Supporting CFA Candidates Inside Your Firm
Designing a program that grows people, not just letters
Many firms say they “support” the CFA Program.
They pay exam fees, maybe buy a set of notes, and call it talent development.
You and I both know that’s not support. That’s sponsoring a lottery.
Why this matters
The CFA designation still carries real weight in capital markets. It attracts intense, conscientious people who are willing to study hard, alone, for years. Those are exactly the people you want to keep and grow.
Handled well, a CFA pathway can:
deepen judgment, not just technical knowledge
create a shared professional language across teams
help you spot future leaders early, while they are still analysts and associates
Handled badly, it can:
burn out your best junior staff
turn into a cynical loyalty test (“real team players write the exam”)
push hyper-credentialled people into narrow lanes with nowhere to grow
quietly damage retention when candidates feel used rather than supported
This service exists for ethically minded firms that want to be on the right side of that line.
What “support” usually misses
Most internal CFA “programs” are a loose pile of good intentions:
You pay for materials and exams.
You let people leave early in the weeks before the test.
You send the odd congratulatory email.
What almost no one thinks through is the full architecture around a candidate’s life:
How many candidates should you sponsor at once, and in which roles?
How will workloads really adjust during study season, not just on paper?
Who carries their work when they are buried in Level II or III?
What happens to the candidate who fails – twice? Do they feel backed, or quietly marked down?
How do you use the designation once they have it, so it isn’t just dead weight after their LinkedIn update?
The risk isn’t only failed exams.
It’s failed relationships with exactly the kind of people you claim to value most.
What we design together
My work with firms is not exam prep. It is architecture.
Together we look at:
1. Suitability and selection
Who should your firm sponsor in the first place, and why?
We explore roles, temperament, career trajectory, and whether the CFA is genuinely aligned with your business and their future, not just fashionable.
2. Time, workload, and health
You can’t “support” a candidate and then load them with peak projects during peak study months. We look at calendars, deal cycles, reporting periods, and design rhythms that don’t quietly sabotage people.
3. Culture around passing and failing
Some of your best future leaders will fail at least one level.
We build a response that avoids shame and panic, and instead treats failure as data: about timing, method, and fit, not about worth.
4. Career pathing after the letters
Too many CFA charterholders hit a plateau inside the very firms that sponsored them. We look at how you’ll use their new capabilities: internal moves, exposure to committees, stretch assignments that match their depth instead of burying them in the same work with a new title.
5. Managing the “hyper-credentialled” risk
The people drawn to the CFA are often the same ones considering MBAs, actuarial fellowships, or second master’s degrees. We talk about how to keep them engaged without turning your firm into a credential arms race, and how to channel their intensity into leadership and stewardship rather than one more exam.
Why I’m useful here
I’ve been in almost every seat involved:
as a CFA candidate who passed all three levels on the first attempt
as an institutional practitioner working in asset allocation and asset–liability modelling
as a global CFA instructor, teaching thousands of candidates in London, the Gulf, Asia and Canada
as a confidant to mid-career professionals who are burnt out, over-credentialled, and wondering whether any of this was worth it
I’ve worked inside firms that get this roughly right: loyalty, depth, and a pipeline of people who can think clearly under pressure.
I’ve also seen what happens when they get it wrong: resentment, attrition, quiet mental-health damage, and a painful mismatch between the firm’s rhetoric about “our people” and the reality of how candidates are treated.
My role is to help you see those risks and opportunities clearly before they show up in your turnover stats or your Glassdoor reviews.
How the work is structured
This is advisory work, not a packaged “program.”
Typically it involves:
conversations with senior leadership, HR and team heads about strategy and reality
confidential small-group or one-to-one conversations with current or recent candidates to understand what it actually feels like on the ground
a set of concrete recommendations on selection, workload, communication, and post-exam career use
optional ongoing partnership as you roll the changes through one or more exam cycles
The bar is high. This service is suited to firms that genuinely want to invest in their people, not those looking for a nice line in a recruitment brochure.
If you’d like to explore what a genuinely supportive CFA ecosystem could look like in your organization, you can reach me directly:
From there, we can decide whether this is a suitable fit – for you, for your people, and for the responsibilities you’re asking them to carry.