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Let's get real. As we turn the corner and head toward an uncertain 2012, where are the real opportunities for MBA finance professionals ? What's the real scoop? In an environment where some tip-toe when they project better scenarios next year, but where every other day large banks announce lay-offs by the thousands, what's the real story? Who's  hiring? Who's promoting solid performers? Who's luring those interested in finance and promising long-term career paths? Where are the sectors or institutions that will harbor finance pros and allow them to grow, contribute and thrive over the the next few years? Let's take a glance and gauge vibes and signals across the sectors. 1.  Investment banking, corporate finance.   From now until about mid-2012, you know banks won't commit. Uncertainty forces them to be hesitant. They'll want to see sustained trends in an economic recovery. Until then, banks will resort to old-time habits of firing rashly and excess...

Trying to project 2012 is like reading tea leaves. Who's willing to make an informed, detailed forecast and be comfortable and confident about it? The variables are too numerous, too complex, too bewildering.  If you are a finance professional, an MBA student or a Consortium alumnus, how do you brace and prepare for next year--a year of turning points and pivots with Europe unable to make up its mind about a corrective course and with U.S. elections hovering? By now, we have grown weary of the tail end of 2011 and are ready for the year to get going. Early in 2011, business and financial signs were uplifting. We were poised for a sustained upturn until we fell off a cliff in August. Since then, we've feared a repeat of the fall, 2008, with a different set of plots, twists and finger-pointing. The plot this time revolved around the bickering in Congress about budget deficits and debt levels and bickering in Europe about debt levels and budget deficits. The collapse of MF Global...

What are current sentiments, trends, and outlook, as MBA students prepare for a tough job market in 2012-13? What are the best tools, advice, and guidelines to get ready? The Consortium Finance Network hosted a webinar Nov. 22 for first-year Consortium MBAs in finance to discuss strategies for recruiting and securing internships for the summer, 2012. Panelists included Consortium graduates Eddie Galvan, Denzil Vaughn , and Enoch Kariuki . CFN founding members Tracy Williams and Camilo Sandoval (also a Consortium alumnus) and the Consortium's D-Lori Newsome-Pitts organized the webinar. Fortunately for students, the hiring environment for 2012 is not as discouraging as it was in 2008-09, when financial institutions worried more about survival than bringing aboard new MBAs.  Yet with announcements every other day from banks about rounds of lay-offs, finance students know the task of winning an offer for a meaningful internship will be tricky. Market volatility in recent months, fre...

If you were to peep inside the corridors of most venture capital firms, including those in pockets of Silicon Valley or those scattered about Manhattan or in the Boston suburbs, would you see encouraging signs of diversity? Would you see a diverse environment, an inclusive culture, or a setting where those from under-represented groups are deeply involved in investment discussions, analyses, presentations, and decision-making? In those same venture capital firms, would you see women, blacks and Hispanics in prominent professional roles? Not really, says a survey from the National Venture Capital Association ( http://www.nvca.org/ ) . Would you be surprised? Not really, the survey also shows.  The business of venture capital (investing in promising start-ups, nurturing new ideas, coaching young entrepreneurs, and facilitating financing in second and third rounds) has a long way to go. The survey was taken in mid-2011 and follows a similar survey from 2008. The survey was sent to inv...

Not the same impact as Lehman Late last month the world of finance, brokerage and trading experienced a hiccup--beyond the daily eruptions from Europe.  It wasn't yet another day of market swoons or showdowns in Europe.  It wasn't yet another day of a nose-dive in the Dow or headline disagreements on how the economy should recover. MF Global , the futures brokerage firm, filed for bankruptcy.  It was deemed too small to save. MF Global was not a household name (but so wasn't Bernard Madoff before the world found out about that fraud). Few outside the industry knew much about MF Global. Some knew that former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine was its CEO. And they knew Corzine had been the head at Goldman Sachs in the 1990s. MF Global was known as a major player in futures and commodities brokerage. It had institutional client accounts with hedge funds, pension funds, corporations, banks, other brokerages, and other trading firms. It facilitated futures and commodities tradi...

Chris Williams of Williams Capital After financial turmoil in 2008-09, Black Enterprise magazine decided to wait a year or two before presenting its occasional list of the most powerful blacks on Wall Street. It figured it needed to watch the shake-out in the industry and observe the impact on African-Americans. In its latest issue ( http://www.blackenterprise.com/ ), it decided now is a good time to update its list, although Wall Street, banking and trading have experienced many bumps and bruises in 2011.  It failed to answer conclusively whether African-Americans took unfair, backward steps in diversity progress among top banks, brokers and financial institutions.  Everybody took hits during 2009-10, all groups and genders, including African-Americans in entry and middle-level roles. We all saw the industry reduce staff by the thousands during the crisis.And we saw how some on their own fled the industry to avoid stress and uncertainty or to explore other opportunities with ...

Like it or not, the Volcker rules are coming. Ready or not, banks confront the new reality. Banks reported a gush of trading-related revenues in the 2000s. Going forward, they will not be permitted to engage in proprietary trading in the way they have done successfully the past decade. Banks, including old commercial banks and investment banks that turned into bank holding companies,  maintained trading units and ran them like internal hedge funds. They were allowed to use capital to support trading in most any instrument they felt they had expertise in or perceived profit opportunities. They  traded equities, held positions long or short, traded equity derivatives, and traded equity-linked swaps. Big banks, like JPMorgan, Citi, or Goldman Sachs, reported profits, had substantial roles in all markets, and attracted talent . Small community banks shied away. They could execute "black blox" trades, high-frequency algorithms, or deal in"exotics." Analysts described Go...

It's nothing new that top graduate business schools across the country stretch themselves to keep up with the times, remain relevant, and enhance the quality of a student's two-year stint in school. Over the past two decades, they have responded to financial crises, evolving corporate needs, questions of ethics, and a global economy. They've even responded to the cries of students who want lavish facilities and daily comfort on campus to justify steep tuition costs. Once there was a time when a student could leave b-school and sidestep courses related to Asia or Europe business, emerging markets, regulation, ethics and technology. Students today can't avoid these topics and typically don't want to. Insider-trading scandals from the 1980s and 1990s and accounting and financial fraud at Enron and other companies spurred schools to address ethics in business.  The Internet explosion of the 1990s and 2000s encouraged schools to examine technology and online business mod...

UCLA's Anderson business school is exploring going it alone. No, it won't completely separate itself from the rest of the university. It wouldn't be an outright secession. It won't relinquish the UCLA name. It has decided there might be greater benefits in becoming a self-funding, stand-alone institution at UCLA. In the process, it is studying how it can rely less on the "parent" university or the state for financial support. In turn, it will request the right to determine tuition and fees, set academic standards, and hire and pay what they wish for top faculty talent. Anderson, a Consortium school, has decided that if it can control its finances, preside over all fund-raising and decide what value to put in the cost of an MBA degree, it will attract even greater numbers of high-quality students and improve the MBA experience at UCLA.  There is intrinsic value in being affiliated with the greater UCLA, and it is willing to pay a "tax" for that. It ...

Remember days of yore--when an MBA in finance accepted an offer from an investment bank, commercial bank, brokerage house, trading firm or insurance company in the spring of second year and thereafter embarked on a long career with one firm, one employer?  Shortly after arriving at the firm, the MBA started a training program or entry position--with the expectations of earning promotions every few years and with sights on becoming a senior manager (at the same firm) at the apex of a productive, memorable career. In those days, you had the luxury of failing or slipping up in performance (a few times, not often), as long as you showed drive, loyalty, commitment and some promise. Now and then, you could fail to win a deal, could lose a major client, or could report a decline in revenues. You were reprimanded slightly, gently coached, and learned from experience. You were confident you would get a second chance, and you envisioned a career lasting, oh, 15, 20 or more years. What happen...

Summer, 2011 , has marked a rambunctious time of swirls and volatility in equity markets. It feels like 2008 all over again. Can you stomach it? No, you can't stand it. Nor can you explain it, follow it, track it, quantify it or tolerate it.  A day when equity markets slide 2, 3 or 4 percent is followed by days when they surge, soar or promise that a new bull market is around the corner. And then comes the nose-dive again, another day when selling begets more selling, which contributes to panic and wonder. It churns the inside. Can the old finance texts explain it? Can market watchers and pundits project it? Many think they do.  Do hedge funds and high-frequency traders profit from it? Certainly they try. Are hedge funds and high-frequency traders responsible for it? They certainly contribute to it. Do technical trend-followers try to quantify it or forecast it? Yes, when they unveil graphs, present variance analyses, or analyze "VIX" (market-vo...

Does investment banking still have the same attraction? Do MBA students  still swarm toward investment-banking roles? Do many have dreams of joining a top firm, hitting the ground running doing deals and anticipating big year-end bonuses? After the industry turmoil and a series of setbacks and embarrassments, is investment banking still a hot area? There have been upheaval, backlash and calls for reform since Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns disappeared from the scene. Yet since 2008, trends suggest (a) i-banking is still attractive to many MBA students in finance at top schools and (b) the industry has evolved, but not yet gone through the major overhaul and transformation many predicted or hoped for. Despite public pleas for changes in how banks conduct business and pay bankers and despite sluggish economic recovery and stomach-churning markets, deals are getting done. Companies are going public, issuing long-term debt, or acquiring other companies. Not necessa...

NYU's Damodaran, tops on the list What makes an outstanding business-school professor? Ask a few MBA students, and you might get a dozen answers, a dozen criteria, and many examples.  Many will say the best professors are those who teach with passion, energy and excitement. The subject matter--whether it's first-year corporate finance or the mechanics of an intermediate-accounting course--comes alive. Those are the professors who present the principles of debit-credit accounting or the equations of Black-Scholes in a spirited way--as if they discover gold time and again. Many will say the best are those who share details, memories and stories of having been on the front lines of business, those who were involved in heavyweight corporate strategy, major acquisitions and tense negotiations. They might be adjunct professors who can convey decades of experience within the outlines of a core course. They may have spent years on Wall Street, in boardrooms, or in Europe or Asia in...

Uncertainty. It drives equity markets insane, causing them to swoop, surge, nose-dive and rumble upward, only to swoop and surge again. Investors can't figure out whether to ignore, reallocate, hold or sell. Speculators and high-frequency traders find ways to thrive, often spurring markets toward a  plunge and or meddling to make them bounce like ping-pong balls. Such is the way it has been in this August of market turbulence. It has felt too much like autumn, 2008. At financial institutions--especially at large banks, investment firms or trading houses--uncertainty in the marketplace leads to a degree of certainty in-house.  When markets bounce all over the place and when ongoing threats to a reviving economy slow it down, there are predictable, certain patterns within banks' walls. Examples? 1.  When markets turn downward or signal a downturn of any kind, even if momentary, financial institutions "circle the wagons." They assume worst-...

Summer reading lists.  Everybody tends to have a list of books they want to read, they need to read, or they prefer to read, when the days and weeks before Labor Day mean half-hearted attempts to focus on work or dreamy moments of a planned vacation. In finance the past few years, there has been an explosion of published accounts of the financial crisis. Just when we think there is nothing else to report or analyze as it relates to the collapse of Lehman, Bear Stearns or AIG, out comes another 300-pager. Then comes the summer of 2011. Just when we thought it might be safe to escape for vacation and tote copies of what's on our reading list (in duffel bags or imbedded in a Kindle), the circus of Washington becomes more frenzied. And the markets behave as if it's 2008 all over again. A summer reading list at a time like this? With the daily chaos of global markets, political fisticuffs over sovereign debt levels, S&P punishing politicians and the U.S.'s lackluster ...