Last month Fordham celebrated Yan’s appointment to the Robert Bendheim Chair in Economics and Financial Policy, which was established in 1996 with a gift from the Leon Lowenstein Foundation. He found time to talk about his work before leaving for a trip to China and Taiwan to meet with Gabelli School graduates and potential donors interested in supporting the school’s research.

Your current area of research is ESG—the environmental, social, and governance issues that corporations consider when making business decisions. Why are you drawn to this field and how does the Gabelli School emphasize this in its course offerings? 

That’s part of the strategic research area of the Gabelli School. And also, of course, it’s something I’m passionate about. I spend a lot of time doing this research, trying to see what’s going on, what is wrong, and how we should be trying to educate the students, the market, and the investors. 

Financial Markets and Responsibility is a core course for our Master’s in Finance program and one of the classes I teach. It serves as the starting point for our students to approach [ESG] in more holistic ways and in more scientific ways. And then after this core course, we have electives which are taught by adjuncts working in the field because the ESG landscape has been changing all the time. So those professionals…help our students to really get a hold of the most contemporary issues and challenges. 

The Gabelli School [also]has a student-managed investment fund course that includes an ESG fund. This gives students first-hand experience in managing the portfolio in a sustainable way.

You delivered a lecture on ESG at your installation ceremony. What were the key takeaways?

The takeaway is that ESG is always part of strategic management. It used to be more opportunistic to game the system a little bit and to focus on one [pillar]while sacrificing another one. The recent development seems like the firms, they don’t do this trade-off anymore. My conjecture is, the financial market has become more sophisticated so they can recognize such opportunistic behavior [and they don’t reward it].

There seems to be a backlash against ESG right now. In 2022 Ron DeSantis associated the term with “woke capital.” At the start of this year, The Wall Street Journal ran a story with the headline, “The Latest Dirty Word in Corporate America: ESG.” What’s happening here?

I think it’s just unfortunate, right? It’s a lot of political pressure…but many firms—Unilever, Microsoft—are still [practicing ESG]. They have chief sustainability officers, CSOs. So it tells you they still want to do it. And many people talk about climate risk and how to help the climate. So that’s still there. ESG as a term could be in trouble. But as a practice, I still think many firms are still practicing it, although they may use a different phrase. 

You teach at a Jesuit institution and you received your Ph.D. from one. What is it about this tradition that speaks to you?

Cura personalis [care for the whole person], that’s the key part. Of course there are different ways to talk about a whole human being, but I think one way [is]: just do the right thing. In the current world, you have so much information, different extremes, social media. Sometimes you get lost. I think we’re just trying to [teach]students—think about what’s the right thing to do…follow your value system.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Directed by serial entrepreneur and executive director Al Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, the Foundry also oversees the Fordham Angel Fund, which offers investments of up to $25,000 to the University’s active student and alumni founders.

Fordham Magazine caught up with a handful of alumni who received funding, coaching, or other support from the Foundry to find out where they—and their businesses—are now, and how they got there.

Mary Goode, FCRH ’20
Founder and CEO, Nantucket Magic
Fordham Degree: B.A. in Economics

The launch: I grew up on Nantucket Island and watched the tourist landscape change dramatically over the years, becoming increasingly popular yet harder to navigate. The company uses local expertise to offer hotel-like concierge service and amenities to vacationers in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and Palm Beach, Florida, including pre-arrival fridge stocking, dinner reservations, private chefs, backyard movie nights, beach picnics, wellness experiences, and more.

The challenge: Our biggest challenge has been navigating how to scale the business while maintaining exceptional service. To surmount this, we have recruited hospitality experts to work seasonally in both locations.

The assist: The Foundry has played a huge role in the success of my business! I learned so much during the process of the pitch competition alone. The actual funds I won helped us pay for marketing campaigns as well as expand our team, among other things.

The goal: I have been trying to broaden the definition of what success means to me. No matter what happens in the future, what I have created so far feels like an immense personal success, chiefly because of the incredible people I have worked with over the past three years.

Marquice Pullen, GSE ’21
Co-Founder, DAB Pickleball
Fordham Degree: M.S.E., Curriculum and Teaching

The concept: DAB Pickleball is a one-stop shop for pickleball players worldwide. Comprehensive infrastructure, certified coaching tips, quality equipment, competitive prices. Events, tournaments, and a thriving community. Your ultimate pickleball resource. I can’t take credit for the idea. My business partner and brother, Antonio, stumbled upon the sport at Acworth Community Center in Georgia.

The process: We participated in three pitch challenges: Fordham Foundry Rams Den, Fordham vs. Bronx, and Black Ambition, all within one year, and were successful in all three, thanks be to God. Social media marketing, risk management, inventory management, tax filing, bookkeeping, and opening our first facility in July 2023 were all challenging aspects of the process. However, we found our momentum in late December 2023.

The foundation: Initially unfamiliar with Fordham University, my enrollment through the Army Civilian Schooling (ACS) program, driven by my aspiration to become an instructor at the United States Military Academy, inadvertently initiated our entrepreneurial journey. Rooted in Jesuit principles, my education at Fordham eventually led me to the Fordham Foundry. Without Fordham University as a catalyst, I might not have discovered the Foundry or ventured into entrepreneurship.

The win: Success is evident through our community of players and dedicated volunteers and supporters. Seeing the smiles on our consumers’ faces as they enjoy the game of pickleball and, more importantly, witnessing the competitive spirit of our elderly pickleball players, is a success story in itself.

Rachel Ceruti, GSAS ’20
Founder and CEO, Reclypt
Fordham Degree: M.A. in International Political Economy and Development

The vision: I kind of fell into the sustainable fashion scene in New York City and upcycling—when you or designers take something that was going to be thrown away and repurpose it, diverting textiles from landfills. I started a blog that transitioned into a marketplace for fashion, but our community told us they wanted to do the upcycling, not just buy it. We listened, and our mission is to use our platform to explore circular economy structures, with Reclypt as a hub that explores how we create change.

The challenges: Funding really comes to mind. You can’t rely on unfair wages and volunteers. Another challenge, too, is letting people know why circular fashion is needed and what it is.

The assist: I would go into the Foundry space and pop ideas off of the other entrepreneurs and the Foundry team. I benefited from the free office hours with a lawyer. The business aspects that are behind the scenes, I would have never been able to navigate without the Foundry.

The next step: We want to host consistent events; be able to grow and hire, including start monetizing my team’s time; gain more visibility; and establish a steady revenue stream.

Usman “Ozzy” Raza, PCS ’14, GABELLI ’21
Founder and CEO, Equepay
Fordham Degrees: B.A. in Economics, Executive M.B.A.

The concept: Equepay is at the forefront of simplifying billing and payment processing, not just in health care but extending our innovative solutions beyond. We aim to convert the complex financial operations in hospitals and clinics into streamlined, user-friendly processes, ensuring easy and efficient financial management for all involved.

 The launch: Equepay was born out of discussions with friends in the health care sector who highlighted ongoing challenges with payment processing and collections. Recognizing the untapped potential in this underserved market, I founded Equepay. Since launch, Equepay has been expanding its solutions across various hospitals in the U.S.

The foundation: My EMBA from Fordham has been crucial in shaping my entrepreneurial journey. The knowledge and skills acquired laid a solid foundation for Equepay’s strategies and operational methodologies.

The goal: Success is an evolving target. Our immediate goal is to integrate our platform into 196 hospitals by the end of the year, continuously enhancing our services to meet the growing needs of the healthcare sector.

Emmit Flynn, FCRH ’21
Co-Founder, Awful Cloth
Fordham Degree: B.A. in English

The brand: We started Awful Cloth to be an online apparel company for street and lounge wear, with a lot of colorful designs and bright, vibrant ideas. All of them were hand-drawn original designs and I was the designer.

The launch: For eight or 10 months, it was all planning. We got all the domains, Twitter, and Instagram very early on before we had anything produced. That made all the difference when we finally did start to get traction. Then it was a lot of workshopping and pushing it out to our friends and family to see what the response was.

The hurdles: The true hurdles were things that are intangibles. It wasn’t “where do we find this factory” or “how do we do this.” Those things were small hurdles, but we were so driven that there was nothing like that that would stop us. It was more about the mental hurdles: having patience and confidence and being sure of ourselves. Especially early on when things were slow, and we weren’t making any sales, and we weren’t making any profit.

The win: We recently sold the business to a medium-sized retail group called Lilac Blond. We were very happy to do it because selling was a goal of ours and we knew these people—and we were sure that they wanted the best for the brand.

You don’t need to dive headfirst into computer science and programming to succeed in those spaces, he told students in the Gabelli School of Business during a talk at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus in November.

Zangari retired in early 2023 from his role as global head of research and product development at MSCI after more than 25 years in the finance industry. His retirement was a short one, though: Last month, he was named a partner and head of the Americas at MDOTM, a company that specializes in “AI-driven investment solutions.”

What AI Can—and Can’t—Do

During the student enrichment event, Zangari reflected on his professional experiences and shared insights on data analytics to help students better prepare themselves for careers in the industry. He said technology skills aren’t as critical to long-term success in finance as understanding how to apply technical tools like artificial intelligence.

“In this space, students should do their best to understand how people make investment decisions, and then learn about artificial intelligence—learn about what it can do, and what it is capable of doing—and then apply that to how investors make investment decisions,” he said.

He encouraged students to see AI as a partner, not a substitute for effective portfolio managers, and he said problems may arise when people “think [AI] can solve certain problems, like predicting the future, which I think is really a far-fetched idea.”

A Living Resource

The students in attendance said they were grateful for the opportunity to hear from an industry professional firsthand, peppering him with questions about trends, investment strategy, and his experiences with different employers.

“I’m really interested in finance and tech, and looking to go into that after I finish my master’s,” said Ruth Kissel, who is studying business analytics. “So I wanted to listen to a really experienced professional speak about those same topics.”

The M.S. in business analytics (MSBA) and M.S. in information technology (MSIT) programs are offered by the Gabelli School’s Information, Technology, and Operations area.

In the MSBA program, students learn to integrate analytics techniques, data management, information technology, modeling, and statistical analysis to become more effective analysts and informed users of business data. The MSIT program focuses on systems development, training students to gain the technical skills they need to excel in IT management positions. Grads of the two programs have gone on to work at companies including Amazon, American Express, Deloitte, JPMorgan Chase, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Zangari, who studied economics at Fordham, said he knows how vital it is for students to have access to alumni and industry professionals, so he spends “as much time as possible being available to students.” He’s an adjunct professor at Drew University in New Jersey, and at Fordham, he’s a member of the President’s Council, a group of successful professionals and philanthropists who are committed to mentoring Fordham’s future leaders, funding key initiatives, and raising the University’s profile.

“I see how the students kind of lean in,” he said. “When you tell a story about your career, you tell a story about your life because, in a nutshell, one’s career is a reflection of life.”

Zangari said that at Fordham, he had an opportunity to learn and work with “people from all different walks of life,” and it was invaluable.

It’s not all about the hard skills, he said. Everyone will have those, but “what makes an employee very attractive is someone who has super-interest in what they’re doing. They’re self-motivated. They’re resourceful.”

During his many past engagements with students, Gabelli has told them that he likes to hire candidates with a Ph.D.—meaning “poor, hungry and driven,” which he proudly claims as being part of his own background growing up in the Bronx. But this time, he referred to Ph.D.s as being “passionate, hungry, and driven.” To illustrate this point, he cited the story of a Gabelli School student from China who took the initiative to travel to Connecticut where Gabelli was meeting with clients at a function.

“He came to Greenwich where we were having a meeting for our clients, and asked for a job—and I said, ‘You are exactly what we want: passionate, hungry and driven.’ And we hired him on the spot.”

He added that this particular student understood one of his oft-repeated mantras. “If you don’t ask, you don’t get,” he said, referring to what he calls his “11th Commandment.”

Gabelli learned early on that hard work and perseverance pay off. He went from working as a caddy at a local golf course to investing in stocks from the age of 13 to graduating from Fordham and earning an MBA from Columbia University Business School in 1967—as well as being enrolled in (but never attending) the Ph.D. program at NYU.

After a career of almost 10 years on Wall Street as a sell-side analyst, Gabelli launched his own firm in 1977, GAMCO Investors, which now manages more than $30 billion in assets.

Obstacles Can Yield Opportunities

During his presentation to the Class of 2026, Gabelli hit on several investment “I” buzzwords, including inflation, interest rates, infections, invasions, infrastructure, and incomplete energy policies. While he acknowledged some level of international turmoil, he assured students that current global economic challenges would give way to major opportunities over the next 10 years.

During the Q&A segment that followed, students persisted in voicing their concern about international affairs and market volatility. One asked about the looming European recession, to which Gabelli responded, “Stop worrying about recession. You have recessions every three or four years, so what?”

He did acknowledge that countries such as Germany are facing a rough winter due to Russia cutting energy supplies, but he also focused on potential positive responses and results.

“The good news about high energy prices in the United States and Germany is simple: They’ll come up with an accelerated way to make renewables,” he said. “They’ll come up with [innovations in]wind, solar, fiber, and battery storage support. They’ll accelerate that.”

Remaining Current and Focused

Gabelli noted that ultimately, the concerns of the past have been met with a “massive increase in innovation” and that students should seek out opportunities through research.

“The topics in 1965, 1985, 2005, aren’t going to be the same as in 2025, 2045,” he said. “You are going to have the best time over the next 20 years with the world of the digital revolution.”

He also stressed the importance of working hard.

“Work from five to nine when everyone works nine to five and just read everything that you can about anything that you do, whether it’s investment banking, sales, marketing, or product innovation,” he recommended.

Toward the end of the program, one student revisited the concept of the 11^th commandment. “You said the 11th commandment is ‘if you don’t ask you don’t get,’” he stated.

“Yes. You don’t get it if you don’t ask,” responded Gabelli.

“So, someone has to ask,” the student replied, “do you think I can come work for you three years after I graduate?”

“Ah, see you asked the wrong way,” Gabelli answered. “How about, ‘I would like to learn the disciplines of your firm and serving customers. And I’d like to join you tomorrow,’ not in three years. You’re going to change your mind. You’re going to get rich in between. Why not tomorrow?”

“Do I have a chance to rephrase my question?” the student asked.

“Yes! That’s a smart guy, instant thinking,” Gabelli responded. “You know how to reach me.”

“Moody’s and S&P provided similar commentary, praising the University’s strong financial management during the COVID-19 pandemic and, just as importantly, our ability to bounce back with not only record enrollments, but record fundraising during such a turbulent and uncertain time,” said Martha K. Hirst, senior vice president, chief financial officer, and treasurer of Fordham. “The fact that there were no surprises in the rating agencies’ reports assures us that we have a good pulse on our operating environment, risks, and opportunities for Fordham.”

The nearly $114 million bond transaction with the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, which began in early September and reached completion in mid-November, is one of the fastest-paced transactions that Fordham’s finance team has completed. Thanks to the transaction, the University was able to refinance $91 million, allowing it to borrow an extra $20 million at no additional cost to the University’s operating budget.

“The opportunity for us in this bonds transaction was twofold,” said Nicholas Milowski, vice president for finance and assistant treasurer. “First, we took advantage of low interest rates before the Federal Reserve began to taper the pace of its bond purchases. Second, we were able to showcase how strong the University has emerged from the pandemic financially. In order to stay open, many colleges and universities were forced to sell part of their endowment, merge with other institutions, incur more debt, or lay off or furlough their employees—but not us. We are in a relatively strong place.” 

Moody’s and S&P’s credit ratings reports spotlighted several strong points about Fordham. Both reports applauded Fordham’s ability to manage its finances during the pandemic, which was also highlighted at the 2021 spring budget forum. In addition, they emphasized the University’s consistent operating performance, solid management, conservative budgeting practices, and growing enrollment numbers, especially in the Class of 2025. 

“Enrollment continues to rise with the exception of a coronavirus related dip in fall 2020 and supports prospects for rising net tuition revenue. That revenue growth along with strong fundraising is boosting operating performance and building reserves,” read the Moody’s report. 

To improve its credit rating, the University should increase its growth in financial reserves to offset future debt and operations expenses, said the reports. But overall, the reports signify a stable outlook for Fordham. 

“We are pleased that the credit rating agencies recognize Fordham’s financial stability, especially during this period of volatility and uncertainty,” said Hirst. “Enhancing the Fordham experience for our students requires a strong financial position, and we fully intend to continue to exercise discretion in how we manage Fordham’s limited resources.”

Sitting in a course called Portfolio Management, the New Jersey native said he just “knew what I wanted to do,” so he asked the professor how to get started. The brazen suggestion worked, and Brett, who first enrolled at Fordham in 1977, left college to begin his finance career.

“I started on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and I worked there for two years,” he said. “Then, I got a job at Morgan Stanley [as an equity derivative sales trader], and that’s when my career path took hold more clearly.”

Now Brett, who describes his life in three phases—learning, earning, and returning—is retired. After two decades on Wall Street, during which he finally completed the Fordham business degree he began pursuing in the late ’70s, Brett is focusing on service. He’s heavily involved with the Equus Effect, a Connecticut-based nonprofit that uses equine therapy to help military veterans and others better respond to and recover from stress and trauma.

Learning

Knowing he wanted to work in business but unsure which sector of the industry was for him, Brett decided to major in accounting at Fordham. But after taking two accounting courses, he said he remembers thinking, “Oh my God, I don’t want anything to do with this!” He changed his major to finance, and it ended up being just what he was looking for. But deciding on a major wasn’t his only challenge as a student.

“College was tough for me,” he said. “I had to work a lot of jobs and I was working late at night—some of these jobs waiting tables—while I went to school. It was hard to really balance my life.” At one point, Brett was even commuting to campus by bus from Bergen County, New Jersey.

Brett was just three courses shy of graduating when he decided to jumpstart his career. He didn’t return to Fordham to complete his degree until the mid-‘90s, when he said he realized it was “kind of silly not to” finish. “I wanted the degree. Nobody on Wall Street cared whether I had a degree or not, but I wanted to do it just for my own benefit.”

He finished in 1995 and took part in the University’s 150th commencement ceremony, which featured Mary Robinson, then president of Ireland, as the keynote speaker.

“It was one of those beautiful days out on Edwards Parade, and here I was 30-something and I was hanging out with a bunch of 20-somethings getting my degree,” Brett said. “It was a big deal; I was really glad I did that.”

Earning

In 1984, Brett began working at Morgan Stanley, where he started to feel that he might want to do something more than what he did working on the trading floor.

“I had a sense that maybe I could have a more structured and prolonged career,” he said. “The floor was kind of nutty. I had become a broker and then a trader, and then I learned about stock options and that was the thing that really helped me through the rest of my career.”

Brett stayed at Morgan Stanley until 1993, when he made a lateral move to Paine Webber, another investment bank. In 1995, he went to work at UBS, where he served as a managing director until he retired in 2005.

Returning

As Brett’s Wall Street career came to an end, he began trying to find his next path, which he said has ended up being “not any one singular thing, but a bunch of things mostly involved in service.” Today, he serves on the boards of several organizations, including Sharon Audubon Center, which manages three nature sanctuaries in northwest Connecticut, and the Little Guild, an animal rescue in Cornwall, Connecticut. Brett also serves as a hospice volunteer and a volunteer artist mentor for high school students, and he is a certified alcohol and substance abuse counselor.

He also found his way back to Fordham, this time as an alumnus. “Fordham just creeped into the picture in the last few years—not in any big way, just a means of staying in touch,” he said. “I sign up for some webinars and [events]that they have at the Gabelli School. They have these really interesting speakers and lectures and things like that on a range of topics.”

Amid it all is his work with the Equus Effect, where his current position is best described as jack-of-all-trades.

The Equus Effect’s four-session curriculum is designed to help veterans better address life’s challenges through purposeful engagement with horses. Working together in a peer-to-peer format, facilitators teach veterans the principles of horsemanship, which can then be applied to help them “gain the trust, respect, and willingness to collaborate” with the people they live and work with in their daily lives, according to the organization’s website. “We believe that If veterans can learn to use emotions the way horses do—as information to help them stay alive, set healthy boundaries, support one another in times of need—there would be no need to stay stuck in the stories we often tell about what we might have done differently in the past or what may or may not happen in the future.”

Brett has been involved with the Equus Effect since its inception. His partner, Jane Strong, co-founded the organization and serves as its lead facilitator and executive director. He said she came up with the idea after reading a statistic about the number of veterans who die by suicide on any given day.

“I helped her get not-for-profit status and round up some people for a board, and then I was their very first board president,” Brett said. “Like a lot of things like this, it starts out as a mom-and-pop kind of thing, and then it developed into what it is now. She’s made great progress.”

Since then, he’s served as a de facto consultant, helping to fundraise and foster new connections in a way “that’s very involved but in a quieter way.” He also occasionally fills in as a part-time instructor.

“I would say, at this point, my life is all about being civic-minded. My community really matters to me.”

Her path to forming the nonprofit started in 2016, when she received what she calls a blessing in disguise. After a decades-long career at various financial firms in New York City, she was laid off from Neuberger Berman, an employee-owned investment management firm.

She asked herself what she would do next. “In my heart, I’ve always wanted to … get more women involved in technology or finance, and especially women of color, because I never saw anybody that looked like me—or not enough of it,” Gomes-Gregory said.

She kicked off Heels and Higher Achievement (HHA) in 2018, determined to make financial literacy fun while giving a voice to those in her community who are empowering young women in tech, finance, STEM, media, or “whatever it is that they want to do,” she said. “I wanted to create a forum so that people can speak, but mainly speak about financial education.”

That first year, she conducted in-person workshops at schools, churches, and “anywhere anyone would hear me,” Gomes-Gregory said. She’d speak about basic financial literacy concepts and invite people to schedule a complimentary financial review—a kind of “GPS of your money,” she said, “to make sure you can stop working for money at some point and [let]money work for you.”

She also launched an ambassador program to give young girls opportunities to network with professionals and serve their communities through volunteer work. But COVID-19 meant pivoting to online events and workshops in 2020.

In April, HHA sponsored its second annual series of online workshops for Financial Literacy Month, including, for the first time, programming for men. “[Because] of all of the things that were happening in the Black community— between George Floyd, the social issues, COVID—men need to talk, too,” she said.

The digital programming has gone well, she said. She’s hoping to launch a YouTube channel and resume in-person events soon.

“I’m learning that self-care and self-preservation— from a financial, physical, mental, and spiritual [standpoint]—are so very important,” she said. “And I didn’t learn this until I was 50. So, now I’m teaching all of the young ’uns. ‘Take care of yourself first. You’re important.’”

“What my aunt kept teaching me was that I could do whatever I wanted to,” says Bartels, who began her own career on Wall Street in the 1980s. “She empowered me not to be intimidated just because I was a woman.”

Bartels grew up on City Island in the Bronx and attended community college before transferring to Fordham, where she deepened her newfound passion for analyzing the economy as “a puzzle with a lot of different moving parts.” She graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Gabelli School of Business in 1985 and later earned a master’s degree in economics at Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Today, Bartels is a leading investment strategist with a knack for explaining financial concepts to the general public. As head of the Research Investment Committee and of exchange traded fund strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, she has often shared her expertise on outlets like CNBC. And she continues to come back to Fordham, she says, because “they gave me a chance.”

As a member of the President’s Council, Bartels has been a guest lecturer in classes and for the Smart Women Securities club, and has served as a judge at a Shark Tank-inspired event hosted by the Gabelli School. On October 23, she’ll be attending Fordham’s third annual Women’s Philanthropy Summit, where she’ll participate in a panel discussion titled “A View from the Top: Reflections on Success and Coaching the Next Generation of Women Leaders.” It’s an important event to her, she says, because “it’s women supporting women.”

“It’s nice that Fordham is creating an environment where women can come together and share their success and do good for whatever their cause is,” she says.

“You know, women have come a long way,” Bartels says, “yet we have a lot more to do. Many women used to be hostage to a husband and their views on how to use their wealth. Now women have their own finances and their own voice. But we still represent very small ratios in most lines of business.”

That’s why continuing to engage in mentorship is also important to Bartels. “For women and men alike, how do we grow without mentorship? It’s a way of giving back,” she says.

That desire to give back is something she sees in her daughter, Lorraine, a first-year student at Fordham College at Rose Hill. Bartels says that her daughter was most attracted to Fordham’s ethos of engaging with surrounding communities. She started her Fordham experience with Urban Plunge, an optional pre-orientation program run by the University’s Center for Community Engaged Learning where students participate in community-enriching programs throughout the Bronx and Manhattan.

“She is absolutely thriving,” Bartels says of Lorraine. “And I get to see Fordham in a new way—as a parent.”

What are you most passionate about?
At the end of the day, what’s most important to me are my two children. My main responsibility is to be a mother; it has to be.

My second passion, at least professionally, is that I love to assist people with their finances. I love sitting down and helping a client understand what they have and how we can get them to where they want to go.

Another passion I have, and something I’m really learning as I get older, is how to stay healthy and have a health program for longevity, starting with diet. In your 20s, you feel like you’re invincible; you snap back like a rubber band. In your 30s you still think you’re invincible, but you start to learn that the rubber band doesn’t snap back quite as fast. By the time you’re 40, the rubber band does not always snap back. And by the time you’re 50, you really need to have everything together.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
My Aunt Bernadette taught me the value of networking, and how a lot of life is about networking and meeting people. But I didn’t appreciate it until it worked for me. When I look at my past, through Wall Street, a lot of it was connected by people I met through the years and who I stayed in touch with, who became my friends within the industry both inside and outside my company. As you go through your career, you need a mentor, right? But you also need what’s called sponsorship, people that you work with who say “you are adding value to our business.” So you never know who that might be.

On a personal level, and we’ve all heard this from many different avenues, another piece of advice that has been important has been “learn how to accept yourself, take care of yourself, and love yourself.” As you get older and wiser, you really start understanding why that was said to you so often. You’re pulled in so many different directions, especially women, and many of us struggle with that. How many women have said, “Yeah, I just don’t do anything for myself.” And then they end up unhappy. You have to love yourself enough to take care of yourself. Or you can’t help anybody, you can’t be at the top of your game. And even if you get there, you can’t enjoy it.

What’s your favorite place in New York City? In the world?
My favorite place in the world is Alaska, the pristine and absolute beauty of the nature there. Especially in the winter. I get there and it’s my happy place. I’ve been there many times, fished there, seen whales and porpoises, been out on glaciers. The people are wonderful and grounded. It’s all about loving and being with nature.

My favorite place in New York is harder. I think it would be Battery Park. I worked down there for many years. My office was overlooking the water and I took the ferry twice a day. And I just loved being there on the river.

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
So this is probably going to be very odd. Early in my career, my aunt told me to take this course on technical analysis. And the book we had to get for it was Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets by the teacher, John Murphy. When I read that book in that course, I was like, “This is it for me.” It changed my life; it gave me confidence that I could actually do it. He wrote it in a way that I could understand. For me, that was a light bulb moment.

Who is the Fordham grad or professor you admire most?
I’m going to say economics professor Dominick Salvatore. Not only is the man brilliant, and not only does he write great textbooks, he teaches in a way that makes economics exciting. It completely lights up, and he has this magnetism that comes through in his teaching. He’s great at taking concepts and explaining them so any student can understand. And that’s an important part of what I have to do in my work now, take the most complex situation or topics and be able to explain them to any audience.

A native of Wooster, Ohio, Gorman is a member of the Gabelli School’s inaugural Lincoln Center class. He’s graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Global Business, and he’s one of the top students in his year. But he didn’t get there without a little help.

During his junior year, he earned an internship with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the world’s largest private cancer center, through an interaction he had with Ian Cairns, GABELLI ’18.

“He said, ‘I like the things that you said in class. I’m interning at Memorial Sloan and part of our role is to help recruit,” recalled Gorman. “Why don’t you send me your resume?”

Cairns passed Gorman’s resume along to recruiters at the hospital. After being interviewed, he was offered a role as an investment management intern. When his internship ended, Gorman helped to recruit and interview other Fordham students for his role, just as Cairns had done for him.

“If you like your employer, and you like Fordham, then you want to help them both find one another,” he said, adding that he hopes younger classmates will follow his and Cairns’ example.

After completing several internships, Gorman served as a chief economist for the Gabelli School’s Student-Managed Investment Fund. He also worked on the Dean’s Council alongside Vincent DeCola, S.J., assistant dean of the Gabelli School of Business, to help improve the academic experience of undergraduates at the Lincoln Center campus. And he’s volunteered at open houses for admitted students and events for first-year students.

“I remember being in their place four years ago and trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and talking to current students was very helpful,” said Gorman.

Hu— who is graduating with a Master of Science in taxation— has helped to organize networking events with Fordham alumni as a board member of the Fordham Accounting and Tax Society. She also helped spearhead a career fair with representatives from firms like Friedman LLP and Ernst & Young. Last spring, she put together an event with a professional English-language teacher for international students interested in improving their English.

Her drive to help other students in her program was inspired by a phrase her mother, a quality controller at a food company, used to say to her growing up.

“She would always tell me that ‘helping others is helping yourself,’” recalled Hu, a native of Nehe, China. “That helped to build my character. I never go somewhere and expect that I could just receive things and take that for granted.”

Hu said her father, a part-time computer shop owner and farmer, would talk about macroeconomics around the house when she was young.

“He wasn’t able to go to business school but supported my decision to go,” she said. “I was able to stand on his shoulders, learn more, and see a broader field.”

Hu and Gorman both said the experiential learning opportuni- ties and classes they have had at the Gabelli School helped to shape their post-graduation goals.

Gorman said he has always been interested in math but didn’t know what career path to take until he served on the winning team of the Gabelli School’s Consulting Cup challenge, the biggest on-campus academic competition for sophomores at the school. He also took a financial management course that same year.

“That’s when it clicked that I wanted to try something in the finance area,” said Gorman, who has interned for North Brookside Capital and the French investment bank Société Générale, where he will soon work as a full-time investment banking analyst.

“We were talking about current events around that time, about the border adjustment tax and the tax plan the new administration had been proposing. It was kind of eye opening to see those things in the news and then come to class and put some numbers behind it,” he said.

Hu’s aha moment came in an international taxation course, where she studied the tax systems of the U.S. and foreign countries as well as topics related to tax treaties, transfer pricing, and foreign tax credits.

“I’m interested in how international transactions work and how businesses get taxed in different jurisdictions,” said Hu. “A lot of the logic makes sense to me, especially with my international background.”

Hu recently accepted a position in Ernst & Young’s Diversified Staffing Group in Houston. She said she looks forward to putting her accounting training into action.

“My job would be to become a well-rounded tax professional in the beginning and then specialize in one area,” she said. “It’s really cool to know that what I was learning will apply to my job later on.”

“It’s important to reinvent yourself, and I’ve done that multiple times,” she says. “I’ve crossed industries and I’ve crossed disciplines. You have the basics; it’s just a little bit of a different focus. It all boils down to being willing to explore and not being afraid of the unknowns.”

After earning a Ph.D. in economics from Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1986, Glasser taught at Rutgers and Bentley for a bit before deciding to go into industry. Since then, she’s worked at some of the biggest organizations in finance, consulting, tech, and even the public sector—Merrill Lynch, KPMG, IBM, JPMorgan, and the U.S. Treasury Department. From the beginning, she says, it was her holistic approach to analyzing and solving problems that made her effective.

“Very early on during my first job at Merrill Lynch, I started getting launched into areas that needed help. I was involved with change management, which can be thought of as internal consulting,” she says. “And I think that’s because I think differently, I think more broadly and holistically, which I attribute to my well-rounded experience at Fordham. The emphasis on teaching and ethics and seeing ourselves as part of a larger ecosystem is unparalleled.”

Glasser also appreciated the sense of community at Fordham, something she was happy to continue fostering as a member and onetime chair of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Advisory Council and by co-hosting corporate receptions for alumni and students at JPMorgan during her time there.

“It was amazing to find out how many people I worked with were fellow Fordham grads,” she says. “And I also met impressive students. In fact, I met a senior at one of the receptions who became one of my best hires .”

Now her volunteer work is focused on the Fordham University Alumni Association (FUAA) and its new lifelong learning task force, which she leads.

“The fact that the FUAA is University-wide is critical,” she says. “I want to connect people across campuses and schools. We’re operating in the digital world now, and all the lines are getting blurred.

“Besides being a social community and a way for people to connect, I want to make the FUAA relevant in our alumni’s lives. Lifelong learning is something they can benefit from, whether people just want to learn something different or they want to retool their careers like I have,” Glasser says. “We’re figuring out how to support our alumni this way.”

Glasser just recently reinvented herself yet again—she’s moving from her home in New York City to Florida, and just a few months ago she joined the Financial Risk Group, a consulting firm that specializes in data analytics and risk management solutions. But she doesn’t plan to be any less involved with her graduate alma mater.

“I just love Fordham people—they’re genuine,” she says. “Fordham really supports their community, so to the extent that I can do a little bit to give back, I try.”

Fordham Five

What are you most passionate about?
Personally, I’m most passionate about traveling and seeing the world. I love learning about different cultures. Professionally, I would say I’m most passionate about data and its importance in all aspects of our lives. I see data as the fourth dimension of my work life: There’s people, process, technology, and data.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
My mom always encouraged me to follow my instincts. She liked to say that you should only worry about what other people think when they start paying your bills. Otherwise you just worry about what’s right.

What’s your favorite place in New York City? In the world?
In New York City, I love Central Park and the Empire State Building’s observation deck. They’re both so calm and peaceful, away from the bustle of the city. In the world, Barcelona. I like the people, the city, and the architecture. Especially Parc Güell, the Gaudi Park.

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
I recently read Endurance: Shackleton’s Extraordinary Voyage by Daniel Bryce. It’s about the incredible expedition that Ernest Shackleton took to the South Pole, and how he became surrounded by ice on his way to the Antarctic Peninsula. He and his crew were shipwrecked for close to 1 1/2 years, fighting for survival. I recently returned from a monthlong trip to Antarctica, so I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for Shackleton to motivate and inspire his crew as they beat the odds. His leadership and compassion, including his incredible courage, faith, and desire to keep his men alive in harsh conditions, was instrumental in saving their lives. It is an inspiring story of perseverance, as good as any motivational or leadership book that I have ever seen.

Who is the Fordham grad or professor you admire most?
Joseph Kiernan, who was one of my professors when I was an undergraduate at Fairleigh Dickinson. He really opened my eyes up to economics and told me I had an aptitude for the subject. He got his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from [Fordham] in 1976 and 1980, and he encouraged me to apply for a graduate assistantship at Fordham so I could continue in an area where I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. If it weren’t for him, my life would be very different.

Learn more about the Fordham University Alumni Association and see who else is on the FUAA Advisory Board.

According to Sanjiv Das, Ph.D., the keynote speaker of the inaugural Gabelli School of Business Fintech Conference, by 2020 at least five percent of all economic transactions will be handled by artificial intelligence (AI).

“The banks are saying, ‘what can we do with modern technology to actually monetize the data that we have?’” said Das at the March 16 conference that focused on blockchain, cryptocurrency, machine learning, textual analysis, risk management, and regulation. “The prognosis is that any bank that doesn’t become a technology company is probably at risk.”

A Santa Clara University professor of finance and business analytics, Das identified 10 areas where FinTech is gaining clout, including fraud detection, cybersecurity, deep learning, and personal and consumer finance.  He cited mathematical innovations, hardware, and big data as game changers.

“The fact that they now have mathematics that actually allows us to include very large-scale models with millions of parameters is absolutely key,” he said. “You have to feed the beast, and the beast eats data.”

As the FinTech space expands, Das said, financial institutions are faced with an important question when it comes to talent pipelining: Should they train their in-house engineers in finance or teach their finance professionals technology?

“My bet is that you can take finance [professionals]and teach them technology,” he said. “Everything has become so commoditized that it’s actually very easy to do this with the tools that we currently have.”

Still, to excel in the sector, professionals need training across disciplines, he said. “You’re going to have to learn something about behavioral psychology, cognitive science, computer science, and statistics.”

“If you want to get under the hood with of all of this, the two skills you’ll need to learn are linear algebra and statistics.”

Enhancing customer-service

Some banks are tapping into conversational AI and chatbots that assist customers in managing their personal finances.

This month, Bank of America launched its virtual financial assistant Erica, a chatbot that helps users with bank-related issues such as making payments, checking balances, and reaching a savings goal.

Das said that chatbots like Erica aim to enhance customer-service experiences in financial services.

“When you call customer service, there is a huge variety in the quality,” he said. “You might get somebody who knows what he’s talking about or you might get someone who is one week on the job. If you can replace those people with a chatbot…you’re going to have much better service at a very low cost.”

AI has proven good at predicting things where data are stationery–for example, detecting cancer through cells that don’t change. But AI is less effective at making successful market predictions, Das said.

“Market predictions is a tough problem because markets are not stationary, so we need to figure out better models,” he said.

While experts have argued that machines will never outsmart human intelligence—even though they learn from experience— Das doesn’t think humans beat machines in every domain.

“Humans learn from experience too, but we can’t do a million games over a weekend. The machine can. It’s faster learning and it’s more accurate.”

“What humans are better at is explaining why they made the decision whether it’s wrong or right,” he said.