During my senior year I met a vice president from Goldman Sachs as part of a career exploration class. I related to his story because he was a political science grad with an interesting career in the financial services industry. Listening to him speak about his role piqued my interest in finance and led me to apply for an internship.
The internship was very different from what I expected. I’d thought it would be a cut-throat, intense environment where I would struggle because I didn't have the finance background which I assumed all my peers would have. I discovered that while it was a very intense experience, it was intense in all the best ways. People were extremely collaborative, accommodating, and very eager to help. Even as an intern, I was doing meaningful work.
Currently, I lead social media operations for Marcus by Goldman Sachs and Clarity Money where I also manage a team of specialists in Salt Lake City. If the Marcus team wants to launch on a new platform, my team can help them—whether that means organizing tech risk reviews or satisfying compliance requirements on comment retention, for example. We also look after the social channels so that when customers ask questions about our products on social media, my team handles those interactions. We use a customer response playbook developed with input from Compliance and Legal to guide our exchanges on social media.
I've been helping with recruiting events and I always say to students with political science or liberal arts majors that they have something to offer to the firm and that’s a different perspective than someone in finance or technology can offer. At Goldman Sachs, we think the best outcomes happen when we consider many different perspectives.
I’ve leveraged many of the skills developed in my liberal arts education—like analytical thinking, research, writing—both in my previous role in compliance and my current job. The crux of what we do is solving problems and those skills are crucial. Success depends on how easily and effectively you can handle the issues that come up while leveraging the expertise needed to make the correct decision for the firm.
I’m passionate about mentoring and helping students prepare for the workplace. In the past, I’ve taught at my alma mater, BYU, where I helped with the Model United Nations class. The focus was helping college students with real-life skills like research, writing, negotiation and public speaking.
Outside of work, I enjoy running marathons. I haven't run one in New York yet, but I hope to run the New York City Marathon.