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Name - Tom Walsh
Job title: Investment Analyst
Name of Organisation worked for: Baillie Gifford
What are your primary responsibilities?
Responsible for the research and analysis of companies across the UK market, generation of new investment ideas and monitoring day to day newsflow across assigned sectors.
How do you spend your time?
My time is primarily split between reviewing daily newsflow (5-10%), carrying out detailed company analysis (50%), meeting with company management (5%), meeting with external analysts (5%), internal investment discussions and debates (10%), writing up research notes (20-25%). Percentage splits can vary considerably by week.
What is typical career progression in this job area?
Typical progression is from analyst to fund manager though some people move onto the client service side of the business. Ultimate career progression at Baillie Gifford would be to partnership.
What do you enjoy most/what motivates you in your job?
The diversity of challenge and degree to which I learn new things every day. This is a job that challenges me day to day but also allows me a good work life balance because performance can be clearly measured in terms of results rather than hours spent at my desk.
What would you do if you were trying to start out in this job area?
If this is where you want to be long term I would recommend looking into the graduate schemes offered by fund managers such as Baillie Gifford. Such schemes are almost certainly the fastest route to managing money however, as my career path shows, it is not impossible to move into fund management later in life. In many cases I would suggest that having experience out in the real world is a considerable asset for the long term.
What is typical career progression in this job area?
Typical career progression at Baillie Gifford is to join on the graduate scheme, progress through the standard three year training programme, develop as an analyst before being given fund management responsibilities. Once managing money, your future will largely be dependent on your long term performance as not everyone will be cut out for the job. Those for whom fund management is not the right thing may move into the client service side of the business or simply remain as analysts.
What skills are most critical to success in this area?
Analytical ability, inquisitiveness and an ability to see the potential opportunities and pitfalls facing a company before the rest of the market does.
How useful have your legal skills, knowledge and experience, from your studies and/or your work in the legal profession, been in this area of work?
The analytical skills developed during my degree have provided a very useful grounding throughout my career. Distant memories of commercial, company and contract law have occasionally contributed to my analysis of specific situations though it would be overstating the case to say they have been called on regularly.
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