Senior Don Fries (pronounced FREEZE) hopes to land a job in the upcoming weeks at a top Wall Street investment banking firm. He adds that many of his finance cohorts at the Robins School have already received job offers from their summer internship employers. Don is setting his sights on a position in sales and trading or asset management.

In fact, Fries had the opportunity to network with former Robins School business majors working for major investment houses in New York City. As a member of the University’s Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF), Fries attended the annual field trip to New York City on Oct. 17-18 to visit powerhouse firms such as Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Cowen and Citigroup.

“It was an important networking experience. My objective was to meet alumni and form relationships because so much of business is a result of contacts,” Fries says.  As general manager of SMIF, Fries is gaining real world experience. He was selected among more than 80 business school applicants last year to lead the fund. “I help with security selection, but my main role is to improve communication and internal efficiency of how the group is run,” Fries explains.

Currently, there are 17 seniors managing the fund’s three sectors – value, growth and GARP (growth at a reasonable price). The group meets weekly to discuss market conditions and the portfolio’s status. “We have all become good friends, and I know I have learned a lot from this process. Because we have ‘real’ capital committed to our investment ideas, we’re much more interested in the results, rather than a theoretical trading situation.”

Fries’ first order of business as general manager was to create a central point of communication for the group. One of the members set up space on CEO – an online storage server housed on the University’s network. “We can save information on it and communicate via this site rather than sending out emails with large attachments,” Fries describes.  “Although it is early in the year,” Fries observes, “The group has gelled and figured out how to work best as a team.” 

As general manager, Fries will also head the transition process beginning in January 2007 for next year’s fund managers. The current fund managers took over April 3, 2006. “This is one of the more difficult parts of managing the fund,” he adds.

A resident of Westport, Conn., Fries attended Fairfield College Prep School in Fairfield, Conn. He landed an internship at a Westport investment firm in summer 2005 and worked as a summer analyst on the equities trading desk at JP Morgan Asset Management in 2006.

Fries spent the fall semester of his junior year abroad in Hong Kong at Hong Kong University. When he returned, he became co-chair of the Investment Club, a University-based group open to all students interested in learning about finance. Members participate in investment trading simulations through various online websites set-up by the club. Fries also focused on educating other students about jobs in finance.

On October 17-18, finance students in the Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF) had the opportunity to be in the heart of it all – Wall Street.  The Robins School sponsored the trip for top finance students to travel to New York City and meet with executives from Lehman Brothers, Cowen, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup.  While visiting with each company, they had the opportunity to listen to presentations from executives at these companies and meet with over 100 alumni in the finance field at a reception held Tuesday evening. 

Each week this fall, students in Dr. Candace Dean’s special topics class “Emerging Trends and Issues in IT,” get to hear first-hand the challenges of life as a Chief Information Officer (CIO).  This is the first time the class has focused on CIO speakers. 

In this course, students have the opportunity to interact with information technology leaders in the business community and gain valuable insights from practicing CIOs across a variety of industries.  Each week an executive from a different company comes into the class to talk about issues facing information technology professionals today. 

The list includes:
Gene Doody, CIO, City of Richmond
Rick Mears, CIO, Owens and Minor, Inc.
Bob Austin, President, KoreLogic Security
John Shackleton, President and CEO, Open Text
Joe Amado, CIO, Philip Morris USA
Eugene Fortner, Engineer, Verizon
Katherine Busser, CIO, US Card Services, Capital One
Chellam Manickan, CIO, Ukrop’s
Lyn McDermid, CIO, Dominion
Mike Jones, CIO, Circuit City

The kick-off for the 2006-2007 recruiting season began with the 2006 Richmond Career Fair held at the Jepson Alumni Center on September 29.  The event hosted 46 employers and approximately 270 students were in attendance.  A diverse group of employers and industries as well as government and non-profit organizations were represented.

Companies in attendance included Goldman Sachs, Wachovia, Genworth Financial, Philip Morris USA, and Tredegar, among others.