My objectives of blogging and views on Wealth management

The objective of starting this blog is to help my MBA students with additional content to get a better perspective of the subjects discussed. This trimester, I am teaching two courses, Wealth management and Entrepreneurship, in Christ University Institute of Management in Bangalore. Through this blog, I intend to share my views and contents on these two subjects.


Let me start with Wealth management.

I believe wealth management is not just for MBA finance students –every graduate must go through the basics of wealth management. After all each one of us should know how to manage our own wealth. As one progresses in life and career, one will earn and save – with the expectation of India’s economy growing at 8% and above for the coming decade – everyone will do well financially in the years to come - and in that context, everyone needs to have a long term plan for achieving what I call “financial independence” – a stage where one does not need to work to earn a living – a stage when the money saved and invested gives you enough returns to fund your lifestyle. Once you reach this stage of financial independence, you can be free to follow your dreams.

There are many ways of doing this – and wealth management will expose you to the various ways this can be achieved. This course is a journey where you will learn about various asset classes where you can invest -you will learn the role of insurance in wealth management - we will discuss retirement planning and estate planning - plus we will discuss the wealth management industry in India and what is required to succeed if you want to make this your career. Through this course, you will also realise that the earlier you start in this journey, the better it will be for you. As you learn to manage your own wealth – you would be better equipped to manage other’s wealth too. Then you are truly a wealth manager.

Warren Buffet had once said “Wall street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take a subway”. It is similar here in India – many young wealth managers in India do not practice wealth management in their personal lives - and that is what we need to change.

Looking around, I do not see much activity in this space addressed at the common man –there are courses for specialists – but for a common man there is not much training available – there is one company called Finshiksha (http://finshiksha.com/) that is starting to do some good work in creating awareness for wealth management for the common man in India.

My course is intended to help you become financially independent early in life – I will help you to make a long term (30 year) financial plan for yourself - I believe that if you can manage your own wealth, then you will be truly qualified to become a professional wealth manager – if that’s what you want to do in life.