In the latest installment of the Investment & Finance Series (IFS) the husband and wife team of Brooke (Cobb) Jones ’97 and Paul Jones ’03 will be back on campus Saturday, October 23 and Sunday, October 24, meeting with students and presenting the sixth session in the very successful alumni-led series. Brooke and Paul will present at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, October 24, on "Careers in Institutional Sales & Trading and Best Practices for Earning an Offer."
The IFS was created by classmates Brian Chiappinelli ’92 and John Merrill ’92 . Their goal was to develop a program that would educate current students on how a liberal arts education can be a benefit in the world of investments and finance. By leveraging Hamilton’s long, successful tradition of alumni leadership in these areas, the series brings established alums back to their beginnings on the Hill to share their stories. Alumni volunteer their time to return to campus to educate Hamilton students on various roles and career paths throughout the financial services arena. A secondary goal is to arm students with resume crafting, networking and interviewing tips.
The series is founded upon the precept that by bringing alumni who specialize in specific areas of finance to campus, having them present to students, and leaving behind a record of their visit and talk for future students to review, will build a more formal foundation for them to leverage post graduation. By having an established series, it also serves to highlight Hamilton’s strengths, both in terms of alumni representation in investments and finance, and in terms of giving back to the college. Since launching IFA in the fall of 2007, there have been six installments of the series summarized below:
Understanding the Buy Side/Sell Side, Fall 2007
Brian Chiappinelli ’92
Re- Insurance Markets, Fall 2008
Iain Boyer ’90
Venture Capital, Spring 2009
Skip Besthoff ’92
Investment Banking, Fall 2009
Brian Truesdale ’92
Sales & Trading, Spring 2010
John Merrill ’92, Macrae Sykes ’96, Andrew Taylor ’88
Careers in Institutional Sales, Trading and Best Practices for Earning an Offer, Fall 2010
Paul Jones ’03 and Brooke (Cobb) Jones ’97
Plans are underway for the seventh presentation in the series in the spring.
Kino Ruth, director of Hamilton's Career Center, who is a fan of the series, said “John and Brian have been fabulous in developing this speaker’s series concept – the IFS - and in reaching out to fellow alumni who generously donate their time to come back to campus to meet with and speak to students.” The Career Center maintains an archive of the past presentations, aims to capture an audio podcast recording to put in the center “library,” and is instrumental in encouraging students to take advantage of these educational opportunities. Students have received wonderful career advice, and indeed several actual job offers, as a result of their involvement in the IFS presentations. Our hope is that other alumni might consider designing similar “series” in other career fields such as law, education and/or the non-profit sector.
