In this episode of CFI’s Member Spotlight, we sit down with Celine Chaabani, a CFI learner and recent graduate. She candidly shares how she went from avoiding finance to actively pursuing a career in capital markets and credit analysis.

Celine originally studied general management and had little interest in finance. But her curiosity grew after watching friends trade stocks and exploring the markets independently. That curiosity led her to CFI’s Capital Markets & Securities Analyst (CMSA®) program. This turning point helped her understand how markets move, what drives volatility, and where she might fit in.

Through short-term internships in credit, investment banking, and macro research, Celine quickly determined what she liked (and didn’t like). Now, she’s wrapping up her Master’s in Financial Markets, eyeing future roles in credit and alternatives, and preparing to pursue her CFA and CAIA. This conversation is valuable for anyone considering a transition into finance without a traditional background.

Transcript

Meeyeon (00:11)
Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of CFI’s Members Spotlight, my favorite series where we get to know members of our CFI community. And today I have the privilege of being here with Celine. Welcome Celine.

Celine (00:27)
I thank you.

Meeyeon (00:29)
And I find that personally, and I’ve shared this with you before, but I find that there are a lot fewer women in the CFI community that are active that I get to meet. So I’m super excited to be talking to you today. And I’m going to open up the discussion because it’s super broad, ⁓ our member spotlight series. But the whole point of it is just to get to know members of CFI.

where you’re at in your career, what you’re doing, and make this the most accessible coffee chat in the world for anyone who’s curious what someone else that might be taking CFI courses is doing. And I guess my only kind of question to you is, where did you get your interest in finance? Did you have a parent that was working in finance and is that what sparked your interest? Or did you kind of just go to university and figure out, like this is kind of

this is something that I’m interested in.

Celine (01:27)
Well, two people actually influenced my choices. The first one being my friend. I used to see her and go out with her a lot, but she used to always be on her phone trading stocks all the time. Like whenever the market opens, she’s on her phone trading, even though like we’re hanging out together, you know. I was always curious about it. Like the stock market.

Meeyeon (01:51)
My gosh.

Celine (01:56)
I didn’t know anything about the stock market. I just knew how to like open the app, just like see those charts and I wouldn’t understand a thing. And then my partner also, he graduated with a finance degree. So that also like made me wonder like, what’s so interesting about like finance and I used to dislike finance as a matter of fact.

I used to think that I would never get into finance and…

Meeyeon (02:28)
Where did you think that you were gonna, what was the first natural interest that you wanted to pursue?

Celine (02:35)
stocks as well. Yeah. You mean before, before I was, I actually graduated with a Bachelor’s in General Management. So, I mean, like I took one or two courses in finance, but it was more financial accounting than and I did take a course in financial markets. But for me, it didn’t really pique my interest.

Meeyeon (02:36)
Really? Okay, so it is finance.

Yeah.

Celine (03:04)
So it was mostly from the people around me and I started being curious and then as I graduated I would tell my parents like there is no way I would do a master’s in finance. Absolutely no way. But somehow I at that time I was also ⁓ practicing on trading stocks like with with fake money.

Meeyeon (03:31)
Okay.

Celine (03:33)
And I thought I like, I think I kind of performed well at some point. And then I just stopped and moved on till like after I graduated ⁓ my bachelor’s. And then somehow I think I came across the CFI Global Markets Certificate.

And I started doing the courses and that’s when I also decided on doing my master’s in financial markets.

Meeyeon (04:15)
That’s so funny. Usually what I find that always brings people to CFI is the financial modeling and valuations program, but you found the capital markets one. My goodness, so fun.

Celine (04:26)
Yeah, no, no.

Actually, the thing that made me go for CMSA instead of other designations is the fact that I felt curious about how the markets move, what makes them move. And like, I just want to understand, know, you know, it’s like doing the math and how well, how do I get this number? I do this and I do that like.

For me, this is how the markets are. I wanted to know what news would move the markets up, what news they would move it down. You also have ⁓ releases during the months. ⁓ For example, the Fed, when they release ⁓ numbers, you have to know how would that impact the market. And also…

I think that, yeah, that’s just it. For the first part.

Meeyeon (05:26)
And so you did your undergraduate in general management, but then you’ve gone on to do more education. Did you do, take us through like what your path was? Did you do your undergrad and then did you know that, okay, like I wanna get work experience before I pursue further education? But yeah, what was your next step after your general management degree?

Celine (05:51)
So general management and practicing trading for a little while and then finding out that I actually don’t want to do anything. I really don’t want to do finance because for me, initially finance was more of like, like what you said, like ledgers, financial accounting, like that’s really, that’s not really my cup of tea. And after that, I came across the CFI website

and at the same time the CFA and at the same time I just learned more about my university’s master’s program in financial markets and the whole thing like kind of influenced me to be like let’s maybe give it a shot and I took the CFI first, the CMSA.

I had a couple of courses left that I didn’t complete until this year, but that was like two years ago before my masters. And so after I did those courses, I wanted to apply to the masters, but figured that I would need like some experience to have like a good resume. And I didn’t have that at all.

So I applied to a first local bank that is really known in the Middle East, in Lebanon. It’s called Blom Bank. I applied just like randomly, a random internship and something more than just financial accounting and something like more related to what I wanted to do. And they put me in credit and facilities. And let me tell you, I actually liked that a lot.

It was, I mean, they didn’t like dump all the work on me. So it was kind of like I could handle it. It wasn’t too much. And ⁓ that did involve some ledgers because credit, have to see how they’re doing, see their ratios, the company’s ratios and how like they use their cash. And if we lend them any credit and facility,

how would they repay that? Can they repay that? So that was very interesting. I did that for, I think two months. I think I did it for one or two months, something like that. And then I moved on to the next internship, because for me, I said that I would want between six months probably of experience, just to have a strong portion.

Meeyeon (08:42)
Yeah, because I find that it’s for me,

I did the same thing. I whenever I did my undergraduate degree, I did a couple of internships. I want to say altogether it was a year of experience. But similarly to you, I remember when I first started looking for internships, the first one was always challenging because what do I put on my resume? I just have school. And at that point, I’m like, you know, 17 or 18. But I think my first internship, I

Celine (08:53)
Mm-hmm.

It. Yeah.

Meeyeon (09:11)
It’s actually so hard to remember because it’s so far back, but I did an internship in ⁓ one of our private equity funds at Brookfield. And at that point I did some review of the fund accounting there. It was more of helping get the fund launched that I was there for, which was really fun as an intern. But yeah, it’s so funny because in the beginning when I think people have a tendency to think of finance as, you’re to be a CPA, you’re going to be an accountant.

Celine (09:20)
Lesson.

Yes, it was.

Meeyeon (09:40)
But for me,

it was personally different because my dad was in finance. So I knew a little bit more about markets. He was in commodities. But it’s always fun to see how people get exposed to it. it always seems to be the lure and the interest of equity markets. Did you get any exposure or interest in fixed income?

Celine (09:58)
Yeah.

Fixed income? Not really. I mean, credit. It’s kind of related to fixed income because you have credit.

Meeyeon (10:11)
Yeah, credit is like, it’s like kind of like a bond basically. 

Celine (10:14)
Yeah, because you have credit risk that applies to both. I would say that after credit, I actually went into IB for a couple of weeks. For me, it was also not my cup of tea. And then the third internship was actually market research, macroeconomics, market research.

Meeyeon (10:26)
Mm-hmm.

Celine (10:43)
That’s not fixed income, but it’s more capital markets.

Meeyeon (10:48)
So something that I find very interesting about you and what I think is really admirable is that you very quickly can decide, okay, I really like this, this is interesting for me, or this is not necessarily my cup of tea. Because I find that generally people take a lot longer to figure out that it’s not for them.

Celine (11:01)
Yes.

I was, you know, if you asked me like a couple of months ago or last year when I joined the masters, I really had no idea what I wanted to do. Like even when you join our masters, you go either into asset management or IB and most of the students actually know what they want, but I didn’t know till I took the core courses and I just found out that IB even the…

Even the hours in IB are too long and I don’t see myself as a person that doesn’t have a life, a personal life and a work-life balance. So that’s when I decided that no, like IB is not for me. And then I started digging into asset management to see what I really liked. And so my experience came before my master’s obviously, and I ended that period with a summer analyst program with AmplifyME.

Meeyeon (12:09)
Yeah, which CFI had, I think we still have our partnership going on, but I loved the, we’ve done an immersive experience with it, it’s really fun.

Celine (12:13)
No, it’s true.

Yeah, I’m not sure but I’m actually like I like how they have partnerships with everyone because they also had a partnership with my with my school and like there are many events and I also had one course taught by someone that I think well, I forgot who it was but I think he’s probably the CEO. I’m not sure if he’s the CEO

or he’s someone that actually teaches some part of the program. But honestly, very interesting. Now, for me, I’m still a little bit torn between credit analysis and between capital markets or like macroeconomics research. I really like both. And ⁓ I had a course in alternative investments.

During my curriculum and I found that I actually loved it So this is like when you, when you spoke about private equity like nice, like I would like to try that

Meeyeon (13:28)
And you’re the first person that I’m speaking to based in, well, you’re not currently based in Lebanon, but that’s where you plan to be longer term, right?

Celine (13:36)
more. Yeah, like that’s where I’m coming back anyway.

Meeyeon (13:41)
What are the finance opportunities like in Lebanon?

Celine (13:44)
Well, I mean, like all the experience I spoke to you about, minus AmplifyME was based there at local leading banks, especially in the Middle East. They’re really known and they have many locations in the Middle East, not just Lebanon, but mainly based in Lebanon. And other than that, mostly I can say that the market is about consulting.

Meeyeon (13:52)
Mm-hmm.

Celine (14:10)
Consulting, you have some family offices for P.E. and alternatives. Not a lot though. And you also have some form of credit. That’s what I’m saying, that it’s purely outside of the banks. There is also a… Funny thing is there is something new called also CFI.

But it’s a platform for trading. So you also have that. You have… I wouldn’t say banks. I would say like corporations that offer credit cards, credit card payments. And I think they use like Fresh Dollar, which is not the dollar that… which is not like… which is not what you have in the bank.

So I think it’s you deposit cash and then you use the credit card. I’m not really sure honestly. And you have like cashback opportunities.

Meeyeon (15:22)
And so how many months or like semesters do you have left in your program?

Celine (15:28)
I’m basically done. Yeah.

Meeyeon (15:29)
You’re basically done. And so if you were to say, well, you went in and you decided when you went and pursued this master’s program, you didn’t necessarily know what you wanted to do. But now that you’re graduating, you have a pretty good idea of what you want to do. Where do you see yourself in like three-years time?

Celine (15:41)
Absolutely.

In three years, okay. Well, definitely in Lebanon, hopefully, or in the Middle East. But I see myself, hopefully having completed the CFA. And I also think I would also have the CAIA, at some point, hopefully. And because I’m really interested into alternative investments, really really in.

Meeyeon (16:21)
A friend of mine finished that. This was quite a while ago. I think we were mostly early out of university, but he, that’s one of his favorite programs that he’s completed. And he’s also done the CFA, but the CFA, he’s, it’s not necessarily as relevant to his role, which I find is a kind of the case with a lot of people. Like for example, if you’re going to traditional like investment banking, a CFA is not relevant necessarily to your role. But if you’re in treasury or in capital markets,

Celine (16:44)
Thank you.

Meeyeon (16:49)
especially portfolio management, find the CFA is very, very relevant to what you do. But ⁓ the CAIA, I think, was very interesting for him. He said it was a little bit more, ⁓ like, unique in that not everybody took it, but he was really interested in alternative investments as well.

Celine (16:51)
Mm.

For me, I saw that my colleagues went through level one, some went through level two, level three, but most of the ones who went into IB, probably half of them had the level one, but then they just figured that they don’t really need it for IB. It’s more on asset management side where you need it. For me,

I feel like for those like me who want to land their first role in this industry is that they have to have the level one at least. It does influence the CV and the managers when they’re hiring.

Meeyeon (17:48)
Yeah.

And I find that the first, at least the first level is very like irrelevant to, I mean, you’ve done your undergraduate in business, you’ve done a master’s, you’ve done two master’s, right? Two master’s programs? One? I thought you did your MBA as well or something.

Celine (18:05)
Yes. One. One.

I wish but no. That would be great but no.

Meeyeon (18:13)
But, I find that the first level is super relevant to everything that’s taught at school. And so for, think if I were to generally say I’m like the best time to take it is like when you’re in school, because you’re used to taking exams, right? Like for me, I’m way out of the phase of taking exams. So if you asked me to take an exam today, I’m barely able to hold a pen, but I think it’s also very different. I think it’s all online,

Celine (18:24)
Definitely.

Meeyeon (18:48)
which is very different.

Celine (18:50)
It is. The CFA is online and it’s like, I think the process is very simple. It’s just to go to the test center, you enter the room, you are seated at a computer desk by yourself. Like you have like many and no way, no way. But I get you though. So you have like your own desk and no one could

Meeyeon (19:08)
Yeah, back in my day, it was in like a giant gymnasium.

Celine (19:20)
No one can look at what you’re doing. And yeah, it’s pretty like straightforward, you know?

Meeyeon (19:24)
Wow, so different.

Yeah, for us,

it would be like you’d in this giant gymnasium that you’d go and be like rows and rows of desks. But you also said you were interested in equity research, but I’d be so curious to see in like, if you could talk to yourself in five years time where you’d be or if you look back at our podcast recording in a couple of years. For other women that are interested in capital markets and in the Middle East, do you have any kind of encouraging advice or?

just any little sound bites that you might wanna share with them? I find that it’s a very generally male dominated industry. At least here in North America. Is it also similar, would say in the Middle East? Yeah, and sometimes it feels a little bit kind of like, like I feel like an oddball out. But I think generally, I think women, I mean, obviously I’m biased, but I think women bring a very…

Celine (20:04)
It is.

Yes, definitely.

Meeyeon (20:23)
Different perspective oftentimes. And I think that a variety of perspectives is always valuable, especially in a field like finance. ⁓ But oftentimes I just find like it’s similar to engineering, where you go to an undergraduate program and you see, for example, in like a mechanical engineering program, you’ll see for every 100 ⁓ male students, maybe you’ll see two females.

And so it makes it very, it often makes it a little bit, not intimidating, but it doesn’t make it as appealing. It’s bit intimidating for people to go into. ⁓ But if you could give someone that might be curious about occurring finance, like that’s a woman in the Middle East, what would you give as like a little piece of advice to them?

Celine (21:18)
to not be intimidated by the male-dominated field, because I also agree that we have that even in France. In my program, we’re like 80, 85 students, and we’re like, I would say less than 15 girls. Yes, it’s a big number. And then you have like both groups that are split into IB and AM.

Meeyeon (21:35)
Wow.

Celine (21:44)
so then you are studying with a smaller group but still like there’s a high concentration of ⁓ males in class but i would say to ⁓ try to rely mostly on yourself ⁓ if it’s really what you want there’s like nothing that should stand in the way of that ⁓ like we all fail at some point and then get back up so if you have like

If you have what it takes, if you know you have what it takes, just go through it, even though it might be a little bit intimidating. mean, we have also a lot of female engineers, female doctors. It’s not just like female nurses, you know, we also have male nurses. So ⁓ there’s no perfect response to that, but ⁓ try to also see that as a resource.

There are a lot of ⁓ really intelligent and hardworking males around you, so you could also try to use that as a way to collaborate with them and benefit a lot from that. ⁓ For me, I like ⁓ reviewing for exams with my male friends. ⁓ I find it really useful, even if I needed something else, any type of other help.

They would gladly offer that. ⁓ Some people, whether they’re male or female, they might be rude to you. They might be even intimidating or harsh on you. But if you find the right people, there’s nothing else that could stand in way of that. Even from the people, know, like outside of class, just try to have like a circle, like apart from your friends, just have like a circle of finance.

Meeyeon (23:27)
I wonder.

Celine (23:40)
where you could be inspired from other people, like your friends, your significant other, ⁓ even your parents. For me, didn’t have ⁓ any background. My parents don’t have a background in finance. ⁓ Even my undergrad internships were so unrelated to finance. ⁓ So that’s it, honestly.

Meeyeon (24:04)
Yeah.

And like, what a beautiful piece of advice to close the podcast out on. just feel like the idea of being able to surround yourself, if you, I think it’s important to realize that if you look at the people that you have surround yourself with most closely and that you spend the most time with, you’ll kind of see your values and your interests right away. So for example, if you’re interested in starting a business, if you are interested in

Celine (24:09)
Thank you.

Yes.

Meeyeon (24:31)
being a company founder. If you look at the group of friends that you spend a lot of time with, hopefully, like you would hope that there’s probably a couple of those in your circle. Whether it’s like getting together to talk about business ideas or different investment opportunities, people that are really passionate about portfolio management. That’s where those ideas come about. It’s just people getting together and chatting about it. And today it’s easier than ever. Like you and I are in…

you’re in France and I’m in Vancouver, Canada, but we can meet like this and chat in a podcast where we talk about CFI and general careers and finance. But for anyone that has an interest in ⁓ really just anything, it’s about surrounding yourself with people with common interests that bring out those types of interests and ideas from you and you have that opportunity to collaborate.

Celine (25:08)
Yes.

I really agree. just like touching back on the circle you exchange with, like really be, ⁓ make sure you’re surrounding yourself with people who I would say like who are maybe doing better than you are. Just to like, like, I think like try to be, try to be the less successful in that group, just so that you have a lot to learn from.

Meeyeon (25:42)
always the best, it’s like the idea of having.

Celine (25:52)
And just like as you said, like let’s say I want to work in finance, then maybe I should surround myself with people who are working in finance and even reaching out or connecting with people that I don’t know, like on LinkedIn, other professionals, they definitely have time to ⁓ respond to your message if you have any inquiry, ⁓ any help that you need. I think especially like thank God that we have a platform like LinkedIn.

It really helps even just people like me and you connecting for a podcast or professionals when they need help, ⁓ even when trying to land another job. ⁓ It’s really good that we have that as a resource.

Meeyeon (26:35)
Yeah, in the beginning, I always say ⁓ the idea of having the worst house in the best neighbourhood possible allows you to kind of be in a place where you’re aspiring. And eventually, as the years go on and you progress throughout your career, maybe you become the best house in the neighbourhood. And then you’ll help other people that are in the other ones kind of renovate, so to speak, and get up to where they want to be. But yeah, that’s…

Celine (26:43)
Yeah, exactly. Because. Yeah.

Meeyeon (27:03)
I can’t think of a better, more positive, and encouraging note to end a podcast on. So thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. It’s been so lovely to have you here on the podcast and…

Celine (27:08)
Thank you.

It was very nice talking to you and meeting you. I really appreciate this opportunity.

Meeyeon (27:24)
And thank you, everyone, for listening, and for those of you watching. Thank you for tuning in here. Until next time, we’ll talk to you all later.