Hobart and William Smith Colleges

25 January 2024 Wall Street Experience

During winter break, students made alumni connections in the financial sector.

More than 50 alumni and professionals joined HWS students and faculty in board rooms across New York City for the Wall Street Experience. Held Jan. 8-10 and coordinated by the Salisbury Center for Career, Professional and Experiential Education, the three-day career trek gave students the opportunity to build professional relationships and visit several of the financial industry’s global powerhouses.

Students joined by Professor of Economics Feisal Khan visited Bank of America, Bloomberg, Citigroup, Chubb, JP Morgan, Moelis, Nomura, S&P Global and UBS. The program was coordinated by Senior Associate Director Shayne Feinberg P’17, P’20.

“The range of firms we went to exposed our students to the multiplicity of opportunities that exist in ‘finance,’ whether it’s insurance, investment or commercial banking, or financial services,” Khan says.

Khan reconnected with former students and advisees on the trip, who shared how they have leveraged their HWS education to “stand out” in the industry. “A liberal arts education turns out an ‘all-rounder’ who is interested in the world around them, who can talk intelligently about a range of subjects, make connections across a wide field, and is so much more than a one-trick pony,” Khan says.

Many students on the trek prepared for the Wall Street Experience over the Fall semester by enrolling in the “Financial Markets” Reader’s College course co-taught by Khan and Feinberg. Students gain skills in Microsoft Excel and financial modeling, as well as participate in class discussions and write analyses of current market trends. Read more about the course here.

"What made the trip special was the opportunity to connect with HWS alumni, listen to their perspectives and receive personal advice, which will be very helpful for my internship search in the future,” says economics major Esme Pham ’26.

“It was interesting to speak to alumni one-on-one about how their liberal arts background was beneficial to them when entering the finance world,” Lacey Sommerville ’26 says. “It was meaningful to speak to successful individuals with similar backgrounds to me.” Sommerville is double majoring in political science and economics.

Participating alumni included:

Bank of America: Kiersten Hamilton ’12, Christina Mitrow ’22, Lindsey Stampone ’08

Bloomberg: Matthew Fox ’19, Joseph Gibbons ’14, Kelsie Worth ’22

Citigroup: Joseph Ansaldo ’21, Michael Bamah ’22, Julia Beaudet ’23, Margaret Bluhm Welles ’15, Darius Brummel ’21, Benjamin Carr ’16, Clifford Crane ’05, Caroline Galdabini ’89, Gillian Parrett ’23, Dylan Quay ’18, Adam Raffa ’06, Wyatt Warren ’22 

Chubb: Vincent Russo ’18, Rachel Slagle ’20 

JP Morgan: Mike Birkhofer ’16, Christopher Calero ’22, Sean Donnelly ’17, Brendan Goostray ’21, Emma Gordon ’17, Maddie Hamilton ’08, Alexander Hess ’12, Bennett Moore ’18, Benjamin Shapiro ’17

Moelis: Charles Widing ’21

Nomura: Christopher Swan ’13, Caroline Martocci ’22

S&P Global: Megan Barwick ’19, Kirsten Anderson Delany ’15, William Delany ’13, Caroline Demeter ’15, Peter Flanagan ’15, Brian Hoffman ’21, Georgia Jones ’04, Robert Lewis ’19, Andrew Manuel ’18, Saima Mashori ’22, Michael Patrizio ’17, Jacob Tomm ’22

UBS: Chase Carraway ’22, Kyle Baradzi ’18, Zachary Sternbach ’20

In the photo above, alumni from Citigroup share insights from their career journeys.