Career conversations: Perseverance is the key to success

I make consistent and conscious effort in my entire career journey to really develop myself as a holistic credit person. So I started learning how to manage downside credit risk for banks. Then I moved on to frontline lending, structuring profitable credit proposals for the mid-sized corporates that I cover. And lastly, here I am in fixed income research today. 

I'm Rena. I cover fixed income research covering Asian financials in Bloomberg Intelligence. I'm also a CFA® Charterholder.

I was initially attracted to risk management because it was shortly after the global financial crisis in ‘08 and ’09.  And I thought to myself, how could I make a difference to ensure banks, being a systemic aspect of the economy, will not blow up and cause economic woes to the broader community.

I have always been interested in the financial markets, especially in fixed income. So I decided to actually ask myself back then, “How could I make the career switch when I'm actually in banking?” So I decided to pursue CFA (Program).  

So CFA (Program) is a great program for anyone who wants to cement their knowledge and build their knowledge in the investment space, or even to pivot their career into the asset management or investment research space.

The topics that are covered in the CFA® curriculum are really extensive. And they help to actually fill up some of the knowledge gaps that I would need in certain aspects of fixed income that I cover.