Tag: Goldman Sachs

Friday, May 19 marked the fifth and final day of our stay in New York City. We first went to Goldman Sachs and had a great time with the speakers from risk management department. The first speaker has worked at Goldman Sachs for three decades and also happens to be a graduate of WashU’s School of Engineering. He shared his career path with us and how he finally found his passion for risk management. The best advice he gave us is to keep learning specific skills in school and thinking about how to apply our knowledge to work. Even though the practical world is different than the theoretical world, the knowledge we learn in school is the foundation of our future work, and when technologies change fast, the foundation does not change. Also, when asked for advice about interviewing, he emphasized the importance of being honest about what you know and what you don’t know, and showing your willingness to learn.

Next, two younger analysts from the risk management office had a Q&A time with us. One of them just joined the team last year, so she had many recent experiences that we were curious about. Many students asked questions about how to prepare for the interviews and what kind of skills Goldman Sachs required. They also talked about the normal day-to-day work and the training program that Goldman Sachs provides.

In the afternoon, we headed to another asset management heavyweight on the street, Neuberger Berman, one of the largest independent, employee-owned investment management firms.

After stepping into the fantastic meeting room, holding a nice drink, and enjoying a magnificent bird’s eye view of the New York skyline and Central Park, we understood the reason that Neuberger Berman is consistently ranked as the company with highest employee satisfaction.

Three senior VP-level speakers shared with us great lessons from their areas of expertise. The head of strategy shared his investment thesis in frontier markets, equity markets, and commodity markets. He also shared his idea of opportunities on investing in fundamentals globally and the trend of macro economics. He frequently discusses these topics with extremely high ranking officials, such as finance ministers of foreign nations.

The head of municipal bonds shared impressive knowledge on municipal bond pricing, valuation, trading strategy, and wisely linked back to dynamics of US municipality financial operation and the challenges and risks they face. Real case studies on Puerto Rico and Detroit gave international students great exposure to the current US public finance system.

The head of corporate finance explained his strategy in dealing with the global corporate system of Neuberger in tax planning, corporate governing, structure optimization, and company controlling. He shared his personal story and career path, which was very interesting for students like us who want to be a CFO of a leading financial institute with a global footprint.

We concluded our New York immersion course with a guided tour of Wall Street. Our guide was a welcoming gentleman, who used to work as a trader in the New York Stock Exchange. While we were walking along the street, we got to know the history of Wall Street, the market, and its participants. We also visited all the famous buildings on the street and heard great stories from years gone by.

The tour ended at the new World Trade Center (pcitured at left), which stands across from the 9/11 monument. While fascinated by the new tower’s beauty, we began to ruminate on the value of peace for society.

Guest Bloggers: Sihao (Henry) Feng, Ye Qu, Yilin Wu, Jiaqi (Jack) Yang (GMF 2017)

This is a series of blogs chronicling the experiences of 42 Global Master of Finance (GMF) dual degree students during their two week immersion course in New York and Washington, DC. Each blog will be written by a small subset of students during their experience. Names of speakers and presenters at firms are anonymous at the request of the firms and course organizers.

Our Global Masters of Finance class concluded our trip to New York on a beautiful day.  Before touring Wall Street, we had two speakers from the Private Equity (PE) sector and one from high-frequency trading. Their knowledge and experience impressed us very much and triggered our further interests in the industry and real business world.

First, Scott Budoff of Saw Mill Capital gave us a lecture about how different types of PE funds operate and the strategies they employ. To differentiate Saw Mill Capital from other PE funds, they focus on the lower-middle market, which means the business has $50 million to $250 million revenue.

Saw Mill also focuses resources on adding value to the company. Budoff believes this is much more important than the sourcing and transitioning of the deal. Budoff also talked about how to motivate people with a base salary and a transparent bonus system.

After the presentation, Mr. Budoff was kind enough to answer a specific question about how to motivate employees in a non-profit organization. He believed that they should screen out employees that work only for money and noted that the motivation should come from their satisfaction of doing what they really wanted to do. In the meantime, organizations should give an additional 10% bonus if the employees have really done a great job. Five minutes spent with Mr. Budoff helped solve a complex problem. It’s a wonderful experience with professionals from different industry backgrounds.

The next presentation came from Jim Wilson and Dr. Ruediger Stuecke from Warburg Pincus. Mr. Wilson not only gave us insights of Private Equity from a more comprehensive perspective, in terms of strategy, geographic and industrial focus, but also shared how Warburg Pincus operates on a global basis for sourcing deals, diversification, and risk management.

Mr. Wilson also offered advice on how young Masters of Finance graduates can differentiate themselves to get into the PE industry and stand out.

We also learned about Warburg Pincus’ portfolio composition and its identity as a growth-oriented investor, as well as how it generates value for investors. Lastly, he shared with us how Warburg Pincus formulates investment theses.

In the afternoon, we were honored to hear from Washington University alumnus, Mark F. Dehnert, BSSSE ’89, MBA ’89, who serves as  Partner and Managing Director in Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing, L.P. He joined the Hull Group, now part of Goldman Sachs, as a Financial Engineer in 1992.

Mark F. Dehnert, BSSSE ’89, MBA ’89 was honored as an Olin Distinguished Alumnus in 2015

Mr. Dehnert talked about the relationship between hardware and algorithm. Speed-oriented strategy would not last long; on the contrary, algorithms have the greatest influences on value creation. Obviously it’s better to take advantage of both in high frequency trading.

With respect to the phenomenon that issuing volume is increasing much faster than trading volume in China, Mr. Dehnert offered his comments that the Chinese secondary market is still illiquid, as companies could suspend themselves when the market is not doing so well.

At the end of the day, in order to give us an institutional taste of finance and America’s history of financial institutions, we were led on a walking tour of Wall Street to learn more about the iconic buildings. We were fascinated by the history as well as the architecture.

Guest Bloggers: Siyuan Ma, Anqi Guo, Qinyu Pan, Jingbo Yang (GMF 2016)

This is a series of blogs chronicling the experiences of 41 Global Master of Finance (GMF) dual degree students during their two week immersion course in New York and Washington, DC. Each blog will be written by a small subset of students during their experience.