How did a career switcher from London Business School make it successfully to the job of his dreams during the peak of the financial crisis?

Do you think it could have been a smooth ride? Sairam Kamath shares his experiences of elation, reality check, anxiety, hope and elation; a whole circle!

His background briefly - he started off at Satyam computer Services as a Senior Systems Analyst and thereafter moved to Bear Sterns and subsequently to JP Morgan as a consultant in the technology vertical.

Just like how most of us constantly perform a review on where we are and where we want to go, Sai went about conducting  a gap analysis and decided he wanted to switch career. He dropped out of CMU Masters in Quant course dissatisfied with the path he had chosen, only to join Masters in Finance at London Business School (LBS) the next year (2010).

Through his networking efforts while at LBS he understood that a favorite place for quant guys in the financial industry would be hedge funds as opposed to the general consensus that points to bulge bracket banks. Funds that needed building models (trading platforms) which required a combination of software skills and functional knowledge of finance soon became his target! He had done his MiF project on building his own trading platform and had made a slide deck on the assumptions and VaR performance numbers as part of explaining the model. Once the model was ready he contacted recruiters and kept the slide deck along with cover letter ready. Massive effort followed on meeting industry people to explain the model. Though the model needed fine tuning to suit actual industry it was adequate to convince employers that Sai meant serious business. Soon after, he joined Observatory Capital Management, an established credit fund founded in 2004 that trades predominantly in credit instruments including a variety of bonds and credit default swaps.

When asked for advice to students aspiring for a career change within the finance industry, he says 'they should have directly transferable skills and 'marketability' is key. Mark-to-Market your career situation regularly during the course of your lifetime to assess career progress, redefine and redirect if you find you are unhappy'. 

It has indeed been a pleasure meeting, knowing and interacting with Sai Kamath. He took interest in mentoring me at a time when I needed it the most!