NY Newbie - Career Advice

I work within Credit Risk at a BB – not IB; we travel around and audit third party vendors for compliance with state, fed (Dodd Frank), investor, etc. guidelines and analyze their policies, procedures and systems/software for gaps and weaknesses via interviews with execs, management, staff, etc. writing summary reports for our execs to determine future work allocations.. Our annual book of work is valued at over 1B or so. My boss asked that I write up a statement describing my career aspirations and what kind of projects, responsibilities, and competencies/skills I should undertake and/or polish in my current role that would aid in transitioning to a different dept./role (trying to get into research). So with that, any suggestions? I have a writing background and really do enjoy peeling back the ‘hood’ to look at how a company operates but just not on the same level as a research analyst would, with the financials being one of the larger puzzle pieces of the companies we don’t normally review..

Also (as part of my career development – my boss is the $hit), I just moved to NYC to be closer to the ‘action,’ business schools, The Street, and wondered if any of you guys get up for dranks outside of the scheduled WSO Happy Hour sessions? I’m working in Downtown Brooklyn, Metrotech. - Cheers