Thinking of a career as a chief investment officer? Here’s my story
Amanda Agati, CFA, is Chief Investment Officer for PNC Asset Management Group and Chair of the PNC Investment Policy Committee. In this article, she shares her career path from equity research analyst, and the skills she believes aspiring CIOs need to reach the top.
Agati shared her career experience as part of the CFA® Program Career Webinar Series, in which CFA charterholders detail their professional journeys, day-to-day responsibilities, and consider the skills and strategies needed to navigate a career in the financial sector.
What does a chief investment officer do?
A chief investment officer (CIO) is responsible for:
- Setting the overall investment strategy
- Overseeing asset allocation and risk management
- Leading investment teams
- Communicating market outlooks to clients and boards
- Ensuring regulatory and fiduciary compliance
My career path to becoming CIO
I never had a grand plan or big strategic vision to become a chief investment officer. Yet, here I am, five years into my CIO role.
What I’ll say is this: there’s no single route to becoming a CIO. People arrive here in many different ways. I started out in investment banking, which turned out to be a fantastic training ground.
Although I didn’t realise it at the time, learning financial modeling and valuations – plus having exposure to IPO and M&A activity – gave me a foundation of skills and judgment I still rely heavily on today.
I spent more than two decades in buy-side equity research, developing new investment ideas and making recommendations to portfolio managers. This experience proved to be invaluable and shaped how I still think about markets.
What makes a good CIO?
If I had to highlight one key factor to my success it would be that I’ve always been a generalist. I never focused on one industry or sector.
To be a successful CIO, you need a broad understanding of markets and how different asset classes interact. That can be tricky to achieve if you specialize too early.
You have to be comfortable making decisions. Indecision isn’t your friend in this role. It’s not enough to have an idea. You need to have the guts to pull the trigger. Similarly, you have to be able to think on your feet. Every day, you’re hit with multiple opinions but in the end, final capital allocation decisions fall to you.
Being an effective communicator is also crucial. In my organization, I lead a centralized investment team that serves both the private bank and the institutional business. One team, one house view.
A big part of my role is communicating that view in a way that resonates with two very different audiences. With private bank clients, even the best idea can be a non-starter if it isn’t communicated in a way that matters to them. For example, the sale of an asset may make sense financially but if the outcomes aren’t clearly linked to their goals and priorities, you may struggle to get buy-in.
On the institutional side, we’re engaging with investment committees and boards, so the communication needs to be more nuanced and appropriately framed — particularly given we’re often talking to professional investors.
Finally, you need to live and breathe markets. You can learn the operational, compliance and risk dimensions of the job. But without a genuine love of markets, it’s very hard to sustain the role long term.
My advice to aspiring CIOs
If you aspire to be a CIO, my main advice is to move beyond bottom-up analysis. You need to get comfortable forming a top-down point of view and, crucially, communicating it.
Of course, bottom-up, fundamental analysis is essential. It’s the foundation of sound investment decision-making. But it’s not enough. At some point, you have to lift your head up from the weeds and connect the dots across asset classes and the broader macro environment.
One turning point in my career came when I felt that shift myself. I realized that our team produced a lot of strong research, including macro work, but we didn’t have a formal way to bring it all together into a clear house view.
So I raised my hand and proposed an investment-focused, thought-leadership conference to bring those perspectives together.
It wasn’t assigned to me. It wasn’t in my job description. I just asked, “Could I take a crack at this?” At the time, I wasn’t thinking about it strategically as a step toward becoming a CIO. I just wanted a broader lens and to try something new.
Looking back, that was one of the first moments where I started thinking at a broader market level. And that shift — from being deep in the analysis to zooming out and communicating the bigger picture — ultimately set me on the path to a CIO role.
My next piece of advice is to think about building a personal brand, though it’s not mandatory. You don’t need to be active in the media or on social platforms to become a CIO. But done well, a strong personal brand builds credibility, shows how you think (especially in uncertain markets) and sharpens your own judgment by forcing you to articulate your views consistently.
When I first became chief strategist, we were producing a lot of thought leadership content for our corporate channels, and I made the conscious decision to share it on my personal pages too. Corporate pages have their place, but people tend to connect more with an individual. They want to know what you think.
Social media has given me the opportunity to show a bit of personality. I tell nerdy finance jokes. I make song and pop culture references. I’ve found that people remember the story and the narrative far more than the technical detail.
The key is to show up as your authentic self.
But — and this is important — be very careful. Social media never forgets. Something that feels perfectly benign today can look completely different tomorrow. A point made casually on a certain day, for example, can come back to haunt you. In finance, credibility is everything so an overly optimistic prediction or poorly phrased post could seriously harm your reputation.
What the CFA charter meant for my career
Finally, I believe obtaining the CFA charter was pivotal to my success. I earned my qualification in 2009, during the financial crisis, a period that demanded perseverance as I worked through the program to remain employed. And I’m very grateful I did.
The broad curriculum has consistently helped me throughout my career. It’s equipped me with a deep understanding of market structure, valuation, earnings modelling and, most importantly, a disciplined approach to decision-making.
But just as importantly, the discipline and resilience I developed while preparing for the exams are qualities I draw on daily. They help me stay focused in volatile markets and maintain a rigorous, objective approach to allocating capital.
Altogether, the skills and qualities gained from the CFA Program continue to shape how I lead, decide and allocate capital today.
The qualification couldn’t be more relevant in the ever-evolving landscape of investment management.
Conclusion
To sum up, being a CIO is a broad, challenging role but it’s never boring and no two days are the same. If you’re considering this path, my advice is: stay curious, raise your hand when you see an opportunity, and, most importantly, never lose your passion for markets.
Author
You may also be interested in
06 Mar 2026
What employers want: A new skills blueprint
Explore our programs and certificates
CFA Institute offers a diverse range of programs and certificates designed to meet the needs of finance professionals across various career stages and specializations.
