One Of Wharton's Most Successful MBA Alums Says His Degree Was ‘A Waste Of Time'
By almost any account, Bill Winters has had a very successful career. After earning his MBA from Wharton in 1988, during the peak of MBA popularity when the degree's ROI was at its highest, Winters returned to JPMorgan to continue his role in the firm's graduate trainee program. He climbed the ranks over the next 26 years, ultimately becoming co-CEO of JP Morgan's investment bank.
For the past decade, Winters has been CEO of Standard Chartered Bank in the United Kingdom, receiving a total compensation package of $14.7 million last year. His net worth has been estimated as high as $336 million.
Did his MBA training at Wharton helped to put him on this high-flying trajectory? Not, according to Winters. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Winters claims his MBA degree had little to no value. It was, in his own words, 'a waste of time.'
Far more helpful, he suggested, was his 1983 undergraduate degree in international relations from Colgate University, a degree that opened the door to JPMorgan in the first place.
'I studied international relations and history,' he told Bloomberg. 'I got an MBA later, but that was a waste of time,'
It is a stunning admission from one of Wharton's most successful alums. When Winters graduated from the school in 1988, the MBA program was ranked fourth best in Businessweek's first MBA ranking. The annual tuition was just $15,440, and the typical Wharton MBA started with average pay of $55,183. Today, tuition and fees are $92,820 a year, six times more, while the median salary is $175,000, little more than three times higher.
Because Winters returned to JPMorgan after getting his MBA, it's highly likely he didn't even have to pay for it. JPMorgan would have picked up the tab.
It's not clear why Winters is so down on his MBA degree. The Bloomberg interviewer did not follow up to explore why he thinks so little of his MBA education.
Despite having a successful career, however, Wharton has never publicly acknowledged Winters with any honor or award–not a Distinguished Service Award or the Dean's Medal. And then there was the temporary setback in his career caused when JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon ousted Winters from his job as co-head of investment banking in 2009. Dimon, one of Harvard Business School's most successful MBA graduates, removed Winters abruptly by phone.
Winters did say that the soft skills he learned from majoring in the humanities are more relevant now. 'I learned how to think at university, and for the 40 years since I left university, those skills have been degraded, degraded, degraded. They're coming back now,' Winters said.
The CEO said that with the rise of AI, learning how to think and communicate effectively matters more than ever. 'The technical skills are being provided by the machine, or by very competent people in other parts of the world who have really nailed the technical skills at a relatively low cost.'
'I'm going to go back to curiosity and empathy. Really, really understand the audience that you're dealing with and anticipate those needs beforehand,' he added.
DON'T MISS: or
The post One Of Wharton's Most Successful MBA Alums Says His Degree Was 'A Waste Of Time' appeared first on Poets&Quants.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bank of America juniors will be reassigned — but not fired — if they accept PE jobs
Bank of America joined other firms in asking junior bankers to disclose future job offers. This follows similar policies by JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citi, and Morgan Stanley. BofA's approach seeks to balance conflict-of-interest concerns with young bankers' ambitions. Bank of America's junior bankers are the latest young cohort on Wall Street to receive new guidance on accepting hush-hush private equity jobs while employed by the bank. The Brian Moynihan-led bank will ask its analysts to disclose whether they have offers for future-dated jobs, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The policy was first reported by Bloomberg. It follows similar rules rolled out by JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citi, and Morgan Stanley in recent weeks, with one big exception: BofA juniors who accept these future-dated job offers will not be terminated but rather reassigned to another area within the bank. A Bank of America spokesperson declined to comment. By contrast, JPMorgan has told juniors that their "employment with the firm will end" if they take offers. Other banks weren't as specific about what would happen if the bankers attest that they indeed have future jobs lined up, which the banks have criticized as a potential conflict of interest. Citi's memo said that anyone with a future-dated job would be assessed on "a case-by-case basis," and Morgan Stanely juniors were told they could face disciplinary action. BofA's approach comes as banks struggle to balance their staffing needs with the career ambitions of young bankers who want to jump to the buy side after their investment banking analyst stints end, usually after two years. The PE industry's habit of filling future analyst classes with junior investment bankers two years in advance has become a major thorn in the side of many investment banks. In the last few years, the recruiting timeline has been pushed up to the point that college grads were secretly interviewing for future-dated PE jobs before they had even officially started their current banking jobs. Many banks have buyout firms as clients, which could lead to conflicts of interest for the bankers working on deals with future employers. "I think that's unethical. I don't like it, and I may eliminate it regardless of what the private-equity guys say," Dimon told college students at Georgetown University last year, adding: "You are already working for somewhere else, and you are dealing with highly confidential information for JPMorgan." This year, JPMorgan's stance seemed to cause a fall of the dominoes. In June, CEO Jamie Dimon blasted the practice. Days later, buyout shops Apollo Global Management, General Atlantic, and later TPG announced they'd hold off on recruiting for 2027 analysts until next year — an unprecedented step. Read the original article on Business Insider
CBS News
2 hours ago
- CBS News
Oversight committee accuses Turlock superintendent of greenlighting noncompliant classroom project
A Bond Oversight Committee is calling out Turlock Unified School District leadership, accusing Superintendent of Business Services Barney Gordon of knowingly greenlighting a noncompliant classroom project, a decision they say cost the district approximately $8 million in state grant funding. The issue centers around kindergarten classrooms built at Osborn Elementary School. According to the California Department of Education (CDE) and the Office of Public School Construction (OPSC), the classrooms fall short of the state-mandated 1,350 square feet required to qualify for matching grants. Despite internal concerns, the district proceeded with construction. Emails obtained by CBS Sacramento show Gordon raised the alarm more than once. "I am a little concerned… as it looks pretty clear that kindergarten classrooms need to be 1,350 square feet," he wrote in August 2021. A year later, in September 2022, Gordon emailed, "The CDE indicated the kinder classrooms do not meet the 1350 SF for Title V. If this stands… it will be a severe blow to our finances." Despite those warnings, the classrooms were built and the district never submitted an application for state funding. "As of August 4, 2025, OPSC has not received an Application for Funding from the school district," the Office of Public School Construction told CBS Sacramento. "If any of these classrooms are occupied, the school district's project is ineligible for New Construction funding." The CDE confirmed it never received a final submission either, stating, "A district may request an exemption to the design, which CDE would evaluate on a case-by-case basis. The district elected not to address the comments and submit the project requesting final approval." Turlock Unified denied any financial loss. "The District has not lost any state matching eligibility," Turlock Unified said in a statement. When asked specifically about Osborn Elementary, the district shifted to broader funding categories, saying, "There is no impact to modernization eligibility nor funding, and there is no correlation to any past projects." But the Bond Oversight Committee, an independent body tasked with monitoring the use of taxpayer-approved bond funds, says otherwise. In their first official meeting in nearly two years, members said the district's lack of transparency and compliance led directly to the loss of millions. Committee Chair Lacy Elliott, along with other committee members and parents of students, pointed the blame at Gordon. "He says it's a blow to our finances… well, it's not just a blow to our finances. It's a blow to our kids," Elliott said. "He lost our school district approximately $8 million in state funds." Members also confirmed Gordon removed their meeting minutes and alleged the district made it nearly impossible for the committee to meet, stripping them of their independent oversight. State officials confirm the district can't recover the money through other programs either. "Modernization eligibility requires permanent buildings to be at least 25 years old and relocatable buildings at least 20 years old," OPSC said. "At present, the school site does not have any Modernization Program eligibility on record."
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Bank of England set to cut rate as UK economy weakens
The Bank of England is widely expected to cut its key interest rate Thursday, with policymakers mindful of US tariffs and their potential risks to an already-struggling UK economy. With the BoE likely to trim borrowing costs by a quarter point to 4.0 percent, focus will be on potential changes to the central bank's economic growth and inflation outlooks. "There are clear signs of (UK) economic deterioration, particularly stemming from the labour market," Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor, noted ahead of the latest rate call. "Yet policymakers must weigh this up against the risk of inflationary pressures particularly with rising food prices and international uncertainty around (US President Donald) Trump's tariffs and volatility in energy markets." Against this backdrop, analysts expect splits within the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee. Some argue that while the majority of the nine policymakers, including governor Andrew Bailey, will vote for a quarter-point cut, some are likely to demand an even larger reduction and others no change. A quarter-point cut Thursday would be the BoE's fifth such reduction since starting a trimming cycle in August 2024, emphasising its "gradual" approach to reducing rates. The BoE's main task is to keep Britain's annual inflation rate at 2.0 percent but the latest official data showed it had jumped unexpectedly to an 18-month high in June. The Consumer Prices Index increased to 3.6 percent as motor fuel and food prices stayed high. - Weak economy - Latest official figures also show that Britain's economy unexpectedly contracted for a second month running in May and UK unemployment is at a near four-year high of 4.7 percent. This is largely down to Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour government increasing a UK business tax from April, the same month that the country became subject to Trump's 10-percent baseline tariff on most goods. London and Washington reached an agreement in May to cut levies of more than 10 percent imposed by Trump on certain UK-made items imported by the United States, notably vehicles. Last month, the BoE warned in a report that tariff unpredictability and Middle East conflicts pose risks to UK financial stability. The US Federal Reserve last week kept interest rates unchanged, defying strong political pressure from Trump to slash borrowing costs in a bid to boost the world's biggest economy. Asked about US tariffs following the decision, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told a press conference: "We're still a ways away from seeing where things settle down." The European Central Bank is meanwhile widely expected to keep rates unchanged at its next meeting, with eurozone inflation around the ECB's two-percent target. But that could change, according to some economists, based on how Trump's tariffs affect the single-currency bloc. bcp/ajb/rl/tc Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
