Chicago was “my kind of town” for many of the Bryant students who took part in the recent Women in Finance trip to the Windy City. Meeting with alumni at companies as diverse as Zurich North America, Merrill Lynch, Trillium Asset Management, Red Bull, and the Chicago Blackhawks, they talked about career opportunities, finding their place within the profession, and why they should consider expanding their post-college horizons beyond the regional locus of New York and Boston.
The group of more than two dozen women followed a busy itinerary during the three-day trip, interspersing corporate visits and networking events with stops at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and its Money Museum, Millennium Park, Navy Pier, and opportunities to sample deep-dish pizza and Chicago-style hot dogs.
“Going outside of New England gave students an opportunity to engage with alumni in a different geographical area, but also in different industries,” says Finance Lecturer Mara Derderian, director of the Women in Finance Leadership Initiative. “It was a little broader industry overview that resonated with young women differently than what we've done in the past during trips to New York and Washington, D.C.”
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Meeting with such a wide range of companies helped students understand that a Finance career can extend far beyond banking and investment companies, says Derderian.
“Going outside of New England gave students an opportunity to engage with alumni in a different geographical area, but also in different industries."
Heidi Sousa ’26, a dual Accounting and Finance major, took something different away from each stop on the trip.
“Zurich North America had a really awesome panel: I learned a lot about actuarial math,” she says. “Then, we went to the Blackhawks. I’m a huge hockey fan, so it was really fun getting to tour that building and hear from their marketing department and hear about how they engage on social media."
Another highlight of the trip for Sousa was meeting Barbara Franks ’78, who recently retired after a long career as a financial advisor at Edward Jones, during an alumni networking event.
“She was like a ray of sunshine,” says Sousa. “We talked a lot, and she said that if I come back to Chicago, we should go out and get dinner and talk about Edward Jones. She said I’d be a great person to be work there, and she’d love to talk to me more about it,” says Sousa, who was impressed by Chicago's broad downtown streets, friendly people, and food scene, and plans to return to the city in August to continue exploring the local job market.
Sousa notes that she’s comfortable being in spaces that tend to skew more male but that “meeting the women in these companies made me realize that there's always a place for us; there's always people who are supporting you and uplifting you.”
The panel discussion at the Blackhawks headquarters was hosted by Alec Ruden ’19, the team’s manager of growth marketing, who organized a three-woman panel from the Blackhawks’ social media, in-game entertainment, and ticket sales staff to discuss leadership, management styles, and some of the synergies between the world of finance and the work that takes place in the offices of a professional hockey team.
“The panel definitely opened the students’ eyes a little bit that finance careers don't have to be with a finance firm, and that you can come to an organization like the Blackhawks or Red Bull and still find a job. There are so many jobs that you don't know about until you get into the workforce,” says Ruden.
“The panel definitely opened the students’ eyes a little bit that finance careers don't have to be with a finance firm, and that you can come to an organization like the Blackhawks or Red Bull and still find a job."
The career path of Rebecca Kogen ’17, ’18MBA illustrates that point. An Accounting major who earned her MBA with a concentration in international business, Kogen began in the finance industry before shifting to executive assistant roles; she’s currently chief of staff to Red Bull’s CEO.
Kogen says she was eager to engage with her alma mater when Patricia Miernicki, associate director of employer outreach and development within Bryant’s Amica Center for Career Education, told her about the planned Women in Finance trip to Chicago.
“Bryant sets you up with a strong educational background to handle what is out there and what the real world looks like. As for the job, you don't have to know that right now,” says Kogen, relating the message she delivered to students during their Red Bull visit. “I could feel the room kind of relax when I said that, because I remember that exact feeling — that I needed to know everything, and it needed to be perfectly aligned and set for me. I wanted them to know that their path is their own; for women, there are ceilings to break, so I wanted to empower them."
Sousa says she was impressed with all of the alums and employees she met with, and Ruden and Kogen say the feeling about the entire Bryant group was mutual.
“The students were incredible,” says Kogen. “I wish we had more time together because they had such insightful questions, and it was a meaningful and impactful conversation. I can't wait to do it again.”