Yale Career Panels: A Candid View of the Finance and Investing Professions
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
This event is the twenty-first in a series covering different professions of interest to Yale students and alumni. The concept has been to present, for each profession, a diverse panel of people who are at different stages of their career and/or in different areas of the profession who will provide the audience with candid views and dispel misconceptions. This event will cover the finance and investing professions (investment banking, hedge funds, private equity and wealth and asset management).
The panel discussion will be broadcast via an interactive streaming video system and will be conducted live in New York City. Yale students and alumni are welcome to come to the New York City location or watch and ask questions via the interactive streaming video system.
Time: November 2, 2016 from 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm EST (The panelists have agreed to stay for an additional 30 minutes from 5:30 pm to 6 pm to answer additional questions.)
Location and Webinar:
New York Location: Young & Partners, 230 Park Avenue, Suite 1145, New York City Webinar: interactive streaming video
Registration: Please register here for just one venue (New York or the Webinar)
Topics: • Where is the profession heading (good and bad)? • How do you get into the profession and what is the typical career path? • What are the myths versus the realities? • What are the characteristics of people who tend to do well and are happy in the profession? • What types of people tend not to do well or end up unhappy and why? • If you don’t stay in the profession until retirement, what are the exit routes to other professions?
Panelists:
Kelly Cheng, Director in Barclays’ Debt Capital Markets Group (Yale BA in Economics and East Asian Studies and Harvard Business School MBA)
Reuben Jeffery III, Chief Executive Officer of Rockefeller & Co., (Yale B.A. in Political Science and Stanford J.D./M.B.A.)
David F. Thomas, Managing Partner, Court Square, Advisory Council of the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute (University of Akron)
Moderator and Organizer: Peter Young, President and Managing Director, Young & Partners (Yale B.A. in Economics, NYU MS in Accounting, and Harvard Business School MBA)
Biographies:
Kelly Cheng
Kelly Cheng is a Director in Barclays’ Debt Capital Markets Group where she advises real estate and industrial clients on debt and interest rate products as well as capital structure optimization. She has advised clients on global bond offerings, loans and risk management in the context of acquisition financing, refinancing and restructuring transactions. While at Barclays, she has also been a member of teams that focus on liability management, structured financing and principal investing in renewable energy projects.
Previously, Kelly was with CM Equity Partners, L.P.’s leveraged buyout fund. In this capacity, she originated, executed and monitored private equity investments. Kelly began her career as a corporate finance analyst in J.P. Morgan’s investment banking division.
Kelly holds a BA in Economics and East Asian Studies with distinction from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is active on the committees of several non-profit organizations, including serving on the boards of the Yale Alumni Fund and the Association of Asian American Yale Alumni. Additionally, she is a volunteer with the Harvard Business School Club of New York’s Community Partners program.
Reuben Jeffery III
Reuben Jeffery III is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Rockefeller & Co., an investment advisory and asset management firm. Reuben previously served seven years in the U.S. government in a variety of positions, including as Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs and as Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He spent eighteen years at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he was Managing Partner of the firm’s Paris office and of its European Financial Institutions Group in London. Before joining Goldman Sachs, Reuben worked as a corporate attorney with Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. He received an M.B.A./J.D. from Stanford and a B.A. in Political Science from Yale. He is currently a member of the President’s Council on International Activities at Yale, a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a board member of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps and a Trustee of the Asia Foundation. Reuben is a non-executive director of Barclays PLC, an advisory board member of Tower Brook Capital Partners LLP and a member of the International Advisory Committee of J. Rothschild Capital Management Limited.
David F. Thomas
David F. Thomas, Managing Partner of Court Square, has been with Court Square since 1980. Court Square is a leading independent private equity firm established by the former members of Citigroup Venture Capital.
He joined the Leveraged Finance Group of Citibank in 1976. Mr. Thomas is currently a director of Cadence Aerospace, Conterra Broadband and Mspark. He most recently served on the boards of Fibertech Networks, Harvard Drug Group, Wyle, Newmarket, and Auto Europe Group. Previous boards include Aviall, Brintec, C&H Sugar, DavCo Restaurants, The Devon Group, Flender, Furnishings International, Hancor Pipe, Interface Solutions, International Airmotive, MagnaChip Semiconductor, Mid-Atlantic Coca Cola, NCI, Neenah Foundry, Pamida Stores, People Express Airlines, Smith Alarm, Worldspan, York International, and Zatarains.
Mr. Thomas received degrees in finance and accounting from the University of Akron and is currently a member of the Advisory Council of the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute and the Leadership Council of the Yale School of Public Health.
Peter Young (Moderator)
Peter Young is President and a Managing Director of Young & Partners, a leading boutique investment banking firm focused on the life science and chemical industries. He manages the firm and is actively involved in client transactions and financings. Under his leadership, Young & Partners has established and maintained its position as a highly regarded firm.
Prior to founding Young & Partners, Peter was head of various related industry groups at Salomon Brothers, Schroders, and Lehman Brothers for ten years. Peter has been an investment banker serving the chemical and pharma industries for many years, assisting a wide variety of chemical and life science companies on a global basis with regard to mergers, acquisitions, restructurings and capital raising.
Early in his career, while with Bain & Co., Peter provided strategic advice to major chemical and life science companies. He was also a senior member of J.H. Whitney & Co. the venture capital firm.
Peter received an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar with Highest Distinction), an M.S. in Accounting from the New York University and a B.A. in Economics from Yale University. He is a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants.
Previous Panels Previous panels prior to this academic year have covered film and drama, legal, investment banking, government service, investing, education, non-profits, architecture, data and information services, biomedical, entrepreneurism, consulting, a comparison of investing and investment banking, and medical.
The Series Sponsors This series is jointly supported by various Yale organizations and programs at Yale University and Yale Alumni organizations, including the Association of Yale Alumni (AYA), Students and Alumni of Yale (STAY), Careers, Life and Yale (CLY), the Office of Career Strategy (OCS), the Yale School of Management (SOM), the Junior Class Council (JCC), the Yale Alumni Association of New York (YAANY), the Asian American Cultural Center (AACC), and the Association of Asian American Yale Alumni (AAAYA).