Strangest exit from Finance

A bunch of us here would follow the usual sell side to buy side route. Recently I met a former banker who retired after 5 years as a VP and became a gentleman farmer. I also know another former Australian banker who just disappeared from his job and moved to Medellín and opened a hostel.

Do you have any strange stories of people leaving Finance and just do some seemingly random things?

14 Comments
 

Hi HighlyLeveredCat, any of these topics helpful:

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  • Exit opps from post-MBA finance at a big tech firm? finance or can he transition into hedge funds, private equity, etc.? tech corporate finance Exit Opps ... Very interested to know what the exit opps look like for someone who did 1-2 years of post-MBA ... finance at a major tech firm (Amazon /Apple/Microsoft/Google/Facebook). Will he be stuck in corporate ...
  • Exit Ops from a Corp. Finance internship? ops could one gain from doing a Corp. Finance internship, aside from doing it for a FT job? Are there ... Most people saying IB internships generally help somebody get IB FT.. What other potential exit ...
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  • More suggestions...

I hope those threads give you a bit more insight.

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Knew a guy who started off in DCM at a European bank (in Europe), worked in REPE for a while after that and then suddenly moved over to some deep southern State (Tennessee, Alabama, something like that) to be a farmer. Like wtf.

Also knew someone who was a manager at a Big Four, chartered accountant, who quit to become a plumber. Oh and it was a woman.

 
Most Helpful

I think I'd rather be a plumber than a manager at Big Four.

Quant (ˈkwänt) n: An expert, someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.
 

Not super strange, but an ex-banker exited to his trust fund and now wears leopard print gucci slippers around town. Not sure how happy he is, but interesting to see how having no need to work affects a person

 
Funniest

Some financier went into the adult industry and kept using the CFA letters after their name. The CFAI asked that they stop using the letters citing one of the character ethics items as their rationale. He replied to the inquiry by sending some of the graphic explicit pitchbooks he created while repping the CFA letters.

Snap, still on the CFA website.
.... On 22 September 2009, a Hearing Panel convened and found that Nicklas Keith Gustafsson, a charterholder member, violated the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standard VII(A) – Conduct as Members and Candidates in the CFA Program of the CFA Institute Standards of Professional Conduct [2005].

The Hearing Panel imposed the sanction of Revocation of membership and the right to use the CFA designation.

Gustafsson submitted a response to the Notice of Inquiry that contained content considered to be highly unprofessional and disrespectful, and included graphic, inappropriate images. On Gustafsson’s website, where he provided a link to CFA Institute web pages and used the CFA designation, the CFA Institute Professional Conduct Program also found pornographic images.

Additionally, the CFA Institute Professional Conduct Program found unprofessional commentary on internet pornographic chat sites, apparently posted by Mr. Gustafsson, where his name included the CFA designation. Gustafsson also failed to fully cooperate with the Professional Conduct Program inquiry, testify, and otherwise cooperate in the disciplinary proceedings.

 

Wait so he was still doing finance in adult industry or he became an "actor"? Like his name was longdongjohnson, CFA? lmao

 

I've met this group of ex-Swiss private bankers here in Central America that run the accounting departments for a bunch of tiny nonprofits. Crazy life stories, they worked at UBS/HSBC etc. handling billions of dollars, got tired of it, and came here to learn Spanish and find wives. Now they're very contentedly living small-time lives. It's quite the character contrast.

 

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