November 09, 2010
It’s exciting, it’s important and it’s recognized as the
financial capital of the world. It’s Wall Street, and the
activities that take place on the trading floors and in the
boardrooms will ultimately impact the lives of us all.
Photo Gallery
On
Thursday, November 4, 2010, 40 students from St. John’s The Peter
J. Tobin College of Business went behind the scenes for a firsthand
look at what really happens on “the Street.” The 9th Annual Alumni
Insider’s View…Day on Wall Street, is a unique day-long program
designed to offer information unavailable to the general public.
The
Alumni Insider’s View…Programs are a series of initiatives in
which St. John’s University alumni offer students a
behind-the-scenes look at some of the most interesting and exciting
careers available today.
The program was hosted and sponsored by Depository Trust &
Clearing Corporation, Fidelity Investments, the New York Stock
Exchange and Standard & Poor’s.
The day began on the Manhattan campus with an overview of the daily
operations of Fidelity Investments. At the end of the presentations
students were reminded that their success would be as much a
function of their personal values as of the excellent education
that they were receiving at St. John’s.
“A very important mentality for you to have is to have very high
personal standards,” said Michael Keenan ’98CBA, Client Services
Manager, Fidelity Investments. “When you get into this business,
you’ll be judged on how well you compare to your peers and exceed
expectations. I attribute my own success to my high personal
standards.”
The
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) offered a firsthand look at the
fast-paced activities that take place every day at the world’s most
historic financial market. For the first time since the program
began, students were permitted to spend time on the actual trading
floor, coincidentally on the day that the stock market had its
highest close (11,434.84) since September of 2008. Their visit to
the floor was made possible through the efforts of former New York
Stock Exchange employee Mark A Ventimiglia ’81CBA, ’83MBA.
“I was happy that I was able to provide them the opportunity to get
on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor and the photo op by
the bell podium,” said Ventimiglia, currently President of the
Tobin College of Business Alumni Association. “The students told me
that they enjoyed all the activities the sponsors set up. They were
a great group and this was a great day on Wall Street."
The next stop was the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation
(DTCC), a family of companies that has helped to automate,
centralize, standardize and streamline processes
that are critical to the safety and soundness of the capital
markets. The students were given an exclusive opportunity for a
tour of the DTCC vault, the firm’s fortified repository in which
actual securities certificates are stored. They learned that the
increased use of paperless securities transactions has reduced the
amount of stock and bond certificates held in the vault to
approximately 1.3 million, significantly fewer than the millions of
certificates stored in the vault just a few years ago.
Offering practical career advice, DTCC’s Lead Learning
Business Consultant William Corrigan ’92SVC, ’02MBA urged the
students to “…talk to people and find out what they do, because
that will give you some important information when you’re deciding
on what to do with your own careers. In the financial field you
always need to be learning. You need to find out what’s going on
and figure out what you can best offer to an employer. Programs
like this are great, because they give students information they
wouldn’t have access to anywhere else.”
It was apparent that students participating in the program took
Corrigan’s message to heart and were eager to put the suggestions
made by the alumni panelists into action. “The speakers offered a
lot of information about valuable skills, especially those
necessary to succeed in the interview process,” said Elizabeth
Janson ’12TCB. “We need to hone these skills on our own, while
still in college, and really focus on entering a good company when
we graduate. The information that we got today was
invaluable.”
The program continued with a visit to Standard & Poor’s, the
world's foremost provider of independent credit ratings, indices,
risk evaluation, investment research and data. The S&P 500
provides investors with the independent benchmarks they need to
feel more confident about their investment and financial decisions.
Alumni provided an overview of some of the firm’s operations,
including their Fixed Income Market, Service Bureau and Credit
Market Services.
“St.
John’s students today have so many great opportunities that weren’t
available when I was a student,” noted Steve Murphy ’81CBA,
Managing Director, Public Finance at Standard & Poor’s.
“Programs like this Alumni Insider’s View let them see what it’s
really like in the business world and show them what skills they
need to succeed – things you just can’t get out of
textbooks.”
Murphy was happy to be an alumni participant in the program, both
because of his love of St. John’s as well as for the chance to help
today’s students keep the University’s reputation for excellence
alive. “I take a lot of pride in how far St. John’s has come,” he
continued. “The University has gotten better and better, and it’s
up to the students today to keep that reputation moving
forward.”
The day ended with an exclusive networking reception at Bowne on
the 50th floor of the Standard & Poor’s building, where
students and alumni had an opportunity to get to know each other on
a less formal, more personal basis. It was also a time for the
students to reflect on the practical suggestions that they received
throughout the program.
“We got so much great information today,” said Elizabeth Brovero
’12TCB, “but I think that the most important thing that I learned
had to do with developing my interview skills. I learned that in an
interview it’s important to keep your mind on what you’re saying
and present it effectively. For that reason alone, this was an
important day for me.”
Keynote Speaker Robert Adams ’84CBA, ’88MBA urged the
students to “…stay focused on your studies, don’t be afraid of hard
work and the opportunities will be abundant. Hard work is a trait
of St. John’s students, and probably one of the most important
reasons why they always do so well. And remember that events like
this give you a hands-on experience about what working in the
financial industry is really like. That’s something you can
probably only get at St. John’s.”
For information about Alumni Insider's View…Programs in general,
please call Mark Andrews, Associate Director, Office of Alumni
Relations at (718) 990-5897 or e-mail andrewsm@stjohns.edu.
For information about Alumni Insider's View…Programs on the
Staten Island campus, please call Nicholas A. Legakis '97SVC,
'07MPS, Director, Institutional Advancement, Staten Island at (718)
390-4146 or e-mail legakisn@stjohns.edu.