Discipline. Hard work. Years of intense training. Those are what it takes to get your CFA designation. But these are also key contributors to success in the field of sports, where athletes routinely train hard and make big personal sacrifices to achieve their goals. So it’s not surprising that at least two professional CFA charterholders we know hail from the world of sports — Steven Houle, CFA, and Ed Podivinsky, CFA. In this special Charterholder profile, they both share their experiences in making the change from sports to finance and what they learned in the process.

Steven Houle, CFA Professional baseball scout, CFA, and Director, Advisory Services, with Catalyst Strategic Solutions.

Tells us a bit about your background and how you came to a career in baseball.

I always had a passion for baseball, whether it was playing, watching, or just being around the game, and I aspired to one day play in the major leagues. Unfortunately, like many others, I wasn’t talented enough, so the next best thing for me was being able to work for a major league organization. When I was in university, I wrote letters to every major league team looking for an opportunity to work for them. I spent a few summers as a recommending scout for a major league team. I went to local amateur games without getting paid or reimbursed and passed on any information to a full-time scout for that organization. Eventually, a full-time job opened with the Toronto Blue Jays, and they hired me. I was fortunate enough to have been coached by a scout for the Toronto Blue Jays, and he gave me a reference.

What is your biggest athletic accomplishment?

When I played Midget AAA baseball, I had the game-winning hit that qualified my team for the Midget AAA Canadian Baseball Championships.

What was the best part about life as an athlete? What are some of the drawbacks?

Working in a sport that you loved as a kid. Scouting was particularly interesting because it takes you to the grassroots of the game. I spent countless hours looking for that “diamond in the rough.” Having a territory in the northeast, the playing seasons aren’t as long as in the south, so you have a lot of ground to cover in a shorter period of time, and more projection goes into your player evaluations. The drawback was the time you spent away from your family.

Tell me about your time scouting for the Toronto Blue Jays.

It was a unique opportunity that very few people get the chance to have. I learned how capable I was at doing something with very little direction or supervision. I was given an area that included southern Ontario, Michigan, northern Ohio, northwest Pennsylvania and northwest New York, and I was responsible for evaluating high school and college baseball players that might be the next one to play for the Toronto Blue Jays. I had a chance to see some future Major League Baseball players when they were playing youth baseball and a few kids that pursued football and went on to play in the NFL.

What precipitated your decision to leave athletics in pursuit of your charter?

The solitude of being a scout and missing time with your family that you don’t get back. I enjoyed my university finance and accounting classes, so it was a logical path for me to pursue.

How did the disciplines of professional sports prepare you for the rigours of obtaining your charter?

Achieving your goals requires commitment, sacrifice, and hard work—the same requirement for achieving the CFA charter.

Can you share some of the highlights of your career and how the CFA designation and the knowledge gained has contributed to those highlights?

I’ve always felt the CFA designation separated me from other candidates for jobs, and employers understand and respect how much work it takes to achieve.

So much of the professional athlete’s world is repetition and preparation so that you can prepare for the competition. Are there any comparables to the competition in the financial industry?

I think commitment, preparation, and good habits are some of the keys to athletic success. I also believe these are crucial to success in the financial industry. It is very competitive, and you always want to be better prepared and know more than your competition.

What advice do you have for people just starting out in either the investment industry or athletics?

Be persistent, stick with your convictions, and always over deliver.

Can you share some of the best advice or coaching you have received in your career or in life?

If you think you can or you can’t, then you’re right. Tell someone and they’ll forget, show someone and they’ll remember, involve someone and they’ll understand.

The worst?

I never listened to people who doubted me!

Ed Podivinsky, CFA Champion skier, CFA, and Director, Global Equities with RBC Capital Markets.

Tell us a bit about your background and how you came to a career in skiing.

My parents liked to ski, and so we would travel from Edmonton to the mountains in Banff or Jasper every other weekend. I skied in the city of Edmonton at the Snow Valley Ski Club during weeknight ski practice. Interestingly, now that I am a parent of four young children, I cannot imagine a better family activity for spending great quality family time together. Outdoors all weekend, kids exhausted at the end of the day—fabulous!

What is your biggest athletic accomplishment?

Representing Canada at four Olympics. Winning the Olympic Bronze Medal in 1994.

What was the best part about life as an athlete? What are some of the drawbacks?

The best part about an athlete’s life, I believe, is the singular focus. You had one job—to be the fastest skier/athlete you could possibly be.

The drawbacks are the travel, which is fun when you are young, but not so fun when you have a family at home and you’re spending Christmas in Europe.

What precipitated your decision to leave athletics in pursuit of your charter?

I was lucky. I had a career that was longer than most in my sport, and I was able to retire from my sport on my own terms. I am not sure what the statistics are in sports in general, but in skiing, I would guess that 90 to 95 percent of athletes do not retire on their own terms. They either fail to qualify for the national team or they get injured. I had a long enough career that I knew I would be retiring the year after the Salt Lake City Olympics.

I had always been interested in finance while completing an undergraduate degree from the University of Western Ontario through summer school and correspondence. A good friend within the financial industry suggested that I should start the CFA program. I investigated the program, and although it looked daunting, I realized that the subject matter was exactly what I needed, and just as importantly, it suited my travel and sports schedule. I could read and study during the downtime between training and racing. Ski races and flights were always getting delayed, and you could only ski or train for so many hours per day. The program really suited my schedule. The MBA program… not so much.

How did the discipline of the professional sports world prepare you for the rigours of obtaining your charter?

Endurance and working hard now for the potential of a future reward (CFA designation). That’s what it takes as an athlete to justify the energy spent in training—also discipline. There were always more interesting things to do than picking up CFA textbooks. As anybody in the program knows, there will always be distractions.

Can you share some of the highlights of your career and how the CFA designation and the knowledge gained has contributed to them?

My CFA designation was crucial to my current career. I believe that, as an athlete, you might have a privileged position in gaining access to employment interviews, but having the CFA designation shows potential employers that you have studied and are serious about this industry.

What advice do you have for people just starting out in the investment industry/athletics?

It is possible to do both.

Can you share some of the best advice or coaching you have received in your career or in life?

From my parents: if you want to ski race, you need good grades, and you’ll have to go to summer school for missing class during the winter.

Are there any books or research papers that have influenced you or your work?

I think the first “financial” books I read were really just exposés of financial disasters/events: Den of Thieves, Liar’s Poker, The Predator’s Ball, Barbarians at the Gate, and When Genius Failed. However, I think books like these inspired my curiosity about the investment industry and, more importantly, my interest in the activity of a trading/sales floor. I have also read some great investment books by Peter Lynch and some of the value investing classics.

How do you see the industry evolving over the next few years?

We have seen a lot of change in recent years, with increased acceptance of exchange-traded funds and high-frequency trading. I would expect those trends to continue and that active managers will have to increasingly outperform to continue to attract capital.

Charterholder Profile is a regular feature of The Analyst. Do you have suggestions for members that we should profile? Email us with the member’s name and a few sentences about who he/she is and why this person would make an interesting choice for a profile. TheAnalyst@cfatoronto.ca