Go east, young moneyman

“A LOT of my friends are going to Asia and Latin America to do their internships,” says Ben Zhang, a student at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business who will do his in Hong Kong with Morgan Stanley. “It may be outside their comfort zone, but they see getting some experience there as helpful, since that’s where many of the jobs will be.”

The percentage of business-school graduates choosing finance as a career has dipped only slightly since the crisis, no doubt largely because pay in the industry has held up remarkably (some would say obscenely) well. But within the industry career priorities are changing, at least when it comes to location. Talent and transactions are migrating from London and New York to faster-growing markets, particularly in Asia. Though some headhunters predict indigestion in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai this year after an overzealous bout of hiring, most are bullish on the region’s long-term prospects.


This eastward march has grown more pronounced since the crisis. According to Sheffield Haworth, a recruiting firm, 31% of financial firms’ external hires in Asia in 2010 transferred from Britain or America, compared with 8% the year before. The shift is also visible on eFinancialCareers, a leading recruitment website for the industry. Asian cities have climbed up the list of most popular destinations for applicants based in America and Britain (see table)—though that is partly the result of collapsing interest in the United Arab Emirates following the property bust in Dubai. Though not a top-three destination, Latin America is on the up, too. Fund managers in Brazil report a big increase in applications from American MBA graduates.