Jorge Marques joined CFI back when it was just a WeWork dream, and now he’s a portfolio manager at North Growth Management. In this episode, Jorge shares his path from studying math and economics and ultimately landing in capital markets. You’ll hear about the skills that helped him succeed, how he navigated the CFA and FMVA, and why curiosity is key to thriving in finance.

This is a must-watch for aspiring portfolio managers and anyone in the early stages of their finance career. Learn how Jorge transitioned from rotational internships and tech startups to one of the most in-demand roles in investment management. He unpacks the habits, mindsets, and strategies that helped him move from financial analyst to PM and how CFI played a part in that journey.

Transcript

Meeyeon (00:11)
Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of CFI’s Member Spotlight podcast. This is a very special one. I’ve probably been waiting for this one for five years, and it’s because we have a very special guest today.

Jorge Marques. Welcome to our Remember Spotlight podcast.

Jorge Marques (00:33)
Thank you so much for having me, Meeyeon. I’m very excited too. A little nervous, but excited.

Meeyeon (00:35)
And the reason why I’m, we’ll just keep it excited.

It’s going to be like, no one is watching because no one is watching right now, but people are to be listening and watching. But I’m so excited to have Jorge here because I’ve pretty much been waiting to meet Jorge for like five years. Jorge is one of the original CFI employees from way back when CFI was just a dream.

Jorge Marques (00:44)
Okay, perfect.

Meeyeon (01:02)
We were building up our website. CFI was being kind of founded in the WeWork Shares space. So Jorge is very familiar with CFI and he is such an instrumental member of building the company that it is today. And he’s gone on to do kind of like what we hope that everyone does and gets from CFI. So I’m going to just jump right into it and say, I’m going to get to know Jorge

as much as everyone is listening to this right now. I know a little bit about your background just from everything that I’ve heard through all of our amazing coworkers that I’ve had. I think it was probably right after you left that I joined. And at that point I managed Colby and Victor and Katie and Adam and so many other wonderful people. And they’ve told me such amazing things about you but I get to finally hear it firsthand.

So I’m gonna ask you some questions that I might know kind of answers to, but everyone listening, this is gonna be a really, really great listen for everyone because this is kind of the path that we really hope to be able to help people get on if this is what brought you to CFI. So Jorge, one thing that we share in common is, at least for me, a very long time ago, I did the Ivy diploma.

And you did that too. that’s like one of those things where even if you’re like 45, people are like, oh my gosh, remember when you did the Ivy Diploma? So back then, you, like, where did you get your interest in finance? Did you get it early on? Like some people say that they got it from their parents and growing up they were working in finance. But did you get it from like high school or did you get it from university?

Jorge Marques (02:28)
Yeah.

Yeah, another.

That’s a great question. First of all, thanks for all the accolades with CFI. I think you gave me a little much to credit for helping build the company, but I was very happy to be part of the team. Tim was building like an absolutely amazing company. He was an amazing manager, CEO, founder. So I was really happy when he actually hired me. I’ve always loved online education. So joining CFI was

Meeyeon (02:58)
No, Jorge is very, very, very humble. Everyone, Jorge is amazing.

Jorge Marques (03:21)
kind of just very natural for me and just made a lot of sense. And to your question in terms of finance, my interest in finance, I don’t know where exactly when it started. I think I’ve always like enjoyed you know learning about businesses. You know when I’m on a car ride, I’m looking at

like, why do we have so many car shops lined up together here? Or why do they sell snowboards all in the same one area? And I like looking like, every neighborhood has its own grocery store. And why did things happen that way? I do think the Ivy diploma helped. I think in school, I was part of the investment club. There was this one teacher that I really liked and really helped just for me as a character

called Robert Cooper Blanks, so I just want to give him a shout out. I don’t know if he’s gonna watch this, I hope he does, but I will…

Meeyeon (04:19)
You should board it to him.

Jorge Marques (04:22)
But he was our economics teacher at the time and he was just one of those. He was actually a big advocate of online learning. He was the one who showed me Khan Academy and he ran the investment club and I kind of joined that. And at the time I thought investing was basically a technical analysis, but I really liked what Warren Buffett said. So I was like, I have to understand the business and then figure out if this squiggly chart is going

go up or down. So I think it’s kind of started there. I think the Ivy is an absolutely amazing program. It gives you the chance to explore so many different areas. They had this theory of knowledge, which I thought was very fascinating. TOK, yeah, I really enjoyed that. But yeah, took mostly, and in my school you got, and at the time it’s been quite some, a while ago, you get to choose hires and,

Meeyeon (05:08)
My God, T-O-K.

Jorge Marques (05:23)
and standard level classes and you had like a limit of hires in my school and most of my hires were all very like, quant driven, you know, like math, science stuff.

Meeyeon (05:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, me too. Did the math one too.

Jorge Marques (05:35)
So hard. yeah, and it was. I think then was like when I kind of started brewing this kind of interest for finance and investing and you know, I read the Intelligent Investor in high school and you know, thought that was like, this is so great. And yeah, but I think I think probably in high school, a long way to answer your question, high school.

Meeyeon (05:57)
And then what did you do your undergraduate degree in? Because it wasn’t business.

Jorge Marques (06:02)
Yes, so I was actually very, I didn’t know what I wanted to study in university. I knew it was something more science-y. And one of the reasons I, so I did my high school in Brazil. And in Brazil, when you go to university, you kind of choose your major when you’re applying.

So you kind of have to decide, I want to become a civil engineer. I want to become a doctor. And I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life at the time.

Meeyeon (06:33)
Now most people don’t when they’re like 16, right? 15. That’s a tough question.

Jorge Marques (06:37)
Yeah, and…

And then in North America, they have this more kind of liberal arts kind of university education. And I went to a university at the faculty of science, which I liked science, but I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do. I actually thought I wanted to do astrophysics and astronomy when I first came to Canada. And that was kind of my intention, but I kind of kept everything open. I took a lot of economics courses as well. And

sciences in general and then after my first year I kind of realized that to go into this more astrophysics kind of career I would have to be more academic or you know follow a very academic path,

which was something I thought I didn’t want. So I ended up majoring in math with a minor in economics. And the reason I chose math was just, I thought it was very broad and gave me a very like analytical mindset and gave me the tools to figure out what I wanted to do. So that’s kind of, I was very undecided.

Meeyeon (07:45)
And like for those of you listening, if you are, if you happen to be in an earlier part of your career and you’re still in academics through an undergrad, I’d encourage you to take the path that Jorge took, which is go with what your interests are and don’t feel the pressure that, you know, like of course, when you apply to university here in the United States and Canada, you have to kind of say, I’m going to apply to this department and major in this, or you maybe declare it later, but you’re already going into the faculty.

I would just like caveat that with, so the smartest people that I worked with when I was in debt capital markets were people that did completely unrelated things for their university degrees. This is my second shout-out to Andrew Hainsworth, is like the most amazing person ever, but he was my managing director when I was at BMO. And he did a degree that was in something completely unrelated at Cambridge, but he is the smartest person I’ve ever known. Knows every topic under the sun

and is just like generally curious, but he ended up working in finance. And so if anyone is listening and you’re majoring in political science or astrophysics or mechanical engineering, these are all degrees that recruiters in finance love. It’s just kind of like if you’re gonna go and be a doctor, right? You can do your undergraduate in science, but you don’t have to. Science is kind of helpful, so you just generally know the topics, but there’s plenty of doctors that will go in from, know, like a…

an art history background, do the MCAT. So it’s like very, don’t think of your academics as limiting if you’re listening now. But

Jorge Marques (09:22)
Yeah, just to like reinforce that to me, when I was in high school there was a career fair and there was this guy from Goldman Sachs. And at the time I had no idea what Goldman Sachs… But it was interesting because in Brazil Goldman Sachs wasn’t as… Or at the age we were Goldman Sachs was kind of unknown.

Meeyeon (09:32)
the ultimate, everyone wants to be there.

Jorge Marques (09:44)
So when I went to, and I was like, what on earth is Goldman Sachs, right? And then he told me about it and I was like, oh, that’s very fascinating. his advice was exactly the same. He said he studied history in, I believe, think it was Duke.

And he was just like, whenever you’re applying to university, apply to something you find interesting. Because if you find interesting, you’re going to do well, you’re going to learn how to learn. And I think that’s the most important part is of university is learning how to learn. Because at the end of the day, when you start work, I think it’s going to be very different from university and you’re going to have to learn new languages, new terminology, new skills. And I think learning how to learn is just so, so important.

Meeyeon (10:11)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, like that’s like the whole practice of university is like if you go and do something that you love, you’re going to learn how to learn because you naturally want to learn the topic. And that’s like the most important thing, like especially for people working in finance. It sounds like an overused phrase, but what people will very often hear is, I just want to know how you think. I just want you to be able to learn how to learn. And it just sounds very cheesy, but that is genuinely what like recruiters and if you’re being interviewed by managing directors, that’s all they want to see.

And what they’re most interested in is learning about people who have a completely different perspective on things and having them join the team. So it’s really fun for people to have people join a capital market, like an equity capital markets desk, but that person has a degree in geography. they, all they want to know is like that person really enjoyed what they did and they clearly know how to learn. And that’s like the most,

that’s the biggest skill, which is what you’ve highlighted is just learning how to learn. That’s all that really matters. Do you by any chance know a company called 3G Capital, the one in Brazil? So I used to work for a 3G company. And so I was wondering if you had heard of them because they’re supposed to be huge there. They’re like the Goldman Sachs of Brazil, apparently.

Jorge Marques (11:36)
Yes, yes, yeah, absolutely. nice. Okay, wow.

Yeah, yeah, in private equity, I guess, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they have, they’re known to be very, require like very high performing individuals and being very demanding.

Meeyeon (11:50)
They’re very intense from working for one of their companies.

They’re very, very like cost oriented. That’s what I would say. They’re very, very like from the little pen that you have on your desk to like the biggest thing on the PNL. But yeah, okay. So after you did your degree in math and economics, I guess that got you exposed to kind of the more business side of things. What led you to your first role? Like I’d love to hear about

Jorge Marques (12:10)
Yes, yes.

Yes.

Meeyeon (12:32)
What led you from your first role to where you are today? Because a lot of our listeners are going to do naturally the thing where they’re like, like, I wonder where Jorge worked and they’re going to see your resume. And a lot of people are going to say, like, I want to be Jorge. So, yeah, like, how did you kind of fill in that, like from university to where you are today?

Jorge Marques (12:50)
Yeah, so in university, I did an internship in Brazil at a public company. It was a forestry company. And I did this rotational internship where I got to spend for four months. I think I spent like a week or 10 days in like various departments. And I got to, it was such a fascinating experience. I got to see how credit works inside a company and how…

the IT department worked and investor relations, I liked a lot. I actually participated on an earnings call of the company on the side of the company, which I thought was really, really interesting.

Meeyeon (13:27)
Exciting.

Jorge Marques (13:32)
Yeah, I remember just the CEO, CEO got like some paper with like data. He asked some questions, wrote something down and then his opening remarks were just like perfect. And I was like, this guy didn’t even prepare. It’s so, so impressive. so when I was there, I, but you know, that experience, I really got to understand how a company works, you know, how different departments interact with each other. the importance of actually HR and having like a good culture.

And then when I graduated, I actually got a job at…

Vancouver-based tech startup and at the time it was you know, Silicon Valley boom so and you know apps were the big thing and subscription models were the big thing and I got a job at a startup and essentially I was working directly with the CEO and he said this will be a boot camp on how to Run a startup. So I was doing everything you can imagine. So I was like setting up

their HR system. I was doing paralegal work that I probably shouldn’t be doing and I was reaching out and doing business development work. And one thing that I was doing a lot was helping him raise money.

So I was building a lot of pitch decks. Was researching VCs to see what their holdings were, to see how we could sell the company better to the VCs. And I really enjoyed that. And then I realized, I like this part. And I decided to take the CFA. I did CFA Level One while I was at that startup. And then I came across CFI.

While I was doing actually CFA Level One, I was also taking some online courses. I took this MIT online course on like machine learning and data science at the time. I saw CFA and I was like, this is like finance and online learning, like two things I really enjoy. Like I should apply. And yeah, I think I was on a, like it was a LinkedIn post. Yeah. And then I…

Meeyeon (15:42)
You saw it on a job posting?

Wow. Okay, yeah, I always wondered whether you met Tim through UBC. Tim is our original CEO, for those of us listening.

Jorge Marques (15:57)
Yeah, I think he’s still an instructor, right? I’m assuming he’s still like…

But yeah, so I applied through LinkedIn and got an interview. And honestly, I think I spent my first interview just speaking about how I loved online learning to Tim, how Khan Academy changed my… Yeah. And Tim, and I think also the fact that I had experience at a startup and working on a small team and just…

Meeyeon (16:15)
My God, and that’s like green lights everywhere for Tim.

Jorge Marques (16:28)
telling him like, if you have to have me do dishes, I’ll do dishes. Like I’ll do anything you need. Like we’re like a team environment and I thought that was really good. Yeah, Tim decided to hire me and…

It was an amazing opportunity from there on. Yeah, then at CFI, again, I had a very similar experience, but not as much as the raising my new parts, but, you know, learned a lot about.

Meeyeon (16:57)
Yeah, the BD part is really,

really tough. And it’s interesting that you got to have such a well-rounded experience from the very beginning. Not everyone gets to have that experience where you do a rotational program at a company, right? And especially to be able to dip into investor relations. Because investor relations is not an easy space to be in. Find that a friend of mine that used to work at Goldman Sachs, no, he was at JP Morgan

Jorge Marques (17:09)
Yeah.

Meeyeon (17:21)
and he was in traditional investment banking and he did that for several years. And after he became a director there, he actually moved to their investor relations group. And it’s a very common place to see people that are kind of like mid senior level at an investment bank transition into, but it’s not a space where I find a lot of rotational programs put people through because it is a bit more rigorous. It was a bit more stressful, but between that and then being able to experience being at a startup.

That gives you a really wide lens to be able to assess what you want to do. I personally haven’t even been part of a company where you’re actively doing fundraising, where you have to approach people and to be able to understand the nuances of, what does it look like when we take on these, like, you know, venture cap partners? What does it look like from a financial reporting perspective? What does it make our equity look like? There’s a lot of things that you’ve gotten exposure to very early on.

And you probably got to experience that a little bit more with Tim because then it was such a small group at the time and you’re kind of the right hand to everyone.

Jorge Marques (18:29)
Yeah, it was quite interesting at the startup because even though they were like a small early stage startup, they had kind of like financial instruments I had to learn about like what’s a debt convertible and why did they choose to do that? And I was like, okay, how does that impact the cap table? And I was having to kind of self teach all these things because obviously my degree was not in finance. I, yeah, a lot of finance I learned hands on.

Meeyeon (18:57)
And like basically for everyone listening, everything that Jorge is saying is basically what you want to be presenting in an interview and what people look for. Because for example, just the curiosity, right? The idea of like, okay, like what is convertible debt? Like what is a cap table? How is it? Okay, great. That’s a cap table. How’s that going to change? Like what are those waterfall calculations that are coming up from these VC investors? Like that’s the type of curiosity that we’re always talking about when we do, for example, at CFI.

For those of you listening, you’ve listened to one of our interview prep series, that’s a very common phrase that you hear from recruiters and people generally is that they ask you to be curious. Something that Jorge brought up that I thought was interesting earlier was when you’re just curious about like how businesses are formed, for example. I remember when I was in DCM, I covered corporate investment grade and that’s when REIT issuers

were fundraising a lot. They were tapping debt markets all the time. And I remember when I was looking into their business, I thought it was fascinating. The decisions that go into like buying property, for example. There was, I probably won’t mention the name, but one of the major reads are like, when we do analysis of where we want to set up, for example, our next giant multiplex kind of property where it’ll be a bit of a strip mall, there’d be a grocery store, there’ll be retail, there’ll be…

Like liquor stores, all of these things are like, we want to make sure that you can get off a major highway and that you’re going to be doing a right turn. like, it’s going with the grain of traffic. There’s like a path of least resistance. You do a right turn into the plex. It’s got everything that you need. And when you leave, you can also leave with the right turn. Like there’s like all sorts of bizarre things that you just never considered. But the idea that little things like that are like interesting to you,

make it so that your journey is additive. So you go from the place where you do the rotation, you’re like, my God, this is really interesting. And then you go to a startup where you are kind of in a place where you’re gonna be doing anything that you don’t know, basically. When you’re at a startup and you’re like a CEO’s right hand, basically everything is something that you don’t know how to do, especially as a new grad. And the fact that you find that fun and interesting and stimulating is like…

that is what it takes to succeed because there’s going to be so many things where you kind of, you are either uncomfortable doing it or you just don’t know how to do it. And the fact that you’re just excited by that is such a great demonstration to everyone that’s a member of CFI of like how success happens. So I want to touch on like after CFI, this is why I think you’re such a great example of what we hope that people get out of CFI.

You’re a portfolio manager now. Okay, so tell me about what made you make the switch? Did you kind of feel like there was a right time in your career where you were saying, okay, I’ve got a lot of exposure to different things I’ve done and I would love to be, did you at any point say at CFI, I wanna be working in capital markets, I wanna be a portfolio manager and tell us what kind of

what made you have that realization and how have you been able to get to where you are today.

Jorge Marques (22:27)
Yeah, so then when I was at CFI, you know, working under Tim and the company was growing quite a bit. You know, when I joined, think, I think it was like employee six or something. Like I was trying to remember who was there when I joined. I think I remembered five people. And then, you know, we were at WeWork and then we moved to our own room at WeWork and we moved to our own office and the company was growing really rapidly.

At the same time, continued studying for the CFA. I did CFA level two. And I was also taking the… Yeah, and it was really interesting because I’d go to like on Saturdays and Sundays to study at WeWork at the office.

Meeyeon (22:57)
That’s a hard level to be doing, especially at a startup. Yes, it’s like always there, girl, always that way, work.

Jorge Marques (23:10)
Always

there. Yeah, and but Tim would come in on Saturday like randomly and be like, you’re studying here like and then you just do some work as well so, you know, like he also had that, you know, very big passion and I think why the company was so successful, but yeah, and then I was also taking the FMVA working on the courses and I think like

the CFA plus the FMVA. I think the CFA is very broad and very theoretical and you know very widely recognized great certification and the FMVA really gave me like more like polished technical skills that I didn’t have from university especially on financial modeling like I was pretty comfortable with Excel and you know some programming that I had done before so you know

way to think about how to build things on Excel. I was good, but I didn’t know what a DCF was. I didn’t know, obviously, with the CFE I was learning it as well, but I didn’t exactly know all the financial terms. And I think the FMVA gave me that kind of toolkit. And then my decision to leave the company was a really, really hard one because I…

I really loved working there, I loved everyone who was there, I loved the product. And my decision kind of, but when I look kind of forward to my career, I saw that for me to really grow, it’s if I maybe would have to be doing more podcasts, I would have to do maybe become an instructor or something like that. And I just didn’t see my skillset really fit with that. And again, I…

I was at the CFA job board and this financial analyst position came up and you know, I just said like, I’m just going to apply and see what happens. And I wasn’t even looking for a job. literally just applied to that job and they called me for an interview. And I think there was a very strong cultural match there. And I got a job as a financial analyst at this investment firm, which I work today called NorthGrowth Management. And

I think what I kind of my pitch to them was I’ve spent the last five years really honing my theoretical and technical skills and I think I really want to now apply them somewhere and North Growth really gave me the ability to apply those technical skills and really hone

my toolbox to the style of investing that they like. And then I complete.

Meeyeon (25:53)
And you have a very well-rounded skill set

in that. I don’t think it’s super common, especially for people that go into portfolio management directly out of university, to have a deep understanding as you about what it’s like to create a business and to value a business. Because the CFA, like you said, very, I think, and you would probably say a similar thing, if you’re going into a corporate treasury role, to a degree investor relations,

but especially like investment management, portfolio management, the CFA is very, very good. It’s very applicable. Everything that you learn through the program is kind of what you do day to day. It’s very applicable. If you were to like everyone at the investment bank, I remember when I was there, whether you’re an &A or an industry group, everyone takes a CFA because everyone has it and you have to have it too. But it is very, very relevant knowledge for people that are in especially portfolio management.

But not a lot of people that have that designation have so much familiarity with almost kind of like a PE side. And you’ve gotten that from not only just taking the FMBA, but helping kind of build it as well, right? But for everyone that’s kind of aspiring to be Jorge, what do you do? Like, what did you do as a financial analyst? And how did you grow to being a portfolio manager today? Cause that’s going to be

for a lot of people listening, that’s probably what they have on their vision board. I am going to be hired as an investment analyst or financial analyst somewhere, but my ultimate goal is to be a PM. How was that learning path for you? What is the day-to-day look like for you today versus what it was when you first joined NorthGrowth?

Jorge Marques (27:41)
Okay.

So when I was a financial analyst, essentially my job was to research companies and obviously that was the main focus, but there was a lot of admin work that I was doing as well, sitting in investment meetings to, you know, just learn what the other portfolio managers were thinking and like how their investment style was. So they were really molding my investment style to fit the firms. And essentially my job was

they would give me a business and be like okay research this business and present it, and

so I remember the first business I got was a flooring company. So I had to learn about floors. And you know, like I am a curious person and I was just like, wow, like there’s so many different types of floors and like the person who’s buying the floor like will want this and that and why is vinyl better than wood and things like that. And I was like, just learn everything about floors. And I spent, and you know, I was trying to like, you know.

that I was very keen so I spent the whole weekend like researching and like building the model for the company and and then so I spent like a week and the weekend researching it and on Monday I was like okay I’m ready to present my pitch was yeah Flores my pitch was terrible and

Meeyeon (29:01)
I’m ready to talk floors

Jorge Marques (29:07)
And I was like, I don’t think this is a good investment. And they were like, yeah, no, agree. And I was like, wow. I spent like all this time learning about this industry and the companies and the players. And, then they also said like, you know, you don’t have to cram your research. You know, like it’s much more important that we make the right decision than making the decision quickly. And I thought that was actually a very valuable lesson because I think, you know, when you’re under pressure, you

sometimes let emotions kind of bias you and I was like, you know, I had this very urge to say like, you know, I’ve done all this research like this has to be a good investment but at the end of the day I think the better decision was not to invest but yeah so as a financial analyst was a lot about researching the companies and

Then when I finished the CFA and transitioned to the portfolio management role, I think the biggest difference is I still do a lot of that research myself, but now I also have more say on…

the current portfolio holdings and we have to make a lot of decisions in terms of weight management, is so important and diversification and monitoring ideas that are inside the portfolio already. Yeah, portfolio construction and portfolio monitoring. We have 80 holdings and we are three portfolio managers.

Meeyeon (30:37)
to a little bit of portfolio construction.

Jorge Marques (30:49)
You know, we all kind of, we are all generalists. We’re not very specialist, which means we look at everything. But yeah, so we monitor a lot the current holdings as well. Kind of just built up on the previous role.

Meeyeon (31:07)
And so for those of us listening that have on a vision board, like I want to be a PM one day, what is your kind of typical day to day look like?

Jorge Marques (31:17)
Yeah, so I wake up and kind of catch up with the news, see if there was anything that will affect the specific company that we hold. So for example, we hold certain health care names. Let’s say a drug is approved. That’s material moving information because now something that…

A product that wasn’t revenue generating is getting closer to be revenue generating. So we will check if there is news on the companies, then read up on what’s happened, if there was any macro news that impacts overall any of the portfolio holdings. Then I’ll typically head to the office and at the office if there’s anything we need to discuss, we’ll discuss. And then I’ll go into research, do a lot of…

research new ideas, research markets, take meetings with companies to learn about new companies, meetings with investment bank analysts who will tell us about certain sectors. Sometimes we attend conferences, mostly virtual, but conferences again to learn about new ideas. then, so a lot of learning, which I think is one of the reasons I like the job a lot. We also have a lot of, so…

This is a little technical, but our firm does our own valuation. So our portfolio management team does the valuation of the mutual fund daily. So we take care of that, attend to client meetings and client requests. Yeah, I think that sums it up.

Meeyeon (32:59)
And then what would you say are three, it doesn’t have to be three, but just a couple of key qualities that you think make someone successful in a portfolio management role. Because like what we said before was that, you when you go to, for example, university for an undergraduate degree, pick whatever you like most, because the chances are you’re going to perform the best at what you like to do.

Because, know, for example, when you were studying for the CFA on like a weekend or when Tim was dropping by the office on a weekend, this is Tim pre his children. It’s like his genuine interest that propels you to do that. And so with someone that’s going to with career, it’s a little bit different because in academics you’re paying money to learn and like hopefully building yourself up. But with careers, it’s like they’re paying you and you can’t change. You like you can’t have such a disparate career path

Jorge Marques (33:37)
this was Tim with a…

Meeyeon (33:57)
over time because then that kind of leads to less significant progress. But what would you say are the key kind of qualities that make someone successful in a portfolio management role from what you’ve seen so far?

Jorge Marques (34:10)
Yeah, so just before it was Tim with a newborn. So I think that’s even crazier. But I think in terms of qualities, think, you know, curiosity and hard work, you know, I think that’s really important. I think discipline again, just hard work as well, guess, because, as I said, like, you know, I was learning about flooring and then the next week I was learning about semiconductors and then…

Meeyeon (34:14)
Or Tim with the newborn.

Jorge Marques (34:40)
you know, reading Chip Ward to understand the geopolitics of how the semiconductor market works. And so I think like having this innate curiosity of just enjoying to learn random things is very important. I think having…

Having, how do I say this, kind of being okay with being wrong and learning from your mistakes I think is very important because you…

Like the market is really tough and you are constantly being like, you wake up and you’re daily saying like, if you invest in something and it goes down, you’re like, am I wrong? Constant feedback. And it’s constant, like kind of like, and I think being able to make a very rational analysis of what’s happening and being like, I think that’s very important. So I guess being in control of your emotions. And that’s, think one of the hardest parts of being a portfolio manager.

Meeyeon (35:25)
Constant feedback.

Jorge Marques (35:45)
So curiosity, hard work, in control of your emotions. And being open to doing things. I get a lot of students reaching out asking me what I recommend. I think nowadays, and I guess I’m kind of…

going away from your question a bit, analyze companies yourself. On your free time, you want to learn how to analyze a company, write a sub stack about it, write investment pitches. think as you do more, you get better at it. And I think that’s the best way to really improve your skills.

Meeyeon (36:34)
So I can’t think of a better way to just wrap up that podcast because it’s that key nuggets of information for anyone that has on their vision board to be a portfolio manager because it’s a huge aspiration goal for, aspirational goal for everyone. I hope you have enjoyed this podcast because I can’t think of a, I can’t think of a more informative one that we’ve had and to be able to learn it from someone that has been so instrumental behind CFI. Jorge is the best

Jorge Marques (36:55)
You…

Meeyeon (37:03)
example of what we want to provide for people that are at CFI.

So, thank you everyone for joining us for a most special episode of Member Spotlight. And maybe we’ll touch base with Jorge again in like a year or two, see where he is. Maybe he’s going to be the head of an investment fund.

Jorge Marques (37:23)
Thank you so much for having me and yeah, if anyone wants to reach out, yeah, reach out on LinkedIn. I’m always open to help students and yeah, happy to have talked here. Thank you so much, Meeyeon.

Meeyeon (37:24)
Bye for now, everyone.

Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us, Jorge. And until next time, everyone. See you for now.