Message from the Area Coordinator
Dear UTD MS in Finance Alumni,
I hope you and your loved ones are doing well. Time flies; it is almost Christmas. Late autumn/early winter is always the best season of the year in Dallas because of the blue skies and cool but not cold weather with comfortable breezes. I hope thinking of these will bring back fond memories of your days at UT Dallas.
Our school has been fully back to regular teaching, studying and researching since late August. Under close monitoring of the COVID-19 situation, everything is going smoothly. After a brief drop in new student enrollment in our MS in Finance program last year, we have seen a significant recovery. New student enrollment increased by more than 120% this fall. With the COVID situation under control and international travel becoming more open, we believe more students will join our excellent programs. Here, they receive the best finance education to pursue their desired careers in the financial industry or to pursue more advanced study in finance. I hope you will keep promoting our programs and encouraging more people to join our MS in Finance family. Best wishes for a productive, safe and enjoyable year-end holiday season!
Dr. Harold Zhang
Professor, Finance and Managerial Economics
Area Coordinator, Finance and Managerial Economics
Naveen Jindal School of Management
Recent Happenings
Finance Virtual Career Fairs
Career fairs in the Naveen Jindal School of Management are a proven path for connecting employers and students. These in-person recruiting events were typically well-attended until — starting in March 2020 — they were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In consideration of the unsteady COVID situation and employers’ demand for potential job candidates, the Jindal School Career Management Center partnered with the Finance and Managerial Economics Area to present three virtual web-based career fairs this fall. Using Handshake, an online jobs and recruiting platform for higher education students and alumni, finance employers were able to connect with finance undergraduate, graduate and MBA students who were seeking internships and full-time positions.
Also, the students could virtually meet and chat with the employers via organized group information sessions and one-on-one meetings about internships and jobs.
In response to positive feedback from students who participated, the spring 2022 finance virtual career fair has been scheduled for March 10. Meanwhile, the Finance Résumé Review workshop, a career fair preparation event, has been scheduled for Jan. 20.
We look forward to having more successful Finance and Managerial Economics events in the spring semester.
The following is a participation breakdown of the three fall career fairs:
| Date | Career Fair | Number of Employers | Number of Students |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct. 1 | Finance | 25 | 408 |
| Nov. 5 | Risk Management and Insurance | 16 | 77 |
| Nov. 11 | Real Estate | 11 | 117 |
Finance Alumni Roundtable
The Graduate Finance Management Council (GFMC), in collaboration with the Finance and Managerial Economics Area, hosted a Finance Alumni Roundtable on Nov. 11. The event was organized for dual purposes – to help finance students learn from the diverse experiences of finance alumni and to provide an opportunity for alumni to meet with each other as well as current students.
Eleven alumni with distinct backgrounds and career trajectories came back for the event. Approximately 80 students attended. The GFMC officers coordinated with the alumni in preparing for the event.
Rose Wang, MSF student and the GFMC event coordinator lead, committed to helping so that students could get insights into different finance roles and see clear paths to career success.
“When reaching out to alumni, I realized that all alumni would like to get connected with the current students and provide their help because they had been helped while they were students in JSOM,” Wang said. “This event gave them a chance to accomplish this goal, as well as to meet old friends after the event.”
The roundtable format proved an effective way for students and alumni to interact.
“Many times it’s just not possible to chat with the guests in a panel discussion setting,” said Abhishek Sharma, the GFMC vice president. “But at this event students not only had their questions and doubts answered, but they also got to interact with more than one alumnus.”
Finance students, faculty and alumni expressed appreciation for the roundtable and gave positive feedback.
Congratulating the GFMC team, Drushti Mehta, an MSF student, said, “It was so insightful to chat with the alumni and learn about their respective journeys from college to corporate. Well done!”
Harsha Gurram, a BS in Finance junior and GFMC committee chair, said the alumni speaker session was very successful. “I was one of the officers who got to plan the event and participate in networking with the alumni,” Gurram said. “As a participant, I found the event was very helpful. I learned a lot talking to the different alumni, and [now] better understand the differences between different financial roles.”
Hui (Vivienne) Zhi, MSF alumna, emailed after the event, saying, “If you are craving … some face-to-face communication with fellow students and old friends, like me, it was great to come back to the on-campus events, especially during these difficult times! We used to study, work and hang out more than 10 hours a day when we were at school. … It’s always an honor to be invited back to the campus and catch up with the current MSF students and old friends.”
GFMC officers look forward to organizing more events in the future.
New Program Director of Bachelor of Science in Finance
Hiro Nishi has joined the Jindal School as an associate professor of instruction in the Finance and Managerial Economics Area and director of the BS in Finance program.
Nishi succeeds S. Drew Peabody, who has left UT Dallas.
“My primary goal at UTD is to be an excellent mentor for our students,” Nishi said.
He has many potential customers to reach in that role. The program welcomed 281 new students this semester and has a total enrollment of 1,005 degree-seekers.
Nishi came to UT Dallas from Fort Hays (Kansas) State University, where he taught after earning his doctorate from the University of North Texas in 2016. He received the 2020-2021 Van R. Hoisington Faculty Member of Distinction Award from Fort Hays State.
His research interest lies in financial derivatives, an outgrowth of roles he filled for a decade at a Kansas electricity utility, Evergy Inc., before he transitioned into academia. Most recently he was manager of quantitative analytics, where his duties included computing the risk metrics of energy derivative transactions and managing trading strategies on a daily basis.
This fall, Nishi taught Financial Management (FIN 6301), a graduate-level course that teaches the basic concepts of corporate capital budgeting and cost-of-capital analysis.
“I am excited about teaching at UTD,” Nishi said. “There are exceptional faculty and staff. I also think that we have a very diverse student body. All of these are what make the University great.”
New Program Director of Professional Program in Finance
Jennifer Murray was appointed director of the Professional Program in Finance this fall. Also an associate professor of practice in the Finance and Managerial Economics Area, she is a seasoned financial executive with more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry and has served on the board of directors at public and private companies. She has a successful record of accomplishments, building and expanding profitable relationships at the most senior level of global organizations.
Before coming to UT Dallas, Murray was at Hudson Advisors, the captive-asset-management arm of Lone Star Funds. Her private equity experience included asset management responsibility for portfolio companies generating more than $450 million in annual revenues, as well as capital markets responsibility for optimizing capital structure and bank relationships across multiple asset classes, industries and funds.
Prior to joining Hudson, she spent 15 years on Wall Street in a variety of investment banking, commercial banking and credit roles at Morgan Stanley, AIG and the Chase Manhattan Bank, primarily in the healthcare, consumer/retail and commodity industries. Murray holds an MBA from Columbia University and a BBA from Baylor University.
Alumni Corner
Yuxuan (Bobby) Sun is an experienced finance professional with a strong background in banking and lending. He graduated with an MS in Finance degree in 2017. Upon graduation, Sun entered the investment banking operation at Goldman Sachs, landing in the private bank focused on providing customized lending solutions to private equity and ultra-high net worth clients. Recently, Sun transitioned into Marcus, a suite of Goldman Sachs financial tools and products, and shifted focus from private banking to digital banking.
“I’ve built a great skill set and understanding of the industry at my previous experience and think this transition presents a great opportunity to jump into the fintech world and be a better-rounded professional,” he said.
Sun believes that the MS in Finance program provided him with broad-based and cutting-edge skills in many areas of finance and banking. “The skills that I developed in the MSF program are essential in my current job. I am grateful for the rigorous program, which allows me to have a competitive edge in the financial community. The curriculum is really customizable for students as far as where they want their career to go. For me, all those skills from the classes that we took on corporate finance, accounting and alternative investment are still relevant to me today,” Sun shared.
In addition, he said the Career Management Center helped him prepare for interviews for both on-campus and off-campus recruiting and network with alumni. “The extracurriculars like financial modeling competition, résumé workshop or mock interview training, and soft skills for interviewing were all very helpful for preparing for interviews and preparing for a career,” he said.
Sun also stated that one of the best things about the program was gaining lifelong friends. “I’ve gained some really great friends whom I’ve studied and worked with and whom I continue to be friends with up to today. The network that you gain is invaluable, not just on the professional level (but) also on the personal level; it will help you.”
Faculty Research Corner
Alejandro Rivera, Alain Bensoussan and Benoit Chevalier-Roignant, “Does Performance-Sensitive Debt Mitigate Debt Overhang?” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Volume 131, October 2021, Article 104203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jedc.2021.104203
Steven Haynes and Tony McAleavy, “Integrating Local Personnel Response and Recovery Capacity: A Conceptual Model for Small to Medium Enterprise Hazard Risk Analysis,” Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, Volume 15, No. 1, Autumn/Fall 2021, pp. 87-104 (18) https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/hsp/jbcep/2021/00000015/00000001/art00009
