Career conversations: Connecting the dots between government and finance

I decided to do the CFA® (Program) because I thought it was a good complement for my profession. I am a public finance and a government finance specialist and we know nothing about the curriculum in the CFA (Program). And in the CFA (Program) you have the opposite. You have an excellent coverage of everything that is like actual finance. So for me it was really a matter of bridging the gap between government finance and corporate finance.  

My name is Francisco Vazquez, I’m a CFA® Charterholder. I've been a Charterholder since 2019. What I do is basically giving policy advice to governments around the world in regions like Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, on fiscal policy, how governments spend and how governments collect taxes.

The CFA (Program) is a very extensive program about everything that finance is about. You cover a very wide variety of topics. So you cover Fixed Income, Corporate Finance, Accounting, Derivatives, Ethics, which is a very particularly important part of the topics. Reporting of Portfolio Performance. You basically cover everything that a finance professional needs to know.

And for me, that is why the program was the go-to option when I tried to pursue graduate studies, because you have to cover all these issues to be cognizant about these issues, like the CFA (Program) is basically the first stepping stone in a finance career that you need to have.

And it's very useful for me because when I have to talk to government officials, I have to translate what actual real finance is in terms of maturities, government ownership and that sort of stuff. And then when I have to talk to finance professionals, I'm able to bring it down, all the terms that government officials use.

For me, getting the CFA (Program) was more about the career transition where I can serve my government clients better. So for me, getting to know how portfolio managers actually think, you need to get into that sort of mentality of you want to advise a government on how to issue debt or how to structure a project or how to restructure debt that has defaulted.

That's what the CFA (Program) has enabled me to do. Being able to see things from both perspectives and provide a comprehensive solution and, trying to do the best of my ability with those tools.

I didn't know anything about finance when I started, and I started the program in 2013, got the CFA® charter in 2019. So it took me really six years to get it. I think I failed Level I once I failed Level II, three times. So it was a very challenging experience. Clearly, somebody who comes from the financial sector already is at an advantage.

The CFA (Program) is really like a big equalizer. It shows what you know, it shows what you can do, it shows a level of commitment that you have. I can't conceive of a finance professional that doesn't have the CFA (Program) anymore. If you don't have it, you're really going to be at a disadvantage compared to somebody who has the charter.

Somebody who has a charter has shown that they have the commitment, they have the time, they can plan medium term and they are willing to put in the hours. Like that's the things that you are showcasing when you have your CFA® charter.

For anyone who's trying to go into the Mexican financial sector, just do it. It is really going to put you ahead of everybody else.