Student’s View…Day on Wall Street
by Ying Ting Xie '10MBA
One of the commitments participants have to make to Alumni
Insider’s View programs is to get up early. The bus headed to
the city at 6 a.m.. Andy and I sat together like what we did
during the AIV – U.S. Capital program. Everybody was trying
to get as much sleep as possible before we started our day on Wall
Street.
We arrived our first stop Fidelity Investment after approximately
an hour ride in the morning traffic. After the security
process, we went up to the 4th floor cafeteria for breakfast and
meeting with Alumni Bob Adam.
Everybody seemed reenergized after the nice breakfast. For
me, meeting with Bob Adam is one of best part of this
program. His introduction to Fidelity was comprehensive and
interesting! He showed us that Fidelity is a caring and
responsible private company. Customer oriented service and
products, and customer satisfaction were mentioned a lot when he
talked about the company. He showed his strong belief and
passion when he talked about the company’s value and the stories
behind it. During the Q & A session, I discussed with him
several marketing moves of the company. As a Marketing major,
I did some research on the company and found out it is one of the
best-regarded marketing companies in the mutual fund
industry. I found a great interest in the changes of the
company’s marketing campaign direction. It went from
celebrity endorsement to real people commercials. The later
one can better show audiences Fidelity’s service provided and its
value. Many students interacted with him, and they really
enjoyed meeting with him.
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was our second
stop. After the overview of NYSE, we went for a
tour to the Member Gallery and overview of the trading floor.
We stood on a higher level hallway that we could see the trading
floor. There were several broadcasting rooms on the overview
floor, including CNBC Finance and Good Morning America. I was
as excited as the other students in seeing all of this.
We departed for Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC)
around 11:30 a.m. During lunch, Daniel Hobson introduced the
company and the panelists for Leadership Panel. The most
frequently asked questions were about employee development and
career opportunities in DTCC. We went for a tour of the
securities processing area and vault. It was an exciting
trip; I got to see the real stock certificates and bond
certificates!
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) is in the same building. We
arrived its 37th floor conference room and met with alumni Owen
Ruhnke and his fellow colleagues. Executive Managing Director
FIRMS Louis Eccleston left the greatest impression on me. His
speech was passionate. He shared with us his way to success,
which is to seize every opportunity and work hard to get the best
out of it. That’s very true! One should be open
to all kinds of opportunities to achieve success. I also
agreed with his comment about a real creative person. In his
opinion, a real creative person has access to all different kinds
of information and knows how to mix and match different information
together to innovate and create. I can’t agree more about
that. After the panel, David and I talked to Mr.
Ruhnke. He showed us his strong support for St. John’s alumni
programs and gave us very valuable suggestions to improve the Day
on Wall Street program.
The cocktail reception and the dinner was a great success.
Alumni and students networked with each other around the bar.
As a graduate assistant, I got to talk to some students during the
reception when I was working, getting quotes from them. They
all gave positive feedback to the this program. However, the
room was so small that I could barely move around the room.
The dinner was good, the fish and the chocolate strawberry were my
favorite. Andy and Jorge at my table gave great suggestions
on how to promote this program to a broader range of
students. Peter Pisapia, who is a Director and Counsel of
Blackrock, gave me very helpful advise on networking after I
finished getting quotes from him. I also talked with other
alumni, including Tom Joyce, John Mohanen, and Edward Lgoydis, they
all enjoyed the reception and dinner.
The program ended with us all having great satisfaction. It
was another great Alumni Insider’s View program, and I am looking
forward to participate in more of this kind of events.