2nd Financial Talent Summit – Bengaluru 2019

Contributed by: Sachin Chopra, CFA

On 14th September 2019, Bengaluru chapter of the CFA Society India was honoured and privileged to host the 2nd edition of the Financial Talent Summit at The Leela hotel. It was a full day event with an impressive array of speakers and moderators which came together to provide insights into important questions facing Finance career professionals especially the ones who are fairly young in their careers.

The key theme and buzzwords for the event were how to make yourself future ready and stand out in this highly competitive environment along with identifying the key opportunities shaping up the financial services industry.

The event began with a presentation from CFA Institute senior leaders on the vast variety of career tools available on the CFA Institute website which support and aide a member’s professional development at various stages of his / her career. This was followed by a 1 hour talk on a very interesting and eagerly anticipated session – Small Actions, Subtle Thinking – Creating Big Impact to Your Career & Life by Eric Sim, CFA (Founder, Institute of Life) who was the key note speaker at the 2nd FTS. There were several points worth pondering over in Eric’s talk. Some of the key takeaways from the session were focusing on developing signature skills for oneself which could help an individual differentiate himself or herself from the crowd. Also, thoughts around personal branding and the qualities which can build our brand – being trustworthy, competent and interesting were very inspiring.

Other speaker sessions focused on themes including building a career in Financial Services industry delivered by Saket Jain (Managing Partner, Vito India Advisors). Saket laid out the facts and data very methodically in his presentation with some fantastic visuals such as the heatmap on the 2018 hiring segments within financial services industry. Also, his ideas around the employment trends and outlook in sectors such as wealth management, insurance, and Fintech were very well received by the members and candidates present in the audience.

Binod Shankar, CFA who is a guest on CNBC gave an inspiring talk on closing the skills gap : how to transform yourself into a work ready professional. He shared many pearls of wisdom on career and life. Some of the notables ones were your past doesn’t determine your future, unless passion is defined and pursued, it’s mostly a soundbite and a very cliched one, soft skills feel soft only on paper … in real life, they are probably the hardest to learn and comes only with time and experience, people hire people and not degrees or CVs or artificial intelligence.

Kashyap Compella, CFA (CEO, rpa2ai) presented an excellent insight into the impact of technology on finance and the future of work. This is an area which has gained significant prominence in the last few years and is something which keeps all of us on a constant endeavour to consistently learn and break new grounds.

To conclude, the 2nd edition of FTS was a grand success and provided everyone with insights and fresh ideas on the changing landscape of careers in Financial Services industry and how to be constantly learning and developing in this age of constant change and churn.

Video Links:

Building a career in Financial Services | Saket Jain, Vito India Advisors : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_i5YI3WYX0

Impact of Technology on Finance: Future of jobs | Kashyap Kompella, CFA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYdR8R50DVQ

Closing the skills gap: How to transform yourself into a work ready professional? | Binod Shankar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7OF7HNRUiE