Celebrating a decade of success

Students travel to New York City to meet leaders from the banking industry, present at conferences and land internships at major Wall Street companies through UM-Dearborn’s Financial Management Association connections.

"I didn’t know what direction I wanted to head in the business world until getting to know people through FMA," says Jonah Musial, a finance major who recently completed a New York City-based summer internship at S&P Global. “They will help you set the bar high for yourself and help you learn what it takes to be an attractive candidate for employers.” Lecturer of Finance and FMA faculty advisor Nick Vlisides took students, including Musial, to New York City last year to meet with S&P staff.

For more than 10 years, FMA students have graduated to go on and find success in their ventures. Alum Michael Lessa, ’14 BBA, earned a MS in finance from the University of Notre Dame and connects U.S.-based renewable energy ideas and products to funding. Angelo Policicchio, ’19 BBA, started a company to help automate tax prep for CPAs and is working on his MBA at Harvard Business School. And Paige Patton, ’14 BBA, helps companies across the nation build benefit and pay packages to attract top talent. 

“What I learned through the College of Business is the foundation of everything that I am doing now," says Lessa, who is the vice president of corporate finance for Advantage Capital and the director of corporate finance for Advantage Renewables. “Thanks to my professors and time in the Finance Investments Club, my education at UM-Dearborn was rigorous and high caliber. It helped me get into Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame.” The Finance Investments Club evolved into an FMA-sponsored university chapter in 2018, aligning it with the internationally recognized organization Financial Management Association.

To celebrate the student organization and its recent 10-year anniversary, Associate Professor of Finance Alice Xie, an FMA faculty advisor since its founding, organized a reunion at her Bloomfield Hills home and personally invited the FMA members from its start through now. Alums traveled from across the country to attend the end-of-summer celebration. Students met grads from different sectors of the finance field and Xie had the opportunity to bring her students, past and present, together.

“I was there when this organization was just beginning. It is like my baby. FMA and the students within it mean so much to me,” Xie says. “A little more than 10 years ago, I brought a group of finance students to a ‘Redefining Investment Strategy Education’ conference at the University of Dayton. UM-Dearborn didn’t have a finance club at that time. Two of my students came to me afterward because they learned from other students about finance clubs and said, ‘We want to start one and see what we can achieve’.”

Those two students — Lessa and Patton — were both at the reunion. Several College of Business faculty also were there, including College of Business Associate Dean of Academic Programs and Associate Professor of Finance Claudia Kocher, Associate Professor of Accounting and Accounting and Finance Department Chair Kevin Kobelsky and Associate Professor of Business Economics Lee Redding, who made remarks. Lessa and Patton also gave a short speech about starting FMA. The UM-Dearborn alums started the club to participate in finance-based competitions through the student organization. Xie and Professor of Finance Hei-Wai Lee helped them get it off the ground.

“Professor Xie honored Michael and me at the reunion and asked us to say a few words about how the organization began. It was wonderful and surreal to see something that was once nonexistent and started by us now flourishing over a decade later,” says Patton, who is an on-staff consultant at consulting firm Pay Governance. “It makes me glad to see that students who followed us took what we started and continued to improve upon it.”

Xie says Patton and Lessa got to compete in a finance competition through the student organization before graduating. They took part in the CFA Institute Research Challenge in 2014 and won the Michigan State Championship. 

In addition to competitions, Xie says FMA at UM-Dearborn now offers opportunities for students to network with local finance industry leaders and to travel to New York City to meet with Wall Street professionals. To prepare for these opportunities, FMA offers workshops to discuss current finance topics, encourages students to attend leadership conferences, conducts stock exchange simulations and gives tips on how to be successful in the field.

“It is so important to help our students develop their future careers by offering different opportunities so they can find something that works best for them,” Xie says. “We know many of our students have many commitments. They are often working full time and are taking care of children or parents, sometimes both. FMA brings industry experts right to campus for people who may not be able to travel, and we do short trips to visit major finance companies for people who may have a little more flexibility. We want to do everything we can so students know expectations from industry and they get hands-on experience in a professional sense.”

Lessa worked full time at Jackson National Life as a student. He says UM-Dearborn’s flexible commuter campus culture helped him get an outstanding education and participate in on-campus activities. He says he still uses lessons today — like how to build a financial model — that he picked up through FMA. He also has spoken with Xie’s classes and FMA students to share advice he’s learned along his career journey.

“I’m incredibly thankful that my professors gave me ways to learn, get out of my comfort zone and grow,” Lessa says. “I got a lot from my time at UM-Dearborn and it’s exciting to see an organization that I helped create give students a way to discover opportunities that may lead them to the next big thing at this time in their life."

Know someone who may be interested in FMA? Email Xie.

Story by Sarah Tuxbury