by Lucky Singh, MiF Recruitment Manager
After an amazing year, in which the MiF Recruitment and Admissions team have been travelling around the world meeting prospective students, hosting coffee chats and information sessions, we have now welcomed our new Masters in Finance class to our campus here at Regent’s Park.
This diverse class of 117 full-time students and 74 part-time students are now embarking on their LBS journey. We have around 300 MiF students in our School community counting our latest intakes, our part-time students who started in August 2018 and full-time students who are undertaking the optional 4th Term.
At a glance, our full-time class has an average of 5.6 years work experience, an average age of 29 years and an extremely diverse profile – there are 96% international students with 37 nationalities represented.
Our part-time class has an average of 7 years work experience and an international cohort of 84% international students, representing 32 countries.
The application process for the MiF at LBS is designed to find highly talented, intelligent finance professionals who will benefit from the learning experience and contribute to the vibrant community at LBS, both inside and outside the classroom. Moreover, we aim to create a diverse class, taking into consideration nationality, gender and ensuring a wide range of representation from different sectors in the finance profession.
Having so many nationalities represented on the programme adds an abundance of different perspectives to classroom and study group discussions – how business is done is very much influenced by cultural factors, as well as by the different regulatory regimes worldwide.
We are also looking for a strong representation of women in the class and have scholarships and activities in place to support this. Our full-time class is 30% female, and our part-time class is 23% female. While the proportion of women falls below what we would like to see, it is increasing, reflecting the greater number of women joining the finance profession.
Regarding financial experience, we have no set quotas for areas of finance. However, we are fortunate to have an excellent cross section of professionals applying for the programme from various areas of finance such as: investment banking, corporate finance, asset management, hedge funds, venture capital, private equity, brokerage, private wealth management, family offices, regulators, central banks and finance ministries, auditors and increasingly people from FinTech. We also have an increasing number of students from the finance functions in corporates who are on track to become CFOs. We also have students who come from a less obvious background, but nevertheless add great richness to the mix – lawyers working on financial transactions, finance journalists and management consultants advising in the finance sector for example. Above all, you need to have a passion for finance and the commitment and motivation to succeed on the programme and in your career.
It is our diverse, talented Masters in Finance class, which has seen the full-time MiF consistently named the world’s number one post-experience programme in the Financial Times rankings.
If you are a finance professional considering the programme but not sure if your experience is a good fit for the MiF why not submit your CV for review. You can also look at the detailed profiles of our current classes by downloading the relevant class directory.