Practical Skills Attract MBA Grad

Although Pan Jiang had just earned his MBA degree from the Yale School of Management in 1998, he was searching for something more. "When I started to look at the CFA study material, I realized that there was still a lot of knowledge which I didn't get from business school," Pan says.

Pan recognized the value of the CFA curriculum — up-to-date, relevant, and applicable on a global stage. If he was going to succeed in the finance industry, he believed he needed the proper tools and knowledge, so he made the decision to pursue the CFA charter and enrolled in the CFA Program.

"The CFA Program is more job related than the theoretical knowledge you get from school," Pan explains. In the dynamic environment of finance, where everything is changing rapidly amid a myriad of factors, a current curriculum that reflects the real landscape that investment professionals encounter is essential.

"The CFA Program really equips me with the practical knowledge and practical skills that I need in daily professional life." Plus, he says, after earning the CFA charter, he gained immense confidence in handling research and investments. "The knowledge and confidence that I have now gives me a great sense of pride, and I want others in China to experience this, too," Pan adds. That is precisely why he is such a strong advocate and supporter of the CFA Program and CFA Institute. "I asked my employer to set up a policy which will reimburse those CFA exam fees to employees that pass the exam because I thought that would support their decision for a lifelong learning choice," Pan says. He thinks this is a win–win situation for Franklin Templeton and its employees, who can now speak a common investment language with other charterholders.

"I feel like if I talk to a CFA charterholder, it's easier to communicate with them because we have, and speak, a common language," Pan explains. That is an important asset to have in a global economic environment, and it motivates him to spread the word about the CFA charter in China.

As a volunteer for the CFA Society in China, Pan was involved in the Level I exam review in Beijing in 2009. The exam review committee focuses on developing pertinent exam questions, he explains, based on the feedback the group collects from charterholders and employers in each global region.

"The highest standards and care were taken to listen to our feedback and, if necessary, use this information to add to the exam or to rewrite it in a different manner," he says. And that alone, he adds, speaks to the rigorous, but totally relevant, nature of all three levels of the exam. "The CFA Exam Development group discuss the cases with real practitioners in the investment field."

Pan also served as a mentor for the Tongji University team that participated in the CFA Institute Global Investment Research Challenge. He helped guide the group of students through the best practices in equity research and company analysis as they prepared a formal presentation for the global competition. It is the practical, relevant knowledge the students gain from analyzing the company — just as they would on the job — that makes this experience so rewarding, Pan says. "You can feel the high energy of the young people," he explains, "and that is satisfying and rewarding for me."

His time spent volunteering for CFA China is also beneficial when he recruits for the Franklin Templeton Sealand Fund Management team. "It's a good opportunity for me to use the network of professionals that I have available to me through CFA [Institute]." In fact, he predicts that some of the talented students he meets through CFA Institute events and volunteer activities are prime candidates to be full-time employees at the company.

"When I started my career in China about 10 years ago, we did not have many charterholders here, so it really helped me to stand out among all the candidates when I was talking to employers," Pan says. He tells this story to the young Chinese investment professionals that he meets, and frequently, they follow up with him to ask about such details as cost and study strategy.

"If I can help these young people get a step up by explaining to them the benefits of being a charterholder in our global economy, then my job is complete," he says.

Now that he is in a position to help others and has the time to volunteer and get involved, he plans to continue as an ambassador of the CFA Program and CFA Institute.

"I really believe in this program, with all my heart," Pan says emphatically.

Interview conducted in December 2009.

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