Two of this year’s graduates—Andrew Santis, who is receiving a bachelor’s of science in marketing with a concentration in global business, and Stephanie Ballantyne, who graduates with a dual master’s degree in public accounting and taxation—have worked, lived, and studied in more than a dozen countries between the two of them.

To Ballantyne, the global bent at the Gabelli School felt like home. Born in Germany and raised in Switzerland, she completed her undergraduate degree in accounting finance at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and then worked for Deloitte Zurich before coming to Fordham.

The move was challenging, she said; but then, having attended an international high school and traveled as a student to the likes of Egypt, Russia, and Greece, the challenge was a familiar one.

“I’ve always had culture shock happening at some point or another, but I grew up knowing I’d have an international lifestyle,” said Ballantyne, whose credits include president of the Gabelli School’s Accounting and Tax Society and chief operating officer of the Finance Society.

“I like New York,” she said. “Switzerland is a bit more laid back—they start work earlier, but also leave earlier, and on the weekends their phones are turned off. For someone starting their career, it can seem a bit slow.”

The New York pace has suited Ballantyne. She interned at Deloitte in Manhattan last summer, and by August she had secured a full-time offer.

“It was a big change, coming here—especially because I started at Fordham in 2014 during the polar vortex. There were about two snow days per week, which made it hard to meet people,” she said. “But overall, Fordham was definitely the right choice.”

For Santis, a native New Yorker, it was a study tour to Spain during his junior year that sparked his passion for global business—but his real adventure began when he returned home to his internship at Cardwell Beach, a digital marketing agency.

“My boss knew how much I enjoyed Madrid, and in March he called and said they wanted to offer me compensation for my work, which would be to send me abroad to work for the summer,” he said. “It didn’t even have to be Spain—I could choose any country I wanted.”

His options boundless, Santis chose a multi-city tour of Europe. He began with a week in Paris, and then joined up with fellow Gabelli School students for a summer semester program at Fordham’s London Centre. After London, he continued on to Germany, where he spent a week each in Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich.

In the mornings Santis explored the city, and in the afternoons, once his New York colleagues were at the office, he worked on creating buyer personas for Cardwell Beach.

“It was definitely a test of strength and character,” Santis said. “I learned a lot about myself by venturing out to another part of the world on my own.”

Both Santis and Ballantyne have jobs lined up following graduation. Ballantyne will continue with Deloitte in Manhattan, and Santis will take a full-time position at Cardwell Beach (a position for which he will craft his own title and job description).

“Fordham prepared me well,” Ballantyne said. “All the opportunities are here—you just have to take the initiative to go get them.”

But Tognino Hall on April 29 was filled with students strictly in business attire. Suits, ties, and dresses. It lent additional professionalism to the proceedings, which saw awards given, investment recommendations presented, and alumni honored.

But the gravitas would come as no surprise to those who know the focused students who comprise the AI Club membership and who are completing the academic concentration developed by Kevin Mirabile, DPS.

What distinguishes the Gabelli School of Business AI students—who earn their academic stripes by completing three courses in niche areas of finance such as hedge funds, private equity, real-estate investing, and venture capital—can be summed up in one word, said the club’s incoming president (pictured above), and rising senior Jeremy Fague:

Commitment.

In just four years, that commitment has led the AI Club from being a tiny subset of the Finance Society to a 150-student-strong juggernaut that thrives on alumni support, networking, and sheer determination.

“That’s what stands out about Fordham students,” said Fague. “Commitment, drive, knowing what you want and trying to do your best to get there.”

Relatively new, alternative investments has become a Fordham University success story, in numbers and results. Both the academic concentration and the extracurricular organization focus on the practical understanding and practice of investing in areas outside of traditional assets such as bonds, stocks, and cash. Many alternatives, such as hedge funds and real estate, are complex in nature and appeal to institutions or high-worth individual investors.

The alternative investments concentration is riding the wind of change in the industry. Not too long ago, it was something of a mysterious stranger in the finance world. Hedge funds, which are often small shops with relatively few employees, have received a generous amount of negative press over the past few years despite their relative success in the market.

But alternatives have become mainstream. As the industry has grown, Mirabile said, from $6 trillion to $10 trillion in four years, the infrastructure around it has grown as well.

Driving Business Internships

“Firms are getting larger, trying to achieve scale, and they all want to have institutional-quality programs with more internally generated staff, better support, and infrastructure roles,” Mirabile, a clinical assistant professor of finance, told the audience at the AI Club’s event. “This means an opportunity for our students now and in the future.”

Choosing this academic discipline is paying off. Seven Gabelli School AI students have internships with Goldman Sachs this summer, working on everything from securities to global investment research. So far, 16 of the 19 seniors in the concentration’s résumé book either have job offers or are going to graduate school, Mirabile said.

In addition, Fordham is one of only 32 universities that have joined with the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association(CAIA) to provide more educational opportunities for students interested in alternatives. Students who obtain CAIA recognition by passing one or more of its certification exams—which are analogs of the chartered financial analyst tests for the alternatives field—will have a leg up when it comes to employment.

AI at Fordham is unique in that the student club plays a principal role in academic life.

“It was part of a desire to build a program that included a high level of student engagement and external networking,” Mirabile said of the club’s beginnings.

The club also builds a “bench” for Fordham’s AI contingent: While the three-course academic concentration is open only to juniors and seniors, the club welcomes freshmen and sophomores as well, helping them get started on their interests early.

Funding Local Charities

It has an active student-written newsletter and a charitable arm, which raised thousands of dollars for charities such as Hedge Funds Care and A Leg to Stand On.

Mirabile said private equity, venture capitalists, and hedge fund leaders are traditionally very philanthropic, so the students’ involvement in charitable ventures fits into the goals of the club as well.

“Obviously, being part of a Jesuit school, it is really important to give back and to have that sense of commitment to your community,” said Jillian Stackman, GABELLI ’15, who captained the club’s charitable efforts this year.

Behind it all is Mirabile, a former hedge fund chief operating officer and author of Hedge Fund Investing: A Practical Guide to Investor Motivation, Manager Profits and Fund Performance (Wiley 2013).

While the students have done a tremendous amount of work in growing the club, they all pay homage to Mirabile, who they say takes a personal interest in their success.

Mirabile is proud of them and of the program’s growth. The concentration had eight graduates in 2013. In 2014, 18 completed it. That jumped to 38 in 2015, and 50 students are signed up for 2016.

Mirabile’s work was recognized on May 14, when he received the Gabelli School’s Faculty Magis Award for striving for excellence.

The future appears set for the club and the concentration, but, as one would expect from its leaders, no one is resting. Fague has an ambitious agenda for the coming year. And with an enthusiastic professor, passionate students, and a growing industry, more success awaits.

— John Schoonejongen

Globalization was the overarching theme of the hour-long conversation Quinlan had with the Fordham Finance Society on Monday, April 14 at the McGinley Center. The managing director and chief marketing strategist at Bank of America Capital Management covered topics ranging from his career to the current economic recession.

He made it clear that undergraduates should embrace opportunities outside the country and even bypass Europe for destinations farther east and south.

“I see too many people in my position and lower too focused on the U.S. There’s a U.S. steel analyst, a U.S. auto analyst; but you can’t be that parochial and myopic today,” said Quinlan, who graduated from Fordham’s International Political Economy and Development Program (IPED).

“There’s one economy; it’s called the global economy and there are different parts,” he continued. “Learn how to view it that way. If you’re U.S.-centric, particularly at your age, you’re missing the boat.”

To give students a sense of how important it is to understand the religious, cultural and political elements that affect the global economy, Quinlan pointed out that 80 percent of the world’s output and 95 percent of its population exists outside of the United States.

“Geography is so underrated. We’re geographically illiterate; don’t be one of those people,” he said.

As for the sub-prime loan crisis and credit crunch that have been blamed for triggering the recession, Quinlan said they were inevitable—thanks to bad policy decisions in Washington D.C.

“The problem was we were too lax with money. It’s not just consumers spent too much; the regulators didn’t regulate enough,” he said.

“I was surprised, reading that E*Trade and H&R Block had to close their mortgage banks,” Quinlan continued. “Quite frankly, I didn’t know they had them. But that was emblematic and symbolic that even they were giving out loans. So the Fed did a poor job regulating the financial environment.”