Commercial Banking to High Finance

Hey everyone,

Looking for opinions on breaking into high finance (prefer buy-side) in NYC. I'm planning to move there in about 2 years so I've got a long timeline to work with.

I currently work for a mid-sized commercial bank ($4B in assets) in a credit training program, which is 3-4 years of working with upper management on large & distressed credits (extremely comprehensive). I've passed the CFA level 1, but got poor grades from a non-target. I'm hoping to leverage my credit experience and work my way into equity from there. However, I have the opportunity to work with my bank's investment advisory arm and gain some investment exposure that way. The investment advisory arm is mostly a FoF with a few individual stock investments & a bond portfolio. In addition, they have a large focus on tax planning for bank clients. The main concern is that I might not get the idea generation & modeling experience that would be important for the high finance roles.

IMO, I've got two options: 1) Stick with the credit program, teach myself (through reps & courses) how to model & generate ideas. Seems like it would probably be more impressive to show that I came from a non-traditional background, but taught myself modeling while working through the CFA program.** 2)** Move into the investment advisory firm, which would allow me to bridge the gap between credit & asset management now. But I'm not sure how much the Wall St firms would value that experience, or could it be a deterrent?

Looking to get some honest opinions, thank you in advance!