Overview
In recent years our graduates have pursued careers in a wide range of finance sectors, alongside traditional banking roles, our graduates have progressed into venture capital and private equity, impact investing and fintech. The fintech sector has exploded in recent years, disrupting traditional financial business models and opening up opportunities for our graduates to work in cutting edge technologies to provide new solutions for investors.
Our finance faculty are leaders in their fields and are at the cutting edge of financial research. The Finance & Accounting subject group focuses on business finance, financial policy, empirical corporate finance, investment management, financial reporting stock markets.
The Business School has retained its value to financial services employers by conducting innovative research, reviewing the curriculum and bringing practitioners into the classroom to ensure that what is taught is relevant, current and cutting-edge.
We produce graduates that are in demand from global finance organisations. We are closely engaged with hiring banks and finance institutions and understand what they look for in their new recruits.
of graduates who went into finance took jobs in VC/PE
Statistics shown are from the most recent Cambridge MBA employment report.
The Cambridge MBA can progress your finance career
Want to be an investment banker?
We meet a Cambridge MBA alumna working in this sector and ask how her MBA education skills led her into a career in investment banking. We also hear from industry experts about what is involved to do well in this sector.
Finance career outcomes
From investment banking to impact investing, discover how our MBA alumni transitioned into the global financial services sector.
So you want to work in Finance? – events focus
We will be holding a new series of career focused events this Summer. In the meantime, please view the recording from the event – So you want to work in Finance? Pivot, perform, progress.
Hear from Maria Ichizawa
Why I wanted an MBA
I definitely decided that I wanted to do an MBA because I didn’t have that finance background – I really wanted a better understanding of capital markets, the investing landscape to be able to go into ESG investing, sustainable investing and sustainable finance. The MBA was really crucial in giving me some of those hard skills: the overview, the background and also exposure to people who had worked in the sector.
A change of role
My background was in sustainability so I’m still in the same sector of ESG investing but my role is very different. Before it was more on the consulting side doing advisory for corporate clients and now I’m more on the investor side, the finance side. I worked in Tokyo before the MBA and I wanted to transition to the US so being able to make that transition using a school in the UK I think is maybe a little bit different from other people’s paths but it really worked out for me. So I’m on the Global Sustainable Finance Team and we basically partner with the different business units of Morgan Stanley. So we’re working with Institutional Securities, with institutional investors, with Wealth Management and we’re partnering to help them push forward sustainable solutions and products.
The Sustainable Investing Challenge
I actually participated in a competition when I was at Cambridge Judge which was the Sustainable Investing Challenge hosted by my current team so that’s kind of how I learned about the team. And actually that was how I created some connections and that was the way that I got my CV seen by the hiring manager. With the Careers’ team it was great because they actually connected me with an internship in the summer with their GCP client connections and so that turned into a summer internship with an asset manager which, for me, I didn’t have a finance background before the MBA so that was a great first step and really was critical in getting my current position.
It was definitely a combination of the hard skills that I learned in the finance concentration in the courses but I think also the soft skills that I learned through some of the projects. So I think that the GCP and CVP, being able to collaborate with people with different strengths, different backgrounds, that’s something I use every day.
Maria who works in Global Sustainable Finance at Morgan Stanley in New York, talks about how she chose the Cambridge MBA to gain the skills and experience to transition into impact investing and the finance services sector.
Hear from Rachel Buchholtzer
I currently work for RBC in their wealth management division. I’m in a leadership development programme. I found my role through the careers team at Cambridge Judge – I saw a WebEx message about a women in wealth management event and you know it wasn’t something that had been completely on my radar but I had realised I had an interest in finance through the coursework in the MBA and thought why not attend and I feel really grateful to the careers team and to my MBA colleagues. I had a lot of support in getting the role. When I decided to do an MBA it was kind of in the peak of the pandemic and I realised that I wanted to career change of some kind I wanted to do something different. I felt like I had learned a lot. I used to work in the art world and I felt like I learned a lot there but I was ready for a new challenge.
I did switch a few things career-wise. I switched jobs – I moved as I said from the arts to finance which was a big jump – so sector yes, role yes, so right now I’m back in Canada in Toronto but the plan is to move to London after a year so in that sense, likely I will have switched all three.
The careers team were really great sounding board to kind of talk through where I was at, what I was thinking they provided a lot of great contacts when I was doing the initial phase of research and networking and getting to know people in jobs that I thought I might want. So that was very helpful.
I felt really honored to be part of the community of women at Cambridge Judge and the MBA cohort was just so impressive in every way. In terms of representing women in our class, the year was really intense and I feel that there were a lot of community events that were able to be put
together and a really nice bond that was formed and I hope I had some small part in that, but I think it was a collective effort.
I think in terms of advice I would give to someone starting their MBA: have confidence in your own skill set and so I would say if you have a unique background don’t let it hold you back and definitely own it.
The diversity of professional backgrounds that the Cambridge MBA takes on board as students was a big kind of driving factor for me in choosing the programme.
Rachel Buchholtzer, Canada, was ready for a new challenge when she stepped out of the art world and into the banking sector. A big factor for her in choosing the programme was the diversity of sectors and backgrounds across the MBA cohort and the School more widely.
This year’s employment report
Our MBA employment report captures employment data for the Cambridge MBA class of 2022/23 – our most recently graduated class.
These results confirm the variety of options available to Cambridge MBAs after their studies, and also the established appeal of the versatile Cambridge Master of Business Administration (MBA) graduates to a wide range of international employers.
We have provided pre-employment data to illustrate the transformative career pathways our students often take.
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