88,000 people<\/a> are in the student alumni network.\u00a0<\/p>\nBrockman said students should make the most of their time with the alumni to seize opportunities by \u201cvisualizing the financial landscape\u201d and exploring career paths within them.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the networking sessions, you have the opportunity to make important connections that can advance your career development for many years and perhaps even decades to come,\u201d Brockman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following the opening remarks, Ken Hexter, \u201893, the managing director at Bank of America, took the stage. Hexter, who sponsored the event, has many family ties to Lehigh, with his sister, cousins and son all attending.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hexter emphasized the importance of professionalism and attention to detail when applying for internships, such as checking for spelling errors. He said that when companies are reading over 120 applications for a job, the quickest way to be ignored is to have a spelling mistake.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cThe recruiter pulled my resume out because he thought being on Student Senate was something cool,\u201d Hexter said. \u201cSometimes it is weird what might make you pop out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
After Hexter spoke, a panel of young alumni shared their experiences transitioning from Lehigh to careers in finance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The panel, led by Billy Healy, \u201820, included former students: Christina Flynn, \u201923, an equity capital markets associate at Bank of America; Mike Grekoski, \u201924, an investment banking analyst at Citi Bank; Lucas Hudson, \u201923, an equity research analyst at Bank of America; and Leeza Khalif \u201923, who works in business development at AQR Capital Management.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They emphasized how Lehigh\u2019s coursework prepared them for what they experience in the work force.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Flynn said she joined the Lehigh Investment Management Group, which aims to help students better understand financial markets and the finance industry.<\/p>\n
Flynn said when she initially joined, she didn\u2019t know much about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIMG is a great club because you can do stock pitches with guidance from the executive board and even just listening to others teaches you a lot,\u201d Flynn said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Students then walked next door to Rauch Business Center for breakout sessions with alumni working in specific areas of finance. Each session was about 45 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The different rooms included Sales & Trading; Investment Banking; Portfolio Management and Hedge Funds; Wealth Management; Sell-Side and Buy-Side Research; Private Equity and Private Credit; FinTech and Commercial Real Estate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Each room consisted of approximately 15 students and five alumni.<\/p>\n
In the Sales and Trading breakout session, Tim Isola, \u201826, asked the group of alumni about the key differences between careers in sales and trading.<\/p>\n
Andrew Fife, \u201885, explained that in sales, there\u2019s no planning your day, and the fast paced nature of the financial markets and constantly changing industry calls for adaptability.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In response to Isola, Fife said sales is a people\u2019s business and having the ability to make a personal connection is crucial to the industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once students attended three sessions, they headed back to Zoellner for lunch. Students sat with alumni during the meal, allowing them to continue conversations and network in a more casual setting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After lunch concluded, students had the opportunity to continue networking with alumni and other attendees until 4 p.m., when the event officially ended. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 19th Annual Wall Street Council Financial Services forum was held on Saturday, bringing together 231 students and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[5451,4784,153,155,154,139,1198],"class_list":{"0":"post-9542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-5-minute-read","9":"tag-administration","10":"tag-bethlehem","11":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","12":"tag-bethlehem-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-student-and-campus-life"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}