Thinking of a career as a portfolio manager? Here’s my story
Summary
A career as a portfolio manager involves making investment decisions, managing risk, and constructing portfolios to meet client objectives. Many portfolio managers begin in analyst or trading roles and build expertise. Earning the CFA® charter is widely recognized as a key step, signaling credibility to employers.
- Portfolio managers oversee investments, asset allocation, and risk
- Common entry paths include analyst, trading, or research roles
- Key skills: market analysis, portfolio construction, macro awareness
- Active management plays a critical role in fixed income investing
- The CFA® charter helps build skills and improve career opportunities
- Early experience, networking, and self-directed investing are valuable
Lindsay Rosner, CFA, is Head of Multi-Sector Investing at Goldman Sachs Asset and Wealth Management. In this article, she shares her journey into a portfolio management leadership role and tips for breaking into the field.
Rosner 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 portfolio manager do?
A portfolio manager is responsible for:
- Asset allocation and risk management
- Strategy implementation
- Analyzing financial analyst reports
- Client relationship management
My career path from public policy major to portfolio manager
A career in finance can come with many twists and turns. And I learned that early. I started my career at Lehman Brothers in 2006 and within two years, the firm had collapsed.
Despite that, my start at Lehman’s turned out to be an unexpected springboard.
As a public policy major, I didn’t come from a traditional finance background. I joined Lehman straight after college in its sales, trading and research analyst program where you effectively “speed date” different teams before finding the right one.
Without a finance degree, my strategy for career growth was simple: find the most challenging seat and the most complex product. For me, that was trading convertible bonds.
After Lehman collapsed, Barclays acquired my part of the business, and I later moved to PGIM’s Fixed Income team. I spent 11 years there, first as a portfolio manager and later as a senior portfolio manager, before joining Goldman Sachs.
The financial crisis taught me something important: convertible bonds are a narrow product that largely lives or dies by interest rates. That pushed me to broaden my focus into multi-sector investing, where I could think across asset classes and take a longer-term view.
Now at Goldman Sachs, my role has expanded into global multi-sector investing. That means there really isn’t anything in public fixed income that I can’t look at, think about, and invest in.
Why choose a career as an active fixed income portfolio manager
I’ve spent my whole career in fixed income, and one thing I’ve learned is that your decisions as an active portfolio manager really matter to your clients.
Look at a recent crisis in history, that of Covid. Inflation was far stickier than most people expected and has led to a much more aggressive cycle of interest rate hikes and a sharp rise in yields.
When you track a benchmark, your clients’ portfolios move with those rate changes. Active management allows you to take a view.
If inflation looks likely to remain sticky, you can reduce duration or hold less rate exposure than the benchmark by going underweight. Those decisions can make a significant difference to performance.
That’s what makes fixed income such an exciting area to work in. Markets are constantly evolving, and that means you’re constantly reading what’s happening and adjusting your positioning.
There’s certainly a place for index investing. But, when markets are dynamic (as they are today), active management creates real opportunities to apply judgment and generate value for clients.
Advice for aspiring portfolio managers
If I had to give one piece of advice to aspiring portfolio managers, it would be: choose the team you work with carefully.
Don’t obsess over specific asset classes early on. Focus on the people you’ll be working with and what your role will actually involve. Look at the team — were they developed internally? Have others grown and progressed there? That’s often a strong signal that you’ll be supported and invested in.
Equally important is what you’ll be doing day-to-day.
In my role with convertible bonds, many of the issuers weren’t covered by investment bank research. So, I regularly had to dig into a company’s financials myself – something traders don’t always do. It was a great learning experience.
Early in your career, your goal should be to build the fundamentals — understanding technicals, supply and demand, and how markets function. At the same time, start developing your macro chops: what drives interest rates, currencies and market movements.
How to become a portfolio manager
If this is a space you want to break into, one of the best things you can do is gain real-world experience early on. It’ll help you understand the role and decide whether it’s right for you.
Network as much as you can — you’ll be surprised how willing people are to let you shadow them. Conferences are a great starting point, including events run by local CFA Societies.
I’d also recommend reading as much as possible. It doesn’t matter the source – the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Financial Times. Just make sure you get in the mix and immerse yourself in the markets.
Finally, and this is crucial in my opinion, start investing yourself. You don’t need a large amount of money. Start with USD100, pick some funds, and see how it goes. You’ll learn as much from your mistakes as your successes.
How the CFA® charter helped my career in portfolio management
As well as the practical steps above, I’d advise any fledgling portfolio managers to earn the CFA charter. The CFA Program Level III curriculum actually teaches you how to be a portfolio manager. This was so important for me as someone who didn't have a finance degree. It helped me catch up.
But it’s not just the content. The charter’s also an important signal to employers. It shows you’re committed and willing to put in the time to improve, because it's not an easy undertaking.
I’d go as far as saying it’s helped me get the jobs I wanted. When Lehman went bust, during that first weekend when I was rushing to have interviews, the first question from prospective employers was always ‘where’s your CFA designation?’ Although Barclays bought my company and I had a job, it would have been naive of me to ignore that, so I immediately started working towards my designation.
In fact, when I look at résumés now, I earmark candidates with the CFA charter.
Conclusion
There’s no single route into portfolio management — and no requirement to have it all figured out from the start. After college, I had no idea what path to take.
The most important thing is you’re curious and willing to put yourself out there.
You’re in the driver’s seat of your own career. A career in portfolio management can be challenging, but the rewards of making a real difference to people’s lives is what makes it such a great path.
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06 Mar 2026
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