Trip to the Big Apple

One piece of advice: Join MBA clubs and take advantage of club activities. I am a declared Finance major so I will focus on the Graduate Finance Association (GFA); however, other track majors have great clubs as well. During this past year, one of the most valuable aspects of being involved in the GFA was the relationships that I formed with my classmates. These relationships were strengthened on the GFA New York trip that takes place each fall. The trip took place October 21^st, 22^nd, & 23^rd with approximately 70 BYU students (both MBA and undergraduates) having the opportunity to meet with 40+ financial services firms that are located in New York. Our fearless mentors on the trip were Jim Engebretsen and Kim Smith and they provided a first-class experience for all of us.

Students paid their own way on the trip and were richly rewarded with unbelievable exposure to finance professionals that were happy to meet with us and talk about their respective firm. We divided up research on the firms beforehand so that we could create research material that was distributed to all students in attendance. The purpose of the organized research was to ensure that quality questions were asked after each presentation and all those in attendance represented BYU extremely well. Each day of the trip was spent at one firm’s headquarters and then all of the presenting professionals made the trip to visit us. This eliminated the logistical nightmare and lost time of 70+ students trying to make their way to and from different locations in New York. Below is a brief summary of each day of the trip and names of firms that presented:

October 21^st – Stamford, CT – We started off the first day of the trip in Connecticut at the offices of US Trust and heard from professionals in Private Wealth Management, Private Equity, Investment Management, and Hedge Funds. (Starwood Hotels, Merrill Lynch Private Wealth, Portfolio Advisors, Millenium, Columbia Management, US Trust, RSB Greenwich Capital, & FE Clean Energy.)

October 22^nd & 23^rd – Manhattan, NY – These days were spent at the headquarters of Cerberus Capital Management on Park Avenue. We were hosted extremely well in two large boardrooms throughout both days. Again, Private Wealth, Hedge Fund, Private Equity, Investment Banking, Investment Management, and Corporate Finance professionals presented to us. (Cerberus, Citigroup, Lazard, Lightyear Capital, Clearlake Capital, Oppenheimer, DE Shaw, Bernstein Global, Morgan Joseph, NYSE, Prudential Capital, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, GE Commercial Finance, Houlihan Lokey, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Credit Suisse, Deloitte, American Express, Wells Fargo, Moelis & Co., Bank of Montreal, Partners Group, Barclays, JPMorgan, SAC Capital, Corinthian Capital, HSBC, Nomura, and Morgan Stanley.)

Summary: The key takeaways are exposure to many different types of financial services firms and the opportunity to build relationships with professionals and your classmates. (A number of internships were a direct result of this trip, but those internships came from relationships.)

Jeremy Burgon, Finance, Class of 2011