Moving Up the Ladder in Finance: Gagan Jain’s Journey from a Farming Background to VP at an MNC Bank

Some career stories are quietly more instructive than they first appear. In this episode of Skill Talk, IMS Proschool’s video series spotlighting real finance careers, we sit down with Mr. Gagan Jain — a CFA charterholder, Chartered Accountant, and Company Secretary ranker who now serves as Vice President at a multinational bank. Watch the full conversation in the embedded video above, and read on for the context behind his story.

Gagan’s background is what makes this episode worth watching even before you get to the technical details of his career. He comes from a farming family in a small town — a starting point far removed from the trading floors and corporate boardrooms of multinational banking. Getting from there to a VP role at an MNC bank isn’t a one-step jump; it typically means years of exams, incremental promotions, and the kind of persistence that doesn’t show up on a LinkedIn headline. In this episode, Gagan shares his journey and the mindset that helped him move up the ladder in finance, and that trajectory alone is worth sitting with, regardless of the specific advice he gives on camera.

What stands out on paper is the combination of credentials: CFA, CA, and CS, held by the same person. Each tests a different muscle. The CA is built around accounting, audit, and taxation rigor. The CS is oriented toward corporate law, governance, and compliance. The CFA is built around investment analysis, portfolio management, and financial markets. Very few professionals pursue all three, because each is a serious multi-year commitment in its own right.

Holding all three signals something about career strategy rather than just academic appetite: it suggests someone who wanted to be equally credible discussing a balance sheet, a compliance filing, and an investment thesis — and who was willing to put in the years it takes to earn that range. For a VP role at a multinational bank, where finance, governance, and strategy questions frequently intersect, that combination is a plausible explanation for why Gagan’s profile stood out to his employer.

Because this is a video interview rather than a written case study, we won’t put words in Gagan’s mouth about what he says on camera. But the general shape of the conversation — a small-town, farming-background candidate methodically clearing three demanding qualifications and rising to VP — is the kind of story that’s genuinely useful to hear directly from the person who lived it. If you’re earlier in your own finance career and wondering whether a non-metro, non-traditional starting point is a disadvantage, this is a data point worth fifteen minutes of your time.

Gagan’s path involved three separate qualifications, each demanding years of study — but the underlying idea applies whichever single course you’re considering: a credential is a structured way of proving depth in a specific area of finance, and it compounds with real work experience over time.

At IMS Proschool, our current programs are built around that same logic for today’s aspirants: CFA for investment analysis and portfolio management, ACCA and US CPA for accounting and audit expertise, US CMA for management accounting, Financial Modeling for hands-on valuation skills, and CFP for personal financial planning — alongside integrated options like M.Com with ACCA and B.Com with ACCA for students who want to combine a degree with a professional qualification. You don’t need to replicate Gagan’s exact combination of three charters to move up the ladder in finance; you need the one credential that’s most relevant to the role you’re aiming for, paired with the same persistence his story illustrates.