Q1: What is your current job?
A1: I am a member of Lazard’s Japanese equity portfolio management team, which manages the assets of our institutional clients in Japan and overseas. I am also the lead PM for Lazard’s KAGURA Japanese small cap equity strategy, which has a focus on engagement. As an analyst, I cover the Japanese medical technology and specialty retail sectors.
Q2: What made you decide to take the CFA exam?
A2: I worked as a junior management consultant in Tokyo in the 1990s and wanted to move to the investment management industry. I realized that studying the CFA curriculum would be helpful in that transition.
Q3: How old were you when you obtained your CFA, and how many years were you in the workforce? Sample (I was working for a few years before I got my CFA designation.)
A3: I was in my early 30s when I obtained the CFA. I had worked 3 years in management consulting, and 1.5 years in an international development bank prior to that.
Q4: How much financial and mathematical knowledge did you have before starting the CFA designation?
A4: I had a base, but improved it substantially though studying the curriculum.
Q5: How did you progress your study for CFA Program, keeping balance with family, work and personal life ?
A5: I was single at the time, so it was not so difficult. At the time, we could only take the test in June, so I recall spending nice spring weekends mostly inside studying! A bit sad, but worth it.
Q6: Did anything change after obtaining your CFA?
A6: I felt a lot more confident analyzing companies and doing fundamental analysis.
Q7: Do you think the CFA is useful for career development? Or Does CFA help you in your current job or networking? How has your CFA designation helped you with your personal wealth management or private financial savings?
A7: CFA has helped in all these areas. We have a great CFA Japan Society community, which did help me to find my way to the current position with Lazard in an indirect way. I attended many CFAJ-sponsored events in the 1990s and 2000s. At these events, I would always try to meet the main speaker, who was often a well-known investment manager or other thought leader. I also enjoyed meeting the other attendees, many of whom were CFA charter holders and candidates. So, while my main objective to attend was not networking, I now realize that these connections were valuable to my career development, and have led me down the path to where I am now.
Q8: Would you send a message of support to those who are thinking about taking the CFA exam?
A8: I am now excited about the opportunity in Japan, where there are nearly 4,000 listed equities. Many of them likely to be value traps or unattractive as investments for other reasons. So it is crucial to have strong fundamental research ability as an active manager with the aim to avoiding the value traps in order to assemble a portfolio of companies with superior fundamentals and valuations. In addition, while Japanese management behavior is mostly changing in favor of increased value creation due to policy reforms, the pace of change is not uniform across companies and is often not clear until investors meet with multiple management teams over time and across industries. Because English language disclosure and speaking ability are generally poor, Japanese language skills are also essential. Finally, the level of sell-side coverage in Japan is much lower than it is in the United States and Europe and is increasingly focused on the needs of hedge funds, which often leads to a focus on quarterly earnings surprises. Based on all of the above, if you are interested in looking at Japanese companies, the CFA will give you a substantial edge and will be worth the investment of your time. I am sure this applies to other areas of the investment field as well.