Student Spotlight: Ryan Mazzie- Investment Banker

Throughout high school, I always envisioned myself working on Wall Street. There was just something about it that naturally drew me towards it, not to mention my sparking curiosity is stocks, bonds, and finance as a whole. Although I knew I wanted to work on Wall Street I did not know exactly what it was that I wanted to do in the wide world of finance.

Coming to Villanova, I knew that if I worked hard the opportunity to pursue a career on Wall Street would be there for me at the completion of my four years. The university has provided me with peers, organizations, and mentors that exposed me to a variety of careers in finance. As a freshman I joined the Mergers & Acquisition, and that is where I found investment banking. The more I learned about banking the more I loved.

As an athlete, I was immediately drawn to the competitive nature of investment banking, and the challenge of pushing oneself to their limits. Furthermore, the learning curve within an investment bank is second to none. As an analyst I would be

surrounded with highly intelligent individuals. This creates the opportunity for me to learn from them, as well as teach others over time. Lastly, the activities of an investment bank have a major impact on the overall macro economy. To work on projects that significant is very cool. It excites me to think that one day I could pick up the Wall Street Journal and see the announcement of a deal that my team had been working on.

Realizing that investment banking is what I wanted to do following graduation was the first, and easiest, step in the process. Then the challenge of breaking into banking began. Traditionally, the best way to get a job in banking out of undergraduate is to secure internships in the field. However, having spent the past four years being scouted by the New York Mets as a left handed pitching prospect, I never had the opportunity to intern at an investment bank. My summers were filled with playing baseball, and interning at smaller, non-investment banking companies to gain professional experience. Following this summer, I decided to hang up the spikes, realizing that my passion for the game was lost and my passion for finance was growing exponentially. All of my efforts and focus were put towards getting into an investment bank. This was a daunting challenge for someone in my position: a senior with no prior investment banking experience. However I was not going to let this discourage me. I reached out to as many banks as I could, really tapping into the Villanova network. I am beyond thrilled to say that my hard work has paid off. Following graduation I will be an Investment Banking Analyst at Goldman Sachs in New York City in their Financial & Strategic Investors Group.