In this episode of CFI’s FinPod podcast, we sit down with Dang Duong Nguyen, a young finance enthusiast from Singapore. Join us as we talk about Dang’s journey into finance, his education at Polytechnic, and his self-driven learning through CFI courses.
Dang shares insights from his internship at Julius Baer and outlines his aspirations in investment banking and quantitative finance. The conversation highlights the importance of practical skills and early career planning in the finance industry and is overall an inspiring conversation with a very ambitious person.
Transcript
Meeyeon (00:11)
Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of CFI FinPod podcast. I’m your host, Meeyeon I’m the VP of Content and Training here at CFI. I’m sure you’ve heard me many times before.
Today, we’re gonna do a member spotlight. One of my favorites as we get to know our subscriber base. And I’m so excited here today to have with me Dang Duong Nguyen, because he is probably the youngest person that we are going to have on this podcast.
And I found you via LinkedIn because you were completing so many of our programs, so many of our courses, certifications. And it was just so exciting to see someone that was so young, that is so focused, knows kind of what you want to do, and knows also how to go out and achieve those things. So, welcome to the podcast.
Dang Duong (01:06)
Hi.
Meeyeon (01:07)
Oh. So tell us where in the world are you joining us from right now because we’re in very different time zones right now.
Dang Duong (01:14)
So, I’m actually joining you guys from Singapore. So, in my time zone, we live in two different sides of the world. So, yeah.
Meeyeon (01:21)
It’s very extreme. It is 8 a.m., roughly here, but it’s midnight where you are.
Dang Duong (01:28)
Yeah.
Meeyeon (01:30)
So, we’ve talked a little bit before and I was just so…
I’m a bit older and it, I just can’t believe how quickly that you’ve developed this interest in finance at such a young age and decided to go and research the things that you can do currently and go and learn as much as possible because, for example, you want to, I know that you’ve shared that you want to eventually complete your CFA designation. But right now, it’s currently not possible because there are some educational and career requirements for you to do so.
But I would love to hear from you. So typically I kind of ask, what is your career, like finance, kind of origin story? Like how did you get started and whatnot? But it’s a little bit different for you. I would love to understand where did you get this interest? Or maybe start off by giving our audience the background because you are part of our subscriber base. You are one of the many people that I love to hear stories from and people.
As much as you know CFI through our courses, people love to get to know anyone that is also concurrently using CFI. And so I would love to understand, and I think our listeners would love to understand, where are you currently at in your life? And how and when did you get this interest in finance?
Dang Duong (03:04)
I’m currently a student in Ngee Ann Polytechnic, that’s a school in Singapore. I basically got my interest in banking and finance and business back in secondary school, where I kept reading up on financial news, business news, how to make money, how businesses make money, and how to invest in stocks. And this interest further…
Meeyeon (03:31)
And now tell us, is Polytechnic? For example, I’m from North America, and I’m in Canada. And so I don’t know, I’m not familiar with what Polytechnic is, but tell us a little bit, just what is that briefly?
Dang Duong (03:35)
So, in Singapore’s education system, you first go through primary school, secondary school, and then you graduate to move on to secondary school. And then from secondary school, you get to choose between three different streams: junior college, Polytechnic, and ITE. So what I’ve chosen is Polytechnic because it helps you actually like…
narrow down on what you actually want to do. It’s actually more like a pre-university.
Meeyeon (04:22)
So maybe you could tell us briefly for those of us that don’t know, what are those three streams that you mentioned that you could go and branch out from after secondary school? Because it seems like there’s secondary school, and then there’s your traditional undergraduate university degree, but then there’s something in between at Singapore. And in that in between, you have three programs that you could choose from, and you’ve chosen Polytechnic. But maybe you could explain to us what all three of those are, just for those that are curious.
Dang Duong (04:45)
Yeah.
So, the first one is junior college. Basically, you’re learning in detail what you’re learning in secondary school, like you’re still learning sciences, literature, geography, history, all those general things like further maths. It’s basically an enhanced secondary school.
As for Polytechnic, it’s basically like a pre-university where they have like this GPA system, they have modules, group projects. You have to maintain a good GPA for every semester and therefore, from these two streams, you get to directly go to university if you do well. For ITE, it’s more…
you have to spend more time on it. Basically, you spend two years there and then you go to Polytechnic and then you go to university. I think ITE is like a pre-Polytechnic.
Meeyeon (06:00)
Interesting. OK. And so with Polytechnic, I’m curious, is it more of an academic program or is it applied learning that you kind of learn skills that you would need after university, like when you get a job, or is it just very much a continuation of traditional academics?
Dang Duong (06:20)
If you talk about it this way, junior college, it’s more so… wait, Polytechnic, it’s actually applied learning where you get to specialize in different industries like engineering, health, nursing, biotech. For me, it’s banking and finance. Other people can specialize in accounting.
Meeyeon (06:46)
So with Polytechnic, if the Polytechnic degree is three years of applied learning, so that’s really interesting because then that gives you a chance to almost try out like a career path before you really commit to it and do an undergraduate degree. I would love to understand, know, at your, at this point in your life, where did you get
that interest in finance? Did you have parents that worked in finance or relatives? I’d love to get an understanding of what’s driven you to, so what’s really, like what most caught my eye is that how much that you’ve completed with CFI. And I would just love to understand what gives you that motivation? Like what gave you such a strong interest so early on?
Dang Duong (07:38)
About my background, my parents are actually not in finance. My father is a chemist and I think my mom is like a consultant somewhere. But they’re not, it’s not finance-related. So I guess that interest came from like within where I always had an interest in making money, seeing where money flows, raising capital, all that kind of things. And when I joined Polytechnic,
it further enhanced my interest in this field where actually, in the first year of Polytechnic, I self-studied the entire CFA level 1 curriculum.
Meeyeon (08:22)
And now, was that last year or the year before?
Dang Duong (08:25)
I think it was actually like two years ago when I finished studying the entire CFA Level 1 curriculum. I’m not eligible to take it, though, because you need to be within two years of graduation from…
your undergrad program. But I mean Polytechnic, so I guess I’m ready, I’m therefore seeing since there’s like not really much to do. I guess I picked up like I guess I did some research on like financial modeling
Meeyeon (08:48)
But you’re ready. You’re ready when the time comes.
Dang Duong (09:10)
courses, like online finance training providers like CFI, and therefore, I chose CFI as the place where I want to enhance my finance knowledge. And with CFI, I’m able to like now build discounted cash flow models, leverage buyout models, merger models…
Meeyeon (09:29)
And like honestly, it’s just so interesting that you’ve even gone out and found that on your own. Did Polytechnic, did the teachers encourage you to go and try and find things where you could practice and build practical skills? Because typically what happens is, and this would be more kind of like 10 years ago in my age where you would go through an undergraduate program, you’d learn all of these kind of like academic skills, you’d learn about finance, economics, statistics in like a very closed academic setting.
And then all of a sudden when you go to work, it’s like, hey, you don’t take a textbook with you. All of a sudden you’re at your desk, you have to apply this knowledge into the real world. You have to be developing computer skills. So whether it’s a programming language or just Excel and PowerPoint and general presentation skills, those are all kinds of things that were largely an afterthought kind of 10 years ago. It’s like, okay, you’re in school.
Like it’s time for you to expand your mind, expand your horizons. And then all of sudden when you graduate, it’s like, okay, now the skills you need are very different and you didn’t develop them necessarily in school, but it’s time now. you you bridge that gap on your own. And I’m curious, your instructors or teachers encourage you to go out and try and find things where you could build practical knowledge? Or did you just go out on Google and kind of find it on your own? Cause you’re interested.
Dang Duong (10:54)
Well, it’s actually on my own accord. I think it’s because the materials in my school are like, they’re okay, they don’t really go that in-depth into what finance actually is. And therefore, since I wanted to like…
Meeyeon (10:59)
Wow.
Dang Duong (11:21)
deepen my knowledge in this sector, I therefore looked around and see like what are some reputable online finance training providers out there and therefore I stumbled upon CFI and therefore I just bought it with my… Yeah, it’s quite expensive.
Meeyeon (11:43)
And would you say that you’re just like a really curious person by nature?
Dang Duong (11:47)
Yes, I actually am because my goal is to go into investment banking, private equity, basically high finance.
Meeyeon (11:50)
Yeah.
Do you want to go into investment banking and then private equity in that order?
Dang Duong (12:05)
Well, that would be ideal, but with that goal in mind, I basically have to try to pick up financial modeling knowledge and skills. And therefore, what better way to pick it up than through CFI, you know?
Meeyeon (12:26)
And so, like, so you have, you’re a planner. I know from like your resume and your background that you’re a planner. And so like you want to have a career in investment banking and typically a very traditional path is people love to go into investment banking and then thereafter words go into private equity. But from where you are now in Polytechnic to having a first job as an investment banking analyst, there’s lots of kind of steps in between. And I know that you’ve made lots of strides to closing that gap as time passes.
Now, I’d love to hear about your internship experience because I know you have an internship. What got you, is it part of your polytechnic program that you have to do an internship or did you kind of pursue it on your own? Tell us about your internship experience.
Dang Duong (13:14)
So my internship experience is actually…
provided by my Polytechnic. It’s quite nice, actually. So my internship was at a private bank, Julius Baer. And from there, I was in a compliance role. I did some anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing, like screenings with things like, with tools like World Check and Factiva. But…
I actually learned more about automation with reporting…
with reporting because every week, you have to like generate reports with like the data that you have. From there, I actually picked up Excel, VBA, and Power Query to automate all these tasks and it actually proved useful because it saved me a lot of time. And since my work was done primarily on Excel, I was able to build a lot of like shortcuts where I was able to like make my my workflow efficient.
Meeyeon (14:36)
And just out of curiosity, talking about making workflows more efficient, I’m curious. In Polytechnic, so in the past year or so, maybe past year and a half, we’ve seen the advent of generative AI. We’ve seen ChatGPT come along. And ChatGPT has certainly made my workflow easier, that’s I’ve recently discovered. But as I’m learning ChatGPT, I’m slowly starting to realize that
ChatGPT could have done a lot of the work that I did as an investment banking analyst, but more importantly, and I think more realistically, it would have made my job as an analyst much more productive. Like I would have been able to work, I would have been able to do more in less time. Now I was working a lot, but with the assistance of ChatGPT, I think it would have completely changed my workflow.
Has your Polytechnic program been able to adopt the use of ChatGPT? You use ChatGPT at Julius Baer or was that more than kind of two years ago?
Dang Duong (15:44)
Actually, my Polytechnic has been adopting generative AI and ChatGPT which is which I kind of like and but what they do is they actually like make a generative AI disclosure, where we need to fill in what to what generative AI tools we use like if it’s ChatGPT if it’s quill bot yeah and I guess that’s a like a progressive step to it as for Julius Baer, we actually weren’t allowed to use ChatGPT even though if,
even though the internship was like, I think it was like, less than a year ago. It’s because they were afraid that confidential information would leak out to their GPT or like use, because I know these things are used to train the AI models and therefore, yeah.
Meeyeon (16:31)
Yeah.
And so, have you had any other experiences, internships, and finance apart from Julius Baer?
Dang Duong (16:51)
Not really, but since my holidays are coming, I’m trying to seek finance internships with all the skills I currently have.
Meeyeon (16:53)
So good.
And so we’ve talked a little bit about what you learned and what you took away from your role at Julius Baer. I’d be curious to know what is the next internship that you’re seeking? like, is it even in Singapore? Do you have, you know, aspirations to move out and travel and live in different parts of the world?
Finance is very, I know that finance is a big. There’s a big hub of it in Singapore, which probably works out very conveniently. But yeah, like I’d love to just understand what’s your next internship that you’re looking for and do you want to stay in Singapore? What’s the future hold in store for you?
Dang Duong (17:39)
Well, for staying in Singapore, yes, I would definitely stay in Singapore. And for finance roles that I’m looking for, I’m actually looking for more of the quantitative side of things because back in compliance, it’s actually more of the qualitative side, which is okay for some people, but for myself, who is more analytical, I somewhat prefer more of the math side of things like valuation, like even portfolio optimization, these kinds of things.
Yeah, a quantitative finance role would be pretty ideal for me.
Meeyeon (18:22)
Well, that’s really interesting because you’re, so how many years of polytechnic do you have left? Is it just one or two?
Dang Duong (18:28)
It’s basically I have half a year left. I’m at my final semester of…
Meeyeon (18:34)
Okay, and then you’re going to be doing an under, do you do a full undergraduate degree afterwards or is it shorter?
Dang Duong (18:38)
Yeah, I basically go through National Service and then go through three or four years of undergraduate program, probably in finance.
Meeyeon (18:49)
Okay, so we have like a runway of time. National service is two years, right? Okay.
And so you’re talking about going to a more quantitative role, portfolio optimization, which is much more capital markets oriented, but then your ultimate goal is to land a job in investment banking, which is very, which is much more of a deal-oriented role with like bottoms up analysis. Is this all stuff that you are planning? Like you want to have that strong quantitative background, you want to get
Dang Duong (18:52)
That’s who he is.
Yeah.
Meeyeon (19:18)
a different kind of experience in various parts of finance. And then by a process of kind of not elimination, but by learning different areas, then you’re saying like, okay, this is great. Like I like the kind of compliance risk management side. It was quite qualitative. I know I want to do something more quantitative.
So then I go into kind of portfolio optimization, maybe risk management. And then you end up going into investment banking, which might be kind of your ultimate goal to apply all of this knowledge to.
Dang Duong (19:50)
Well, for me, it’s more so of expectation because investment banking is probably after undergrad. And therefore I want to try to scale back a bit. Maybe just…
Just get the quantitative roles first, pick up my knowledge slowly but surely, just land a role in investment banking.
Meeyeon (20:21)
And do you have any preference in, this is a question that we’ll always ask as soon as analysts join a large class, is do you have a preference in industry group or product? Are you into the idea of going to an M&A group, media, telco? Is there a specific industry that really interests you?
Dang Duong (20:40)
For me, guess I’m more, I’m more… So M&A or IPO or like tech stuff. Those things, those industries with generative AI.
Meeyeon (20:47)
So, my final question that I want to ask you is, because, I know that you’re uh, you have lots of goals in mind and you’re a high achiever. If you look back on this podcast in kind of two years time, where do you hope that you’ll be and yeah, where do you hope you’ll be in two years’ time, uh in two years’ time?
Dang Duong (21:09)
Ooh. For me, I hope to actually uh go to the dream university I want, studying business. Because two years later, it’s after my national service and from from there, I’ll have like a headstart, with a headstart compared to all my peers having all these finance pre-rec, finance knowledge before entering university.
And on my first, in my first year of university, I hope to land a role in more so, more so in the
quantitative side of finance, maybe asset management, or if, if it’s possible, then investment banking, hopefully as a summer analyst.
Meeyeon (21:52)
And there you have it. So, in two years’ time, I would love for you to rewatch this podcast and see where you are today and everyone that’s joined us. I think it’s going to be, it’s going to be tough to find someone that is more young and ambitious than you. But I would love to invite anyone that is to be, be active on LinkedIn, be active on our CFI Community page so I could see you and invite you to be on our podcast. So that’s all of you that’s listening.
Thank you for tuning in for another episode of Member Spotlight and I will see you again very soon.