Unpopular opinion: PhD after banking

The best professor I ever had in college was an ex-BB DCM guy who was a lecturer while pursuing his PHD at my school.

Not sure if that’s helpful, but now he’s working in AM as a PM

Phd is a waste of time unless you’re doing like machine learning

Sign up to teach a short seminar at your alma mater or a local university. It’s going to have to be relevant to the work you’ve done but I have seen alumni come back to teach 3-4 week lecture series. Could scratch the itch without having to do a long additional degree. That or be an adjunct business prof at a local community college.

I was a VP in IB and left for pursuing a PhD. It's tough, probably wouldn't do it again.

First, your prior experience will be worth nothing, you'll start as a nobody. Who cares you were speaking to C-level day in day out, moving millions $$ over the counter for your clients. Now you're just a little PhD student at the mercy of your PhD superviser, with no reputation.

Second, academia is truly an ivory tower... you'll end up trying to line produce as many and prestigious papers as possible, with litte to no real-world significance at all. Any tiny bit of "knowledge discovery" wrapped in a "great story" will do. You're competing with smugs over who gets in the best journals. Academics are extremely egocentric, everybody thinks they are the center of their little niche universe. I began to hate this environment soon after the first excitement ("Wow, I am finally pursuing my dream"). Compared to that, IB is a team sport (it is, indeed).

Third, yeah, you have control over your time much more than in industry, however, unless you don't give a sh*t, you'll end up working all your time (weekends, too) on your dissertation. Because,... yeah graduation is so uncertain, that you cannot risk putting less than 110% in your one shot (so many good PhD students quit without graduation). 

Fourth, now, close to graduation: As soon as you'll see what your skillset is paid at a university vs industry, you will immediately want to go back. Honestly, I cannot understand why people would want to stay in academia, unless for the job security and.. showing off how smart you are. 

Overall, i have to admit that I learned a lot, it was a hard but fantastic journey along the way, that I would probably miss if I hadn't had done it. But now that I (almost) did it, I don't think it's really the holy grail it seemed to be, and I'm certainly trying to get my foot back into finance, consulting, or the likes.

I quit boutique IB to get an MA Economics and now I’m pursuing a PhD in Economics along with a JD. I don’t regret it. I do regret not doing it sooner. If you’re going to get a PhD, or a JD or a Master’s for that matter,  you’re going to want to knock that out sooner rather than later. It sucks doing this in your 30s. In general, I wouldn’t recommend it though. In retrospect, I would’ve preferred to go to a BB or EB, do my year, and then exit right into a Master’s and then PhD program (Master’s is pretty much a requirement). Master’s degrees aren’t so bad but PhDs are such slogs and faculty positions are so competitive. Did you know that only eight schools place more than half of all tenure track faculty jobs? You better hope you’re in one of those eight or near them. I think if you do go that path, I would encourage you to be open to working in administration for a while. I did and I don’t regret that. The pay is terrible compared to IB, but with IB experience and a Master’s degree you can get a decent enough job that pays a lot better than RAing while you pursue the Master’s or PhD part-time. In general, I wouldn’t recommend this unless you have a sincere and scholarly interest in some topic, are willing to hustle for a degree and experience like you’re in IB for close to a decade so you can get a job, and are willing to settle for a fraction of what you could’ve made in IB. Personally, I hated IB and was never going to cut it in that industry so I never had much choice. 
 

I should probably mention here though that you don’t need a PhD to teach. Business is a bit different in that it’s treated like a professional school even when it’s not. The doctorate as a requirement to teach thing is more for traditional faculties like liberal arts, law, and sciences. For business, they hire successful businessmen without graduate degrees to join faculty all the time.