What do you think of a role at a large insurance company that has exposure to all asset classes and models as well as production processes for the FO, ERM, Treasury and external stakeholders - a portfolio analytics role
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An FP&A analyst role in an operations management team assisting in prepartion of strategy and plans/goals related to financial management, budgeting and accounting.
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Anyone have any thoughts here? Pros and cons of each?
What are your near/long term goals?
I'm interested in moving to Private equity/venture capital long term i.e 5-10 years. Short term - I'm interested in changing careers from engineering to finance. Been looking 2 months now and these 2 are really the first interviews I've had. Just completed HR rounds for both the positions and it looks like only the portfolio analytics role at the Insurance Asset Management firm will be moving forward. What are typical exit opportunities for portfolio analytics roles? Is there a path to PE deals from here?
Currently work for one of the largest insurance companies. The Asset Management has a lot of different functions including PE, Trading, ER, RE, etc.
Most of my peers are ex-bankers or from other HF/AM that were looking for better work life balance as they have families.
Pros: Lots of mobility and good exposure to the different career options in finance.
Cons: Small risk profiles leading not as "exciting" or "large" number of deals.
Good to hear that there is lots of mobility for roles and career options within the finance once you take a role in insurance AM. The analytics group at a place like BlackRock would be more back office but it is a front office role at the firm I'm interviewing at. Do you see people move from support roles like Risk and analytics to more traditional front office roles like PE, ER?
At the firm I am at, portfolio analytics and pricing are back office roles just because they are doing more of the historical analysis and less of the projections (still do a lot of projections/valuations to help FO make proper decisions). They work directly with the PMs and MDs at our firm, so if you are able to prove yourself and show your knowledgeable then I do not see why they would not be flexible in doing a rotational program with you. The reason I say rotation is because these insurance don't necessarily have a training program, it's more so of you learning in the pit.
Ok, so networking helps to make the move around. Makes sense. It looks like I'm going to get an onsite interview with the analytics group and like I mentioned above I'm an engineer- come from a semiconductor tech company so one of the things they liked about my resume was that I have a process background albeit in the tangible goods, they felt it was transferable to the process structure of an analytics role where the processes are being applied to securities/portfolios instead of actual goods.
Do you know how exactly an analytics role is process centered? Also, like you mention above, if the analytics group are doing the projections for the portfolio, then what is the role ER person in the portfolio team. I would have thought that the ER person in addition to selecting the equities/FI, alternative assets would perform projections for those assets. Any advice/input you can share with me on what might be interview questions I can expect for this role?
Portfolio analytics, at our firm, check performance on the portfolios themselves. We have 4 major portfolios and they track daily performance, monthly, quarterly and ytd performance on the portfolios. They aren't worried about the assets within the portfolio, that stuff is handed off to the ER and FI analysts that monitor their specific asset groups in the portfolio. As far as projections go, the portfolio analytics team try to identify what returns the portfolio will make (Net Investment Income) with its current positions. To give an idea of how our firm works. PM-Pick securities based on their portfolio strategy ER- Research a certain industry in equities FI- Research a certain industry in fixed income Portfolio Analytics/Pricing/Valuation- Monitor the performance and project outcomes of all and individual portfolios (kinda like a consultant to the PM if they miss something or their strategy is going as planned)
Not necessarily sure how processing applies, but its nice that the recruiters pointed that out because you can go off that during the interview or ask a question about it.
Also do not really have an answer for whats kinds of questions to expect either.
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