I have been admitted to the Booth EMBA with a 20k scholarship. This leaves a shortfall of 150k USD.

My goal is to switch from a senior legal role in an investment bank to a more senior executive role at a hedge fund or similar. Any take on whether this huge investment can really be an amazing leverage for my career? At the moment I don’t think so but happy to be contradicted and to have other views.

Booth invented the EMBA. It has a uniquely strong reputation for data-driven leadership. It's absolutely one of the strongest options, and the cost is a fraction of the uplift in salary most students experience. The question is: is this the best-placed business school network for your goals? Wharton, Columbia and Stern would be better options, assuming you are looking at the USA.

The issue is that I have a full time job in London so I need a local business school or a school with attendance for 5 consecutive days every 5 weeks for example. I checked Wharton and Columbia and I don’t think they offer this. I hadn’t thought of Stern as I thought the reputation was not as strong but I will have a look. 

I have just double checked. Wharton does have an online format but it has the same price as the physical version (so 40k more than Booth) and I doubt you would have the same networking/collegiate feeling. What are your thoughts? Anyone considering that?

The Columbia London EMBA could be an option: https://www.emba-global.com/ 
Are you focussed on the US? LBS is the obvious European option, and that's less costly. 

The LBS/Columbia global MBA is actually priced USD 224,600 which is more than Booth. I agree LBS London is cheaper and could be an option but I feel for good reasons a lot of people do it and Booth might make me stand out a bit more and give me access to a smaller more collegiate group of alumni. The flip side is that their career centre will be much less active than LBS in London but I don’t really expect that to be so relevant for an executive MBA compared to an MBA.

Compare the scale of the alumni networks on your target markets. 

* bump *

Keen to know your final decision. 

I am a project finance lawyer with 10+ years experience and looking to move to an investment role in infrastructure asset managers / investors. Would love to know about your experience, if you don't mind.

I have been admitted to the Booth EMBA with a 20k scholarship. This leaves a shortfall of 150k USD.



My goal is to switch from a senior legal role in an investment bank to a more senior executive role at a hedge fund or similar. Any take on whether this huge investment can really be an amazing leverage for my career? At the moment I don’t think so but happy to be contradicted and to have other views.

[Edited by brick_bock on Oct 23, 2023]

I decided not to attend. I couldn’t face the cost with doubts on the upside. It seems people attend it more to move to buy-side and PE from IB roles in front office. Potentially you could move internally if you are already a legal counsel in-house or move in-house as legal first in a renewable focused fund. 

[Edited by Ypapandr on Oct 23, 2023]

Would the IE-Northwestern Executive LLM be a better and cheaper qualification to support that sort of career move. https://landings.ie.edu/masterland-law-executive-llm-cro 

Thanks. Short and mid term, I have the same doubts on the upside. 

Didn’t quite get your point on people using the EMBA to do the IB to PE switch. I thought this was more the case with full time MBAs. From what I hear, getting into IB with an EMBA is much harder / less likely.

Moving in-house makes much more sense but the prime buy side in-house roles tend to favour big law - makes sense given their lean teams. 

The booth emba alum that I met echoed the sentiment that the very few (2 in their class) managed to get into PE were coming from finance / IB roles. 

The pros aside, unsure about whether an emba is the best tool for this kind of a switch. 

I decided not to attend. I couldn’t face the cost with doubts on the upside. It seems people attend it more to move to buy-side and PE from IB roles in front office. Potentially you could move internally if you are already a legal counsel in-house or move in-house as legal first in a renewable focused fund. 

[Edited by brick_bock on Nov 18, 2023]

One of the people in my LBS EMBA study group went into IB. He was an aerospace engineer during the MBA. But a key fact about PE is that there are so few jobs in PE, and the higher cost of capital has a major impact on PE markets.

Agree on the limited opportunities in PE, Duncan.

The way I see it, if you aren't coming from IB then the only (harder) possible ways in are (a) as an industry / subject matter expert, in which case the roles would likely be managing the portfolio companies / assets rather than the FO investment team deals (where they prefer IB trained resources); or (b) at a partner level, where you bring a lot of relationships / deals.



My comment about EMBA being harder to use for IB, is no reflection on EMBA itself but the fact that entry level IB roles are better suited for younger (who have more time and less responsibilities) professionals than EMBA grads - this doesn't mean one can't do it if they put their head down to it. Unfortunately, the hiring managers for entry level roles also have a templated hiring assignment.



Networking seems pivotal in such a scenario and Booth's smaller alum in Europe feels like a disadvantage on this part. The quality of the program and the brand will surely pay dividends in the long term but short and mid terms seems challenging is what I felt. Happy to hear your thoughts on it.

One of the people in my LBS EMBA study group went into IB. He was an aerospace engineer during the MBA. But a key fact about PE is that there are so few jobs in PE, and the higher cost of capital has a major impact on PE markets.

[Edited by brick_bock on Nov 21, 2023]

Thanks for sharing.



Exec LLMs are on the rise, but don't seem to have the same prestige (I'm sure I'll get some hate for saying this, but so it is) or outcomes in either law or business. I feel that it might be better to commit to a dedicated business curriculum if one wants to switch - a course such as this is good for lawyers who want to learn business concepts but don't plan to switch careers.

Would the IE-Northwestern Executive LLM be a better and cheaper qualification to support that sort of career move. https://landings.ie.edu/masterland-law-executive-llm-cro 

[Edited by brick_bock on Nov 21, 2023]

Hello both, I agree with all that has been said in terms of challenges of a transition. I think the issue at our level is to (A) have a honest look at the structure of the organisation where we are and the potential for movement internally; (B) asses alternatives on the market. On B I think for both derivatives and projects lawyer at a senior level there are two options: move in parallel to a different organisation which has more potential for a progression to MD; (B) move to a more senior role as head of legal in a smaller company. The market is bad at the moment but my take is that B might be a place where it would be easier to develop relationships and leverage on an exec MBA but where maybe the work would be slightly less technical. A like for like move to FO seems impossible. A cheaper alternative could be to pick some specific exec courses for example by LBS in an area which could be of interest to the business (eg AI) and leverage on them internally to become one of the key contacts in a new group on FO side maybe as legal at first.

In terms of update for me the above is all quite relevant, I am interviewing for a role as sole legal counsel with a smaller IB in London and for an ED role with a large US bank. Have been considering the California bar (cannot sit Ny) and courses on AI and have got a 25per cent leadership in excellence scholarship from the LBS EMBA so a few decisions to take. At the moment, I am leaning toward the Cali bar as it would be a hard skill and much cheaper than EMBA and EMBA.