I left banking to pursue a career in private equity/venture capital. For some time I had wanted to be involved in this challenging and entrepreneurial environment. I’m more rewarded by working alongside small companies responsible for creating jobs and commercializing new technologies. I also know that to become more efficient and effective in the industry I need to advance my skills in certain areas. One of my goals for the program is to improve my analytical and quantitative skills. My undergraduate degree in Business Management touched on different areas of business, from operations to human resources, and to some degree, finance and accounting; however it left a lot of room for development in these two areas. The major itself was very broad in nature.
Subsequently, the positions that I’ve held in my professional career have had a heavy focus around sales, banking, investment finance and asset management. My success relied on knowledge of the capital markets, growing assets and effective portfolio management. Skills around specific areas of finance and accounting were never essential. However, these are skills that will be necessary as I look to move up within my organization and position myself for future advancements throughout my career.
Courses dedicated to statistics and data analysis will be influential in my development. My firm works with companies and investors in later stage venture capital transactions. The very nature of this industry consists of companies, strategic partners, investors, etc. making decisions on the basis of limited amounts of data. In order to be a more effective manager, I need to have a clearer picture in evaluating multiple sets of data to make strategic decisions in a less certain environment.
Sharpening my skills in financial accounting and quantitative analysis will also be important in my progression. Sourcing