Major: Journalism
Class of: 2013
Job Title: Analyst at Duff & Phelps
Hometown: Westerville, OH
Currently Located: New York, NY
1) What is your job?
I work in the Corporate Finance group at Duff & Phelps, which covers the firm’s investment banking activities including both Mergers & Acquisitions Advisory and Transaction Opinions. We advise companies in sell-side and acquisition transactions and issue fairness and solvency opinions to boards of directors of companies for a variety of corporate transactions in industries including Industrials, Consumer & Retail, Real Estate, and Healthcare, among others.
2) What has life been like post-graduation?
As quickly as the four years in Westerville go, time goes even quicker after graduation.
Life post-graduation has been mostly spent learning, believe it or not. While Otterbein
does a tremendous job establishing the building blocks for success, no education can
fully prepare you for what you learn on the job through real-world experience. I have
spent my time trying to immerse myself in as many professional learning experiences as
I can in an effort to acquire as much hands-on knowledge as possible.
3) What advice do you have for current students?
Start to think about crafting your “story” today. There are a lot of resumes of students
from very good schools with excellent grades and strong extracurricular activities.
Today, it seems as if that’s almost table stakes; the ability to communicate an engaging
story around why you are pursuing the career you are while weaving in those
experiences from that strong resume to connect the dots is a big differentiator.
4) How has your vision of your future transformed or changed since starting college?
I came to Otterbein wanting to become a sports journalist and graduated heading to
business school as a platform to get into finance. My time at Otterbein showed how fluid
life is and how rewarding it can be to embrace those potential changes.
5) What are the most important skills students in your field should start to develop now?
For banking, having a mastery of the technical concepts of finance is important. Outside
of the classroom, taking courses like Wall Street Prep or Training the Street can help
ramp up those technical skills outside of the general finance courses taught on campus.
Beyond that, the most important skill in my opinion is communication, which is true in
any client-centric or team-based job.
6) What are your plans and goals for the future?
Right now my focus is on the short-term. While I hope to continue to progress in my
career, I am mostly focused on learning as much as possible to position myself for
success in the future. Long-term, my goal is to one day reach the executive level.
7) What Otterbein experience has benefitted you the most in your career?
The Otterbein experience that benefitted me the most in my career was being a member
of the Otterbein baseball team for four years. I have found that the values of being a
member of a collegiate athletic team transcend the playing field and directly correlate to
the workplace: teamwork, time management, goal setting, work ethic, resilience to
adversity, etc. Not only did it instill the aforementioned values, but it also led to
involvement in a number of direct leadership experiences including student
organizations and community service initiatives that I believe were instrumental post-
graduation.
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