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Talk about being in the right place at the right time with the right answer and the hubris to believe I could excel at something I had never done before! Even though I had no idea what I was getting myself into, my wife Linda and I needed the money and I had come to respect Carl a great deal during my short tenure as his student.

I gave him an enthusiastic “yes!” and dove in headfirst. Carl disliked writing about economics and I came to Iowa with an undergraduate degree in economics, so he rolled the dice on me. Carl approached me to see if I would be interested in writing the economics summaries for a new set of study guides he was putting together to help candidates pass the CFA exams. These two individuals should, in theory, be on equal footing.ĭuring the summer of 1990, I was a lowly finance graduate student at The University of Iowa. Put plainly, an individual from Manchester, UK that’s passed the exams and fulfilled the other requirements for earning the credential has presumably checked the same boxes and has the same competency foundation as someone who comes from a more prestigious market or university. After all, the CFA designation was, and still is, thought of as a “talent leveler” and a geographic mobility tool. Louis, Minneapolis, Denver, and all manner of smaller markets were just as smart and deserved the opportunity to earn the credential that served as a gateway into the industry. While that may be a bit of a historical dramatization, the reality of the day is not too far removed from my description.Ĭarl believed that students from Iowa City, St. In the 1980s and early 1990s, there was the perception that you had to have graduated from Wharton, NYU, or the London School of Economics and live in or near a major financial center like Boston, New York City, Tokyo, Hong Kong, or London to have a shot at a career in the field of investment management. He had spent years distilling difficult financial and economic concepts into understandable core components for his students at The University of Iowa and felt that if he extended that model to prospective CFA candidates, more individuals would begin to view the examination process as achievable. He wanted to open the doors of this then-current exclusive club to more people around the world. Instead of using unnecessary complexity as a barrier to entry, he wanted his study guides to be more approachable and inclusive.

An Alternative ApproachĬarl thought differently. One of the running jokes within finance circles regarding a leading provider of study materials at the time was that their summaries were longer and more complex than the academic source materials they were derived from.

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The study options that were available to candidates during the 1980s were limited to the aforementioned cram course and a few providers of study manuals that were very academic and unapproachable. I am a proud holder of this designation.Īnyway, Carl came home from SSFA in the spring of 1990 with the idea that there had to be a better way to help individuals prepare for the three levels of the CFA examination. While there are over 200,000 candidates who sit for the exams globally today, in 1990, the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program was small and very niche.

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Edward Rosenbaum, CFA, SSFA was the destination for prospective charterholders to gather for a weeklong crash course to pass the rigorous series of examinations which are part of the criteria for earning the prestigious Chartered Financial Analyst ( CFA ) designation.įor those who are not familiar with this industry-recognized credential, the CFA ® designation is an important proficiency and work readiness signal for investment research analysts, portfolio managers, risk managers, corporate finance analysts, high net worth investment advisors, and other key jobs in the investment management field. On the trip home, a lightning bolt of inspiration had struck him.įounded in 1965 by Dr. In the spring of 1990, my mentor, Carl Schweser, had just finished his teaching duties at the Study Seminar for Financial Analysts (SSFA) at the University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario.