How to Become an Investment Director
An Investment Director has many responsibilities. In addition to charting the financial course of an entire fund of investments, an Investment Director also often needs to answer to stockholders and maintain consistent returns. Although the career is challenging and requires acute attention to detail, it is often highly lucrative.
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Instructions
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1
Prepare for rigorous undergraduate academic preparation. Finance students must endure through and excel at a wide variety of complicated academic courses including accounting, advanced mathematics, and financial theory. SImilarly, successful investment directors are often graduates of top universities where academic excellence is demanded.
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2
Enroll in a top business school. Such schools include: Stanford, Harvard, Wharton (UPenn), and University of California at Berkeley. Again, top investment companies recruit not only graduates from top schools, but top graduates as well. Depending on the type of investment director you hope to become (insurance, financial products, commodities), make sure to take appropriate courses in addition to the standard business administration curriculum.
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Obtain a job at an investment bank, hedge fund, insurance conglomerate, or boutique trading company. Prepare for a long, challenging early career that will often be fraught with an intense work schedule, frequent and rigorous hands-on training, and stress.
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4
Draw attention to yourself at the firm or company. This can be done in a variety of ways, but some include: innovating a process that increases profit, drawing new and wealthy individuals into a fund, creating long-term strategies that offer financial sustainability, and not short-term rewards, and, perhaps most effective, developing close personal and working relationships with fund managers and executives.
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Move up the chain of command by employing techniques in Step 4. Do not be afraid to maintain contacts outside the firm. This may lead to new positions through recruitment. Usually, it will take at least ten years of solid investment performance before your name will be in running for an Investment Director position.
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