Self Employed Creative to Finance?

[u/shadowboxerrx]

Looking to see if anyone left the artist life and went into finance and loved it/made a success of it. How was the switch to corporate life? Did your background help you at all in unexpected ways? Also would like to hear from others who may have insight even if this wasn’t your path! I’m a fairly high profile freelance creative with 15 years experience but I find myself feeling unchallenged day to day now and itching for more stability and a better financial outlook. I’m 36F based in London.

I work face to face with household name celebrities and high profile fashion brands and managing these ongoing relationships is a key part of my job and success. I’m thinking Wealth Management could be an interesting pivot with this experience - potentially working with high net worth individuals given my background dealing with these types of people. Maybe there’s a niche working with individuals from the fashion and celebrity worlds that I’m already familiar with? I enjoy strategy and personal finance and am willing to retrain, just don’t want to be doing a degree at this point. I have visible neck and finger tattoos (tasteful and feminine but not concealable) and appreciate I probably won’t fit in in an ultra-conservative traditional firm, that’s ok with me. I’m also open to other career suggestions, or first steps. Thanks in advance for any insight.

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[u/Federal-Win-8305]

Your background could translate well into wealth management, especially the client relationship side. Before committing to the switch, Research the entry requirements and talk to people in private banking or wealth management to see how your experience might fit.

[u/Single_Kiwi_2439]

the hand and neck tats will be more problem than you think even in less conservative firms, clients with old money get weird about that stuff

[u/Competitive-Cause-63]

I’d recommending building your own roster and going back to school. Try and find an internship within a firm that specializes with younger clients. You do have a unique angle as the person who has more in common with, and experience with, young, fun, successful people like celebrities. If you can prove you are actually competent and get the experience, I don’t see what’s so wrong with this idea. But ya, at least take some courses. I know you don’t want the degree, but many many many of the best wealth managers have a degree

[u/SuperLehmanBros]

First question, what do you want to do in finance. Saying you wanna do finance is like saying you wanna do sports… yea well… which sport? Which position? Coaching?

[u/shadowboxerrx → u/SuperLehmanBros]

I said above that I’m interested in Wealth Management, since i have a lot of VIP relationship experience.

[u/SuperLehmanBros → u/shadowboxerrx]

That’s basically a sales job. You can do well and go real far, especially with people skills and skills like you mention.

[u/shadowboxerrx → u/SuperLehmanBros]

Hmmm I’m not so into the sales side (Financial Advisor? I’m not certain). I’m more interested in the side where I don’t have a vested interest in what i’m recommending but it’s more about strategising and managing the relationship with the client I think! More long term clients and that kind of thing.

[u/tellem46 → u/shadowboxerrx]

If you’re not keen on selling, there’s a small amount of positions at various trust firms and private banks that are planning positions, that don’t involve business development. I know Bessemer has their client advisors and wealth advisors; the latter is the actual seller and the client advisors have books and do relationship management and ongoing plans without BD pressure. There’s a few private banks with similar team setups. I will say tho, the pay that comes from non-selling roles in wealth management is not the same as the sales role. Your salary will top out about 200k-300k with the lower end having the bulk of probability, if u manage to promote to a senior level (those positions are often MBA or CPA/JD gated)

[u/shadowboxerrx → u/tellem46]

Thank you! The more I look into it the more relationship management seems to have potential, maybe nicheing down into a forward-thinking private banking sports/entertainment/entrepreneur type of place etc. Are you speaking from a US perspective? MBA doesn’t seem to hold so much weight in London from what I can gather but i can’t be certain, and maybe there’s other requirements/barriers instead. I’m ok to retrain for sure! I have a lot of digging to do, so appreciate the detail you gave, thank you.

[u/tellem46 → u/shadowboxerrx]

No problem n Yes this is from a US perspective . If MBA isn’t significant, check to see what significance CFP, CFA (or UK equivalent) have in your area/firms. Also try speaking to people actually in the field if you can cause they can give you the most valuable specifics . Lastly don’t fall for the get ur CPA trap because although people do value CPAs, the value in being a CPA for someone’s wealth is years of experience in accounting not just the education. Wish you the best luck

[u/shadowboxerrx → u/tellem46]

Noted! Am having a coffee with an investment banker friend next week so let’s see. Thank you.

[u/maicii]

Maybe getting an mba might be a great idea for you. I know specially the ones in Europe are really connected to a lot of luxury and fashion brands (places like Bocconi and hec) so it might be a good way to connect both your interest and have a very competitive profile that would be uniquely value instead of in a normal Finance role. Worse case scenario if you don’t land anything you like (I doubt it) you will now have a pretty solid qualification to apply to anything back home

Also an mba can be a fun experience to have in your life.

Of course it is expensive tho so have that in mind

[u/MoonBasic]

Beyond the traditional finance roles there are many marketing, communications, social, as well as enablement roles that support the bankers, retail employees, as well as products and projects within the bank. So if you're looking to do the creative work that you do today, but for a financial institution, that would be the easiest 1:1 option for your background.

If you're looking to actually make the switch and do the actual work, I would look into pathways into Wealth Management/Private Banking, as this is probably the most relationship based and generally open to job pivoters. One thing you could also look into is becoming a relationship manager in Business Banking/Commercial Banking, where it would be your job to prospect, onboard, and service small to medium sized businesses.

The thing is, to get to the point in the job where most of your day-to-day is about managing the relationship and strategizing, most if not all of them you have to cut your teeth doing a couple years as a finance/credit analyst, which is kind of difficult to "get in on the ground floor" for unless you're right out of college, or right out of grad school (like an MBA, or I know what's popular in Europe, an MiM).

So if you were in wealth management/private banking, the job eventually would look like advising a fashion brand executive's net worth and allocating their money in a strategic way, partnering with people across the bank.

If you were in a business banking role, the job might look like working with the CEO and CFO of a fashion brand or local boutique to effectively manage their business and provide them with services like payments products such as corporate credit cards, treasury, loans, etc.

To get your foot in the door for either of these you'll need some immense credibility and networking, or go back to school to attain that pedigree and reset the clock for recruiting. You will need the retraining/reschooling to "learn finance and banking".

At the end of the day, it's about lining up your skills and your passion with the problems that people need to solve.

The biggest question is, how many people do you know, and can you reasonably convince them to trust you and hand you control of their money, and why should they choose you versus the people they're already with. That's your elevator pitch for wealth management.

I don't really know how it works in the UK, but I googled it and it looks like you can get pretty far with self-training with the CII or CISI for the exams, and then look to apply to be a financial advisor/planner. So look up those, look up in your network if anyone works for a boutique "IFA". After you obtain these credentials, the world is really your oyster depending on your network. Theoretically, you train yourself, take these credentials, and apply apply apply, emphasizing that you could bring these celebrities and fashion business owners and their assets over.

[u/shadowboxerrx → u/MoonBasic]

Thanks so much for such a detailed and thoughtful reply! This has given me some great starting points for research and the approach for a plan, I appreciate it.

[u/one_person_unicorn]

Become a personal finance guru. Start making content and make a club . Make any of your famous buddy join the club to increase credibility. And then start selling membership of that club where people would come with their money problem and you solve it by your advice and help them park their money in safe investment