Edelweiss MF CEO's secret formula to get rich: Invest in quality & future; long-term gains are always sweet

It is safe to say that almost everyone has one ultimate goal in life: to become rich. But by the time we realise what goes into it, it's too late.

Radhika Gupta, the only woman to lead an asset management company (AMC) in India, on Sunday revealed the three best investments of her life that helped her become successful.



To her success list, the Managing Editor and CEO of Edelweiss MF included her Ivy League education, investing in her start-up Forefront Capital Management (now known as Edelweiss Multi Strategy Funds) in India, and exploring the scope of mutual funds.

Interestingly, none of these investments, according to Gupta, looked lucrative in the beginning. "In fact, they were significantly net negative in the beginning," she wrote on Twitter.


Explaining her investments in a detailed 12-post Twitter thread, the 37-year-old money manager shared that she could manage to get only a part of the scholarship at Wharton. For the remaining amount, she had to take an education loan, which she managed to clear later by working hard. "A world class education stays with you forever," she stressed.

After graduating from Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania as summa cum laude (highest distinction), Gupta said she never felt the need to spend on a Master's degree. Drawing a parallel between investing and education, she said that one should never compromise on long-term for the short-term money, and always go for the best.

"(I) credit my father for this long-term thinking," she wrote.


After starting the alternative investment company with her husband Nalin Moniz and a colleague in 2009, the AMC boss said that she took salaries only a year-and-a-half later, and had managed to earn 15 per cent of the market salary on sale.

She also said that she had invested 80-90 per cent of her savings to capitalise Forefront with Portfolio Management Services (PMS) worth Rs 2 crore then. "Compared to life on a dollar Wall Street salary in the US, standard of living in Mumbai was nothing," she recalled in her thread.

After selling Forefront Capital Management to Edelweiss Financial Services in 2014, Gupta became the CEO of Edelweiss AMC in February 2017.

Calling the experience of starting and running a business as an entrepreneur valuable, Gupta said, "the education of entrepreneurship cannot be measured in money."


Gupta shared that Forefront - an Alternative Investment Fund and PMS company - was a lucrative business. Despite the risks involved, the entrepreneur moved to a young mutual fund business in a domain where she had no experience. "There was no immediate monetary reward on taking on a new role, only the risk of not-performing," she wrote.

The MF leader said that it was one of her wise decisions as the industry has "infinite potential to grow in India." With opportunities will come personal and financial growth, she explained. "I always felt it was an opportunity of a lifetime if I could use it in the right way."

She also managed to set up the first, registered domestic hedge fund in India.


Gupta explained that long-term investment is the only talent one can possess. She decided to share her life lessons as a lot of young people write to her , asking for ways to get rich.

Stressing on the importance of patience, she said good investments won't be rewarding on Day 1. She advised investing in quality and the future as good investments involve short term pain for long term gain.

"A lower salary today, for experience that may shape tomorrow, is well worth it when you are young," she wrote.

Gupta feels that the greatest wealth comes from investment in oneself and one’s career, not just personal finance investments like stocks, bonds, crypto, or even MF.


In the end, she implied that these investment suggestions can’t go wrong.