Introduction of the Old Ezra VPs of Investment Banking
Congratulations on your elections to lead the Investment Banking Vertical of Old Ezra! And the first time two women have led the vertical to boot! You both have done a lot to earn the trust of your peers over the semester and I am glad they entrusted you with this responsibility.
Sanjana: Thank you!
Liz: Appreciate it!
How about you tell us a little bit about your backgrounds and how you found yourselves recruiting Investment Banking at Johnson.
Sanjana: Let’s start with my “Why MBA” answer. An MBA has always been a goal of mine. Education is important to me and my family and I wanted to go deeper into topics I was not able to pursue in undergrad. The networking aspect is also important to me and a facet of the MBA that I believe will pay dividends down the road. As far as “why investment banking,” I had been working in Citi’s commercial banking division and I started off as a credit analyst, building an understanding of firm’s strengths and weaknesses to assess creditworthiness. I enjoyed the role, but I transitioned to a PM role because, although I enjoy learning about credit, I wanted to own the lifecycle of the client. After a few years as a PM, I had the opportunity to see one of my clients go through an acquisition. That acquisition changed my perspective from a career goal standpoint. I saw how important M&A was to my client and I wanted a more strategic role in that decision making process. Banking will allow me to utilize my strong finance background while allowing me to continue to work in a client facing role on a much larger scale.
Liz: Prior to business school I was in healthcare strategy at Cerner, a healthcare IT company. While at Cerner, I was able to take a frontline view of how M&A was changing the hospital landscape. When thinking about my career, I realized that I enjoyed the financial strategy aspects of the role more than the consulting aspects of my role and I realized that M&A decisions were the most important strategic decisions firms were making. That was the area that I wanted to make my impact. It was important to me that I stayed in healthcare because I found those firms interesting, be it medtech, biopharma, or healthcare services, and the range of strong banks and healthcare investment banking groups that recruit at Cornell drew me to Johnson.
Alumni view Old Ezra and the Investment Banking Vertical with great pride. How do you view your role as leaders of the Investment Banking vertical and how did you think about managing the high expectations of alumni when you were running for the positions?
Liz: The reason I ran for the position is because I want to help first-years reach their potential as investment banking candidates. Old Ezra is the platform to make that happen. I am a true career switcher who has never worked in the finance industry, let alone investment banking on Wall Street. The reason I was attracted to Cornell in the first place was the strong investment banking recruiting platform, process, and alumni. To maintain that tradition of strong placement on the Street is important to me. Alumni trust Old Ezra to be a key partner to the banks by providing a pipeline of excellent candidates every year. It is the trust that alumni have in the club that enables us to place across so many firms and geographies. I ran to keep that tradition alive.
Sanjana: Building off what Liz said, one of my biggest takeaways from recruiting is the importance of collaboration. Prior to coming to business school, I was told about the collaborative nature of Johnson and the alumni base. But, without firsthand experience, that concept remains a little abstract. You don’t realize how invested the second years and the alumni base are in the class’s success until you experience it yourself. I would describe it as a “pay-it-forward” culture. That culture of collaboration, celebrating the success of your classmates, and paying it forward is why I chose to run for the position. I want to foster the culture that helped me so much in recruiting. Both Liz and I are career switchers who owe a lot to Old Ezra, this is the best way for me to give back.
The deposit deadline for Round 1 is about two weeks away and the Round 2 deadline is about a week and a half away. What would you say to prospective applicants who are weighing Johnson vs some peer schools for Investment Banking?
Sanjana: This builds on the last point. Cornell has done a great job placing people on Wall Street. Our investment banking numbers have grown over time and even in the COVID environment, we have been able to place a significant number of individuals in great investment banking roles. When I was weighing a few business schools, the established investment banking recruiting platform and the second-years who take pride in the program were big differentiating factors for me. The Investment Banking Immersion, which I am taking this coming semester, should also play a role in differentiating Cornell. Although I have not taken the immersion yet, alumni have told me that it was key to preparing them for success in their summer internships.
Liz: For me, this question came down to what did I want to get out of business school? I wanted the relationships, the recruiting structure, to build my strategic and technical skills, and a job on Wall Street. I looked at the schools that are best in these regards and, coming from an investment banking lens, Johnson is second to none.
Do you have any advice for investment banking candidates who want to begin preparing for recruiting before matriculation?
Liz: Take some time to reflect on your goals and your career aspirations. Do the research and figure out what you are getting into and the work that it will take to get there. A lot of the time, we suggest reading the Rosenbaum and Pearl book or reviewing the 400 Questions guide to begin technical preparation, but I think the most important aspect of preparation is taking a step back and putting together a 10,000 foot view of the banks, what they do, what areas interest you the most, and how an investment banking career would fit into your goals.
Sanjana: For some aspects of recruiting, I strongly believe you do not understand what you’re getting yourself into until you hit the ground running. I will second Liz in recommending you take some time to reflect and really figure out what you are interested in. I was 100% focused on the consumer and retail sector and that is where I directed all my efforts. I spent a lot of time understanding the trends and how my story related to what I could bring to the table in that area. Having that intrinsic interest and preparation is what sets Cornell candidates apart from other schools.
Prospective candidates ask all the time: “After joining Old Ezra, how can I make an impact?” What impact would you guys appreciate from a first-year and a second-year student respectively?
Sanjana: The biggest impact a first-year can make is assisting other first-years. Going back to a previous question, recruiting is a collaborative effort. Students build off each other’s strengths. Being a team-player who uses their strengths to build up others around them is something Old Ezra will always demand from their members. With respect to second-years, the answer is very simple. Second-years can make an impact by going all-out to assist first-years in the recruiting process.
Liz: Answering a little more broadly, after you join Old Ezra I would encourage first-years to find other clubs and expand their slope. That said, it is important to set expectations. You probably will not have much time your first semester. To give an example, I knew I wanted to be involved in the Present Value Podcast, but I also knew I probably would not have time to add much value the first semester. So I reached out to the club and said “is this still an option even though I can’t pull as much weight the first year.” The club was kind enough to still let me join! It has been so nice having an activity outside of investment banking and I am looking forward to contributing in the future. Build that network!
In that spirit of making an impact, the VP of the Investment Banking Vertical is an enormously consequential position. It is a lot of responsibility and work. What spurred both of you to run?
Sanjana: I initially reached out to Jefferson (2019 OE President) prior to business school. He and I both had backgrounds in commercial banking and he encouraged me to pursue investment banking at Cornell. During my recruitment, I was amazed at the direct impact Old Ezra had on improving candidacies and the work that Arthur and Kanika (2019 IB VPs) put into helping the first-year class. This process worked for me and I wanted to find a way to give back. I felt that the Old Ezra VP of Investment Banking position was the way I could make the most direct impact helping first-years so I decided to run.
Liz: Taking it back to my first answer, I never thought about running until it was announced that the elections were happening. I have never been someone to run for something for the line on my resume. But as I thought about all the help I had received from the second-years, I realized that it was important to me that I found a high impact way to give back. I started this recruiting journey on the ground floor, having never worked in finance. I was the one who was googling “what is investment banking and what is the role of an associate?” Arthur and Kanika helped me so much and I wanted to give back in the largest impact way possible.
What are your plans for the website?
Sanjana: I would like to get someone to manage it. We can continue to email students for important deadlines but I also think we can use the website as more of a resource hub.
Liz: I want to see how it is currently used for alumni outreach or as a resource for prospective students. I want to look at how other school’s finance clubs use their websites and take best practices.
Sanjana and Liz can be reached at sy763@cornell.edu and ep542@cornell.edu respectively. Sanjana will be interning in Investment Banking at Citi and Liz will be interning in Investment Banking at Jefferies.