the best stock pickers are the ones who understand the business. That being said, you dont have to work in the business to understand it. the most important skill you need to have is the ability to read a lot of crap and summarize it. It sounds simple, but it takes a lot of experience because there is a lot of research out there, a majority of which are garbage. Conciseness is key.
And you cannot use the “I cannot afford a top tier MBA”. You can borrow the 140k and pay that back pretty easily. The largest set back is giving up your job and salary for 2 years IMO. Getting into a top tier MBA is prolly your bigger problem.
Contrary to what people are saying. Investment management is not about making as much money as possible, it is managing return expectations and understanding investment risk. Passion for learning investments is the better answer. I am paraphrasing a BSD here. Forgot who.