saw in the previous previous slides, the CFA program is not a costly exercise. So, the financial support is I think limited and there are most big companies, at least my company at Credit Suisse, is having formal policies where we typically pay something like 80% of the costs, right? And the other type of support in my view, which is even more important, is the commitment from a line manager perspective with respect also to time, i.e. how do you free up your team member to allow him or her to learn. Excellent. And I think an extremely important point to mention about Switzerland is that Switzerland as a whole is extremely supportive of students and candidates enrolled into the CFA program. As proud as I am of being Canadian, unfortunately, employers in Canada don't offer the same luxury, whereas when I signed up for level three and I was employed by a Swiss company, I managed to get over 10 days off to study. I'm not sure it's exactly the same with Credit Suisse, but I know as a fact CFA employers in Switzerland are extremely supportive of people signing up and taking time off to study for the CFA exams. Well, of course, I mean, the time you you are given to study, the time off you are given to study varies by company. If you're mentioning my company, which is Credit Suisse, you get three days, but what I'm always saying is that beyond every official policy, every line managers or every line manager has a duty and the honor to support his or her team members in their development and within that duty, within that task, he or she can basically show a little bit more flexibility with days to learn. Typically, I do this, right? Me, I tend to to to give people a bit more than the minimum required. Mhm. Mhm. And we had the the chance to discuss and also have a question here live from Alan saying, "Does employers in Switzerland value the CFA certificate and does it help to get a job in the finance industry or to be more precise, to shift to the finance industry from other industries?" Alan, I think that's an excellent question. I'll let Ollie answer it just after because Ollie is ultimately the person that decides to hire people. But if I can talk from personal experience as Seb mentioned, I've got two masters or as I like to say a masters and a half in classical music. And for me, the only reason why I got hired in the finance industry at first was because I was promising to my employer that I was eventually going to do the CFA program and moving over from Canada to Switzerland, having with me the first of the CFA program really spoke for miles and large amounts to to a future employer and I can really say that it carried me a long way into getting a job coming from a more unusual background. But for you Ollie, I'd be quite curious. What would you say if you were to hire somebody that maybe studied something else than finance but is doing a CFA? Is that somebody that has a leg up or that at least demonstrate something to you? So in terms of studies, you're probably the wrong person to ask because I'm a person who is very open to diversity and diversity to me means also a lot of diversity in terms of background, diversity of studies. Um we have hired for instance in our team somebody who has studied sinology and that works perfectly even in even in a finance environment. But clearly if you're coming from a more diverse background then and you would like to work in a in an area which is very close to finance, having some continued education such as MAS, such as a CFA or the likes of is clearly an an advantage. As perhaps referring to your to your earlier questions Louis, um is this an advantage to have the CFA charter? Um from a candidate perspective, I would say or you're a kind of high re-perspective, I would say clearly yes. Um because it doesn't make you better, but it opens um it opens a door. Um people want to talk to you. Um your CFA doesn't signal that you are better, but the CFA signals that you were able um and willing to sit for many hours besides your usual work. So, it shows also a little bit of of of discipline and and and um over the last couple of years, I have also experienced that the ethical um foundations of the CFA um program has been more and more appreciated. When it comes to the hiring manager, uh well, I'm I'm of the opinion that the more senior you are in the financial services industry, you should have appropriate continuing education, and of course, the CFA is um the gold standard in that respect. I hope that uh answers your your questions for you. Excellent. Thank you. And I think you mentioned um highly important point, which is also actually part of the code of ethics of the CFA Institute. Uh doing your charter does not promise that uh you'll be a superior investor. Uh but the one thing that it does is that it gives you a very broad um level of knowledge that yes, you can absolutely apply in your job um especially as you change jobs, often change fields within finance, maybe you change asset classes, for example. And the knowledge that you've gained does give you a leg up in terms of being able to understand the material sooner. If I may. That's exactly the point. Yes. Exactly. And um if I can move to Alina for uh for a question or two. Alina, tell me uh we we've had the chance to speak. I was quite fortunate when I was studying uh because not to be sexist, but my wife ended up cooking every meal for me for my first two levels. And I was extremely fortunate for this, But but that's not the case for you. You were actually a mother throughout the entire designation, which I have to say it's your your the Serena Williams of the CFA Charter here. Well, I doubt I'm the only one. So, I wouldn't be a Serena Williams. I think that studying for the CFA exams entails a lot of time, discipline, and dedication. And of course that the time especially comes from your social life or your private life. And candidates need to refine throughout the three levels their learning techniques and capabilities. So, in my case it is exactly so. I have also passed all three exams consecutively. And refine my study techniques. And what I have found was that for me studying in bulk session, that is one week, two weeks before the exams, weekends, but just one day of the weekend, but for a longer study session, six hours worked the best. Because in my case studying daily wasn't really an option. I was also working 100% of the time. And that wouldn't leave enough time also for my personal obligations, my child, my husband, and so on. So, I think it's up to every candidate to to discover what works best for him or her. And starting with level one until level three refine as well the techniques. Because every level is a different in terms of challenges. But it is also highly rewarding to to pass all three levels and to sit for the exams as well. Absolutely. And I think there's something important to to mention here. We we mentioned the 300 hours. And personally coming in from a background classical music, my level one was closer to 500 hours. I was fortunate I also passed all levels the first time around. But my rate of good grades, let's say, were directly proportional to the amount of hours I put into studying. However, as Alina is the case here the example, it's not necessarily possible for everybody to put in all these hours given specific circumstances. Um and it is possible to successfully study and pass the exams without necessarily putting all of the hours. However, I I think it would be extremely important to stress that in the vast majority of cases, as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, if the average candidate studies 300 hours, but the average candidate fails, it's only logical to assume that most people that really do wish to pass will need to study comfortably above 300 hours. I think even you would probably agree with this, would you? Uh yes, I would agree with that. Um the recommendations that we read online are for at least 300 hours and probably more as you progress towards level two and level three. In my case, it has been a bit the opposite in the sense that I think as a number of hours, I have studied most for level one. And then well, level two entails a lot of intensive study and deep as as the topics uh get a bit more detailed and the difficulty increases significantly from level one. And the least in number of hours I have studied for level three. Mhm. And I think um every candidate finds a deep motivation, especially in not having to sit for the same level the next year around. Therefore, it is very important to to find out what works for each candidate. So, I'm very happy that I passed the level three, although I did study the least. However, my scores were quite good. So, for the uh morning session, the written exam, I should say I I scored in the 19th percentile and the afternoon, the 70th percentile. So, um yes, we can talk a bit more in detail. However, level one and level two, I think level one gives you the foundation for studying for level two. And level three takes uh another perspective, more analytical. It is more about the judgment and about opinions and less uh calculus as as we can say. That's absolutely correct. Uh level two, I would tend to say is the most heavy one on the formulas, whereas level three is extremely qualitative. Uh but however, don't get me wrong. When I say qualitative, it's not just any answer will do. There are specifically correct answers that you need to know and understand. It's just that they might be a little bit less formulaic. Um and also Alina, I'd like to bring you to a question from one of our listeners here. Her name is Carolina and um I'm glad I'm able to ask you this question. Uh it's um about what are the materials that the CFA provides for the exam preparation and what is their cost? Well, um the CFA will uh provide uh in an online format along with the registration all materials for each level. For an additional $150, you can purchase uh the printed copies. I have done this for every level. Um maybe it's also because I am used to to to books. I'm also probably a bit older, but not necessarily, but You don't look very old. I think also for memory, it helps a lot. It is uh it is easier to to commit something to memory once you see it and not necessarily on a screen that would move. Of course, I have also used online while it is uh easier to to study, for example, in uh in a train uh if you have a notebook or or something similar. I have found, however, although at the beginning for level one and level two, I have also used the additional uh materials. However, I think the CFA Institute at this point has refined the study materials a lot. And uh especially for candidates that uh that have uh limited time, I would advise uh or at least in my case working directly with the CFA materials has helped a lot. I would strongly recommend using all the virtual tools that are at the candidate's disposal. For me, I found it very helpful. It It gives you a self-evaluation tool and then you can also read the answers that are provided by the CFA Institute. For level three, for example, you can watch carefully the wording for every online exercise and then it gives you an indication of what you are supposed to write and how you should write and also what words to use and it is based on the curriculum. It also references the curriculum. It tells you it's this reading. Maybe also the page, I'm not sure at this at this moment. But it gives detailed detailed explanations and I found it extremely useful. I would have to agree with you 100%. For level one, I studied third-party prep materials and that really made my life more difficult, actually. And for level two and level three, I studied entirely with the curriculum because as I say the exam is built off entirely of the curriculum. And especially with all the resources that you can find online, the question bank, all the mock exams that you're able to find and I think more specifically, like you mentioned, all the different explanations to why you have something wrong. If you go through everything that the CFA Institute provides to you, you will have a chance to review absolutely everything. And while third-party prep providers can be quite useful if you want to be able to gun a thousand questions in a row for level one for example, it will never fully quite be what the CFA Institute itself is. Um, but Alina, thank you so much for answering these questions. Um, we've got I think we've got about 18 questions outstanding right now. That's actually quite incredible the level of participation here. And uh, if you if you allow me, I'd like to go back to Olivier uh, for two questions. Ollie, I've got one here from Johan asking you, what's your professional educational background? And is a bachelor's degree in business administration a favorable basis? And I'll link the second question here is um, does passing your level one exam when you're still in your bachelor's degree um, put you at an advantage compared to another candidate? We had the chance to discuss that earlier, and I think it would be great to be able to highlight um, Ollie's opinion in this regard, especially as somebody that hires. So, what about we start with the first question, Ollie? Tell us a little bit more about yourself. Oh, oh my I I I graduated quite a few years ago um, with banking and finance, right? And then I started a career start program, which is a training program at Credit Suisse, right? And then I did my uh, CFA charter in 2006, right? Then uh, the second question is basically relates to um, does a bachelor degree um, um, plus a CFA give you an advantage? I would say I would say yes, right? Um, look at the current um, job environment, right? Um, there are many many candidates, right? Many candidates all also always have serious um education, serious background. So, whatever puts you in an advantageous position for a hiring manager, for a recruiting managers is clearly something um that that is recommendable. Clearly, if you have your CFA level 1, um I wouldn't stop there, right? Because CFA level 1 doesn't give you a diploma, just gives you the statement that you have passed um one level of the CFA exam. So, clearly I would recommend to that person to to do the effort and also sit for level 2 or level 3. That person can make a break of a year or two in between, but I would really um I would really I would really do so. Absolutely. And I I think, like you said, the level 1 is um it's a start, but there's no such thing as a partial charter. It's I'm not a partial charter holder. It's you're a full charter holder. Either you're a full charter holder or you are not, right? However, if you're in certain countries, I'm thinking for instance at uh at London in IB in equity research, they usually ask to junior analysts to sit for level 1 of the CFA exam without specifying whether they should sit for level 2 or level 3 as well. But as I said, if you sit for level 1, I think please make the effort and also do level 2 or level 3. It's so much worth the effort. Mhm. Mhm. Absolutely. So, level 1 uh in essence certainly doesn't hurt you, but there's also levels 2 and levels 3 ultimately that are there. And those ones bring you even more advantages, right? In terms of know-how, in terms of credibility, in terms of network, in terms of opening doors, right? And don't forget that one perhaps 20 years later when you have to look out for a job, right? That person who has the bachelor plus the CFA, that person's CV definitely looks better than the person has quote-unquote only the bachelor. So I would clearly advise to to sit for the full exam. Absolutely. And I think um also while while I have you on the phone uh there's a question that came in from Andres here uh asking if the CFA is better than a Master of Science in Finance. It's uh why why don't you take a crack at this one? I mean on one hand these are two different things, right? Master of Science in Finance, like I did for instance, is a purely academic qualification, whereas the CFA is um a practical uh credential that of course sits also on on solid uh academic grounds, right? That's on one hand. On the other hand, in some countries the CFA is equivalent to an a Master's degree or probably Master a Master of Advanced Studies. Um so I would say it's it's not the same. Um Master is typically um more narrow um and CFA is much broader. Think for instance about the ethics part. Think for instance about the economics part. Think for instance about the quant part. This These um areas are not or only partially covered in a traditional Master study. But again, it depends on the on the different on the universities. Absolutely. And um also in Switzerland the the educational level is um quite strong. Um if we will where the I I don't think so much in Switzerland it's a question of um if or in terms of being able to have your masters whether from the high escape or the Utsun or the University in Liechtenstein or in Neuchâtel or Fribourg or Lausanne. I think those are all excellent educational institution, but the CFA only I think would come to add into this yes with the additional knowledge level, but like I mentioned earlier during the presentation, the CFA designation is a very international designation. I've got my MBA from the high escape, but unfortunately the high escape is not very well known in Canada. Um whereas the CFA Institute is, but then I also had a degree from McGill University in Canada, but McGill University is not necessarily very well known in Switzerland. And so the CFA is kind of this great equalizer if we will. That is correct, right? I mean various universities are not known globally, right? And you can of course having a debate which university is the best and of course everybody's own university is always the best. I think what's true with with with CFA is it is a clear global standard. The requirements are for everybody the same globally, right? Whether you are from country A or country B or country C and therefore it is highly appreciated, globally recognized and I would say in in the market it has quite some some value if you have it. Mhm. Absolutely. Thank I I I I think you're absolutely right there. It's um There's there's a number of other questions that we have and Ali, if if you may permit me, I'd like to ask Alina the next question and maybe I'll go through some of the more logistical questions as well in the meantime, such as question here from Laurent. Does the CFA preparation material change on a year-to-year basis? It will change on a year-to-year basis as material is added or deleted. However, if you had the material from last year, it's not like the exam will entirely change. So, it is a gradual evolution. For example, I think one of the more recent topics was FinTech. And there are added chapters. High-frequency trading was one that that was added. And high-frequency trading back I don't know, was it there in 2006 high-frequency trading on the exam? Yes, partially, but definitely the FinTech wasn't. Okay. Alina, I think I've got another question for you here. I'm going to take a wild guess. Do you have a master's in finance yourself? No, I have only graduated university, business management. Okay, excellent. And did you For you, how did you find the CFA designation to come complement what you did with your business management degree? Well, the CFA the CFA topics are more broad. And there were topics that I have covered during university, like financial analysis, for example. And there were topics that I have covered during my working time. And I had some knowledge regarding, of course, perhaps not the entire span of knowledge that was requested by the CFA exam. However, I wasn't new to finance. So, it has helped me a lot uh having graduated university like 12 years ago at least I was amazed to see that especially with financial analysis I still had some knowledge on which I was able to build and of course also pass the CFA exams as well. I think every candidate has its strengths and weaknesses and the most important or the value that the CFA charter brings to a finance professional is that it fills in the gaps. And there were notions in economics for example that I didn't have prior to that and now I find it much more helpful whenever I read a research the understanding is deeper. I also feel that I could work in other fields apart from the ones that that I have had experience in the past. So, I think the level of knowledge is quite broad but for a finance professional it is important to have it. I think it it builds you up professionally and it gives you more direction. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's I think here I'll need shortly actually given the the little amount of time that we have here I'll need to pass the mic over to Sabine but if I can answer one last question that I've seen come back a few times. The topic I think it's a classic one I've probably Googled it about a million and a half times when I was hesitating between an MBA and taking the CFA. Uh once again I think it's a little bit like the masters question and the CFA they are not mutually exclusive. They come to complement each other. Uh, the MBA program itself will focus on strategy, on marketing, on organizational development, which are all topics uh, that are extremely useful to have as an investor to understand the businesses that you are taking a look at. But the CFA itself will be able really to give you this leg up on the valuation material. Because uh, I think it's uh, Warren Buffett that said it. At the end of the day, it's pointless for me to invest in a great business if the valuation doesn't make any sense. Or probably every second investor has said this. So yes, you can understand how a business works well, and this is what ultimately the MBA will impart you. But the CFA program itself will give you the theoretical foundation to really take it a few notches up. In terms of the MBA in finance, well, I think the MBA in finance most often will be closer to the traditional MBA with a few additional finance classes. So once again, the CFA is not an either-or, but the CFA will come to complement your MBA. But in any case, that's simply from professional experience and professional opinion. Uh, Sabine, I think for now I would like to pass you the mic. Ollie and Alina, I know that everybody here is extremely thankful for your your opinion, your advice, and um, of course, uh, for myself, if anybody has any questions, they can feel free to uh, send me a message on LinkedIn. Alina, Ollie, um, well, what I'll I'll leave you the opinion to to to give permission to people, but uh, if you'd like, is there a last minute Absolutely, of course, please feel free to to reach out to me. Yes, that's great. Louie, I I'll quickly step in and give you the opportunity to scroll through the questions. There are quite a few questions which touch on organizational points of view. So, I would like to wrap that together again for the audience and and like that you have a few minutes to go through the questions. So, there are questions about the costs, about the enrollment requirements, about the the the the different exams. So, let me summarize again. The enrollment requirements are either you have a bachelor's degree or you have the professional professional work experience. The professional work experience must be 48 months of full work experience and or a college university education on the date you register for level one. It doesn't necessarily need to be in a finance background, but let us be clear. If it's not a finance background, it should be it will just be more complicated for you to get the curriculum of level one. So, that's about the enrollment requirements. The costs we can say all if you do it in one way, it's 300,000 3,500 dollars to get level one, two, and three together with the enrollment fee. And there were a lot of questions about the exams. Can you take two exams per year? Technically, you can. Normally, all three levels take place in June every year. As we know, this year the exams had to be postponed to December. So, exceptionally, there will be level one, two, and three in December. Normally, there is only level one in December. So, you You technically do level one and two within one calendar year. But away from level two, there is only one possibility each June. So, June each year is for level one, two, and three. In In December, we have level one on top of it in normal non-Corona years. I have another question which we would like to raise because we know that there are quite a lot of students in the webinar. We have We have asked a new charter holder who was still a student when entering the CFA program about what he considers to be an advantage or a disadvantage of starting the CFA program during or just after your studies. I want to pass that question to Ollie who will give us Mark's answer and will also give his opinion as a line manager about it. Thank you very much, Sabine. Well, if you are at the end of your master degree, right? You are still motivated to learn, right? So, it should be easier for you to to learn and sit for another exam. That's certainly a pro for sitting for level one at the end of your studies or the very shortly thereafter, right? However, you need anyway 48 months or 4 years of professional experience. So, there is no point kind of graduating with your master degree and CFA level three even already already achieved because you have to wait anyway. And And that's also for my own experience, right? Quite many modules of the CFA program, you can only benefit and put that into the right context if you are already a little bit into professional life, right? That's about portfolio management. That's particularly about the ethics program, right? So, so my typical recommendation is graduate, take your first job, and during the first year of your first job, sit for level one of the CFA exam, then you do CFA level two, then do CFA level three, and and then you have your your your charter. There is no point kind of applying for the first job meaning or or or or meaning you you should have already all CFA exam passed. Thank you very much for that, Ollie. One question which we can ask you as well, because we know we know that you also have a CAIA designation. If I have CAIA already, is it worth to do the CFA, too? What would be the added value? And maybe we can say what does it help? So, yes, I have both, so I have no conflict of interest in answer to this question. Well, the CAIA and the CFA are are two different things, right? CFA is not broader. It covers only a little bit the alternative investments. However, the CAIA is really specialized in alternative investments. It goes very deep into hedge funds, goes very deep into structured products. It goes into catastrophe bonds, insurance-linked securities, commodities, private equity, and so forth. So, most of the breadth and the depth of the CAIA is not included in the CFA, and CFA is much broader. So, yes, definitely. And actually, I know quite a few persons who have both charters. Thank you very much. There is a question on societies, and I would like to take the opportunity to talk about societies. The question is, if I live in one country and I work in another country, which society should I join? Let me give you the full information. You can join as many societies as you want and like to do. There is an obligation to be member with CFA Institute in order to be able to have the designation, but you're free to choose as many societies as you like to. Just of interest, Ollie, how many societies are you a member of? Um CFA Institute plus CFA Society Switzerland, um plus of course Gaia and all these things, but um from the university relations team where we are, we have excellent relationship with our friend societies, particularly Slovenia and Poland, for example. Okay. So, you don't have another society um you're connected with like uh the UK society or the New York society? No or not yet, but as I said, right, uh we have excellent kind of relations. Okay. So, you can have as many societies as you would like to have, which just opens your network. It means that you need to pay the fees for each society, which can vary quite a bit, but if you have the access to society, you get all the information, all the invitations from each society, and that can be a really big opener to your network. Louie, do you have the Canadian society still with you? Unfortunately not. Uh I was uh part of uh the society in uh Calgary uh when I was uh studying in uh uh back home. I was taking also um or actually if I if I can on a point that's also important, it's not so much related to the society, but related to the network that you develop uh through those societies. I did my level two back in Canada like I mentioned and to to help myself assimilate the material better, I signed up for classes. Now there are a few of those classmates actually that have stayed friends over the years and we we connected on a different level because all of us went through in between parentheses or quotes hell of having to study for level two and it was a lot of effort and so all of us understand what each one of us went through and actually two years ago one of them came to visit me in Switzerland and so it's you know that by being involved locally with different CFA societies, it just gives you the opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and the great thing about I think Ollie's mentioned it is the people that passed the signed up for the CFA exams, they're people that really consistently try to do better in life and they say that you are reflection of the five people you hang out the most with and so at the end of the day it's also conscious choice that you make of who do you want to be most like? Well, the CFA societies most often will have this group of people that you would probably want to emulate and this group of mentors I might want to emulate over time. That was a very long-winded answer but I hope I sort of answered it. Okay, I think we get to an end. There is one last question I would like to to ask all of you. Um where does it make sense to work after getting the CFA? Pierre asked this question and he says for info, I'm working in a in a corporate as a treasurer, not a bank. Uh and I'm now preparing for level two but I have the feeling that the CFA is viewed as a nice hat and not as a game changer. Thank you. So, maybe as the last question, each of you could answer this question, where does it make sense to work after getting the CFA? Most of the CFA charter holders work in asset management or investment management. However, other fields of study or other disciplines of finance are not excluded. So, I think it's it's a question for each candidate to ask himself or herself what type of career that they would like to pursue. I think having a CFA charter will not guarantee the dream job, but for sure it will not hurt. So, I think there are no guarantees in terms of of a job, but if every candidate has a has a goal in mind and they find that the CFA charter is within that goal, because if they would like to study, I don't know, music for example, perhaps it is doesn't add the value, but for a career in finance, for sure it does. Thank you, Alina. It's the CFA charter sort of saved my career. Literally, I had only read books about investing when I got my first job working for a for a large asset manager as a relationship manager, and then moving over to Switzerland. I'm really convinced that it was, um, you know, of course, networking extremely obviously, but the fact that I was pursuing my charter helped me get a job in valuation and modeling, and now I work in corporate strategy for financial services, and the topic that I'm on right now is related to CFO organization. So, coming in from a few too many years of trying to become a professional tuba player, um, having been able to get a job in finance was definitely thanks to continuing the the education a fuel with the the CFA charter. Thank you, Louie. Well, on on my on my end, well, the CFA charter doesn't make you better, but it clearly opens doors and makes you a bit more credible, and hopefully also acting in a more ethical way. CFA charter holders, of course, can work in a bank, in an investment management firm, in an asset management firm, in a wealth management firm, however you classify. That can be any segment, that can be any asset class, that can be any function there. But, I think we should indeed go a little bit broader. You can go, uh, to work as an investor relations officer. You can go to corporate treasury. You could go to the public administration. You can go and manage a pension fund. You can be a financial journalist. You can be a teacher. You can be a professor. So, um, I think the CFA, um, charter does not limit you. Um, it it it is it is quite broad. And and don't forget, if you sit for the CFA exam, it's not for today's job. It will be for tomorrow's job, and it will be a door opener for the job, perhaps, the day after tomorrow. I hope this answers the question, Sabine. What a nice end. Thank you very much. For any question you might have, please don't hesitate to contact us. You will get a short survey of the this webinar and our email address is on that survey. So, please do not hesitate to contact us on any question. Let me thank you all of you for your interest in the CFA program. Thank you so much to our panelists, Alistair, Elena, and Louis. Thank you for being so passionate about the designation and about volunteering. We wish you all a very nice evening and stay safe.