Hi
mbaMission team,
Could you evaluate the strength and weakness of my profile? My sense is that I am a bit ahead on the age curve and I don't have much extra-curricular or peculiar interests to shout about... am targeting Wharton, HBS, Columbia, Stanford (all super-top unis in the US, not sure if I have the right profile and + whether I should focus on Europe since they tend to accept older applicants... super appreciate your overall advice on this)
+ Background:- 29 years old
- Asian male
+ Work experience: 5+ years in one of the biggest fund management companies (buy-side) in South-East Asia (SEA) (AUM: >$50 billion)
- Position 1: Corporate Finance Analyst (4+ years)- did corporate exercises involving public & private portfolio companies (e.g. M&A, demerger, turnaround etc.), restructuring of Board of portfolio companies, monitoring of portfolio companies, review of corporate strategy of portfolio companies (ala-shareholder activist, but in SEA) - the role involves a lot of discussion/meetings with CEO and Senior Management of my company as well as the Board, CEOs and CFOs of the portfolio companies.
- Position 2: Investment Strategist (1+ years) - currently managing a small team to help devise overall investment/asset allocation strategy for funds under management (involves developing macroeconomic + asset class views and coordinating work with tonnes of people from different departments in my company).
+ Letter of recommendation: I am planning to have my current boss (who internally head-hunted me) and my previous big boss (top 5 in the company), who has worked closely with me in Corp Finance
+ GMAT: 720
+ Certifications: CFA (chartered), FRM (chartered)
+ Post-MBA goals:- Short-term: Fund management role in a global asset management firm / hedge fund
- Long-term: Chief Investment Officer in my home country
+ Education:- Graduated from top 10 universities in the world / top 4 in the UK (think Cambridge, Imperial, Oxford, UCL)
- First-class Honours (highest category in UK grading system)
- Degree: Comp Science
+ Awards:- Won scholarship awards for A-Levels and University studies
- Awarded one of the high performing employees in my company
+ Extra-curricular (university)- President of Fairtrade club
- University Volunteer
- Committee member in a UK Student Body for my country
- Internships (tech roles in investment arm of a large UK insurance company and top 3 IBs (think Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley)
+ Extra-curricular (post-university)- Co-founded an in-house company programme where we taught English and Mathematics to underprivileged high-school students and mentored them for 3+ years
- Managed and developed a financial education programme for an annual investment education event for 4 consecutive years - the programme involves having participants playing interesting games that emphasize the importance of financial planning (6000++ participants every year)
- Am starting an online and app-based financial education programme (in the midst)
+ Interests:- Reading
- Programming
Many thanks for your help!