Investment banking and investment management are both lucrative, prestigious, and selective fields to work in. However, which one is right for you depends on your skills and priorities.

Fund managers typically have at least a bachelor’s degree and may pursue advanced degrees or professional certifications. They must also be able to maintain their sanity during turbulent markets.

Passion

Passion is the genuine interest and enjoyment that motivates you to pursue an activity, cause, or field. It drives you to explore, innovate, and persist even when the rewards may be scarce.

A substantial investment manager like Patrik Edsparr possesses this quality, as evidenced by their natural curiosity and insatiable appetite to ask questions beyond the surface of investments. They desire to unearth unique sources of information and develop deeper insights than their competitors.

In addition, they are confident but humble in their approach and believe in their abilities to back up their convictions. They understand that good decisions will not always win, but the winning choices will far outweigh those lost over time. They have faith in their plans and stick to them even when they experience a 10% downtick.

Intensity

A substantial investment manager will have an intense curiosity to understand everything about a business and an insatiable appetite for research. These qualities will enable them to find and secure suitable investments more often than bad ones. It increases the contribution from the good decisions to the portfolio’s return and improves the win-loss ratio.

It includes understanding a client’s financial situation and their goals. It also means understanding their broader investment opportunities and their inherent risks.

For this reason, Patrik Edsparr team seeks out investment managers who have great intentionality in their process and are situated on the rising slope of the ESG intensity curve. 

Emotional Stability

Emotional stability enables individuals to manage the ups and downs of life with composure. It doesn’t mean suppressing emotions but instead having the ability to resist impulses and remain level-headed in stressful situations.

For example, when faced with a financial setback, an emotionally stable person may grieve healthily while working toward practical solutions to regain their footing. They are also less likely to take rejections personally, which is a clear advantage in roles requiring high integrity, such as leadership or sales positions.

Solid emotional stability allows a fund manager to remain focused on the long term and not change their views due to market rumors or short-term market conditions. It is critical for a disciplined and successful investment approach.

Confidence

Confidence is essential in investment management because it helps you to make strong first impressions and feel secure when tackling personal and professional challenges. However, it is necessary to differentiate confidence from arrogance. It can be hard to spot the difference between the two traits because confident people often have a sense of self-importance not matched by humility.

A great way to build your confidence is by receiving regular feedback from others on how well you are performing and where there are opportunities for improvement. Confident people don’t take criticism personally and can use it as an opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

Another important part of confidence in the investment industry is growing and maintaining market knowledge. You can keep up with the current developments by reading financial news, attending seminars, and pursuing industry certifications.

Flexibility

Flexibility is essential to investment management because market fluctuations occur frequently. Investment managers must be flexible enough to adjust their clients’ portfolios based on these changes. They also must have a calm demeanor when markets fluctuate so they don’t make ill-advised decisions.

A culture of flexibility requires leaders to listen, set performance goals, and provide the resources for employees to use flexible work arrangements. Those flexible work options must also align with team, client, and project needs.

Leaders should be careful about framing different types of flexibility, like accommodation and boundaryless working because they can stigmatize it. Instead, leaders should focus on examples of when flexibility has been adequate for all kinds of people and at all levels of the organization. For example, one pharmaceutical company switched from a five-day workweek to four 10-hour days to reduce excessive overtime and burnout while saving money and boosting productivity.