Best cities for asset management career post MBA
I recently finished applying to business school at UC Davis, UNC Kenan Flager and Emory. My career goal post MBA is to work in business development for a buy side money manger specializing in frontier and emerging market equity investing. According to Hedge Fund Observer, San Francisco recently came in 5th place tied with Boston as a top 5 city for a career in hedge funds. Which states offer me the best chance post MBA to achieve my career goal and why? California, North Carolina, Atlanta? Which buy side money mangers have a presence in North Carolina and Atlanta?
Comments (6)
Just to be clear: you want to do marketing for a EM equity fund? The biggest issue you will face is the majority of these funds are located in New York/CT, Boston, London, Singapore, Hong Kong. Within the US you will find some EM groups in LA, SF, DC, Dallas, Miami but no real clustering outside of Boston or NYC. There is basically no such group in NC and most likely not in ATL (there are some EM debt groups there), SF as previously mentioned has some. There are, however, plenty of traditional US equity groups in ATL, but less so in CLT since it's more of a banking/PE town. Therefore, I'd suggest you target NYC/Boston or switch to US focused equity. Lastly I would not attend UC Davis as it's significantly worse than the other two and you'd be hard pressed to get the type of role you want coming out of there. As an aside, without prior industry experience you'll have a tough job landing the gig (unless you want to be a marketing assistant which seems like a bad spot to land post MBA) and may be better served targeting equity sales/research roles and laterling later.
Sales, not marketing for an EM equity fund. Pitching to institutional investors such as corporate and public pension funds. I am willing to relocate anywhere in the US post MBA for the right career opportunity. Interesting take on UC Davis.I was considering Davis because of proximity to San Francisco and diversity of opportunities offered to recent graduates. Also, According to institutional investor BlackRock, Dodge & Cox, Highmark, Farallon, and First Republic investment management are in San Francisco. I do have prior industry experience in financial services and sales but not on the buy side. When you say "equity sales" are you referring to work as a insitutional sales rep on the sell side pitching the firms research to buy side money managers? Thank you for your advice. Appreciate it.
While I realize it's semantics the function you are referring to is generally called investor relations on the buy side. Sales usually refers to the sell side or conjures up images of mutual fund wholesalers (avoid). The trick is to slot into a sales/marketing/biz dev role and not a client relations role as the latter is more admin/client handholding focus. Most junior positions on the IR side of funds are client relations for the reason that those folks don't have the rolodexes or the industry experience to speak to potential investors. Re: UC Davis. Yes you're right that San Fran is an Asset Management center but UC Davis gets its lunch eaten by Stanford and Cal. I'd venture that you'd prob even have an easier time recruiting at those firms from the other schools mention ins spite of the distance. There's no other way to put it that it simply isn't a feeder to high finance. Lastly, there are not too many seats open for the role you want so i'd have some backups in mind that would keep you on that track. Institutional sales to hedge funds is a good feeder to the type of role you're after.
In the institutional sales role, I would be selling equity research to buy side firms? What would be some respectable institutional sales firms that would allow me to transition to the sales or business development role at a buy side firm? Thanks for the advice. Appreciate it.
Hate to sound like a dick, but no way you're getting a job at Dodge&Cox/Farallon coming out of UC Davis MBA or UNC/Emory for that matter. Dodge and Cox is a ridiculously selective long-only mutual fund; they pretty much only hire from HBS, Stanford, and Wharton for post-MBA roles. Farallon is a large multi-strategy hedge fund run by Thomas Steyer, and they hire almost exclusively from HBS and Stanford. BlackRock is larger, so it's possible that you could get a low-level marketing or sales role there.
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