Interview Series

Peyton and Joe are both Accounting students at UTK. Over the past year, they along with a few others have launched the Tennessee Undergrad Consulting Club (TUCC). We discuss what Management Consulting is all about, why they want to work in this area, and their broader vision for the club. In part 2, they offer details about the club's plans for the upcoming year and how current students can get involved.

Holly and Jim are both trained accountants who have worked much of their careers in Wealth Management. They are also proud UTK parents. In part 1, they share various stories about their career journeys and current jobs. In part 2, we chat about the differences between internal and client facing roles, the joint importance of finance and accounting for many jobs, and nuggets of advice for college students.

CeriFi provides professional education and training for all aspects of the Financial Services Industry. In part 1, Chief Operations Officer Joe Gillice and I discuss the Securities Industries Essentials (SIE) Exam and its importance as the entry point to a host of paths into the industry. In part 2, we discuss a number of trainings CeriFi offers and we devote special attention to the Certified Financial Planner training and a new partnership between UTK and Dalton (a CerfiFi company) that offers this service.

As Chief Investment Officer, Rip oversees the management of a near-$2 Billion endowment fund. We cover a number of topics including how endowments work, the difference between asset allocation and security selection, the practical aspects of rebalancing a portfolio, and useful skills any finance major should be developing.

William graduated from UTK in 2010 with a degree in Finance and Economics. We talk about his job as a healthcare valuation consultant at VMG Health in Nashville, compare and contrast the roles of consultant and investment banker, and discuss the usefulness of specializing in an area like healthcare. William also describes a new analyst's first few months at VMG Health.

Sam graduated from UTK with an Accounting degree in 2018. He worked for about there years as a credit analyst before joining Rather and Kittrell to pursue a career in financial planning. Sam reflects on his passion to help others and how he found a fit in his current job. We also discuss general career opportunities in the financial advisory space, various business models, and the importance of professional certifications such as the CFA and the CFP.

Grady and I talk about Three Roots' business model and the firm's role in connecting regional capital providers with regional firms. We also discuss his journey from engineer to entrepreneur and financier. He talks candidly about how he lacked awareness that finance event existed when he was making early career choices and offers wisdom to young folks trying to learn "what's out there".

Joan Heminway has enjoyed a fruitful career as both a practicing attorney and as a law professor. Joan tells some of her own story and we discuss a host of career opportunities law school can offer to Finance and Accounting students. She also shares her thoughts on hot legal topics of the day and offers insights to undergraduates who are considering law school.

Dr. Laura Cole is a member of the Finance Department at UTK. We discuss her role as Director of our Masters Investment Learning Center (MILC) and how students can get involved there. Dr. Cole also tells us about two Finance electives that train students how to use a Bloomberg terminal to access real-time and historical financial market data.

Devin is a senior Finance Major from Johnson City, TN. He's active in several organizations -- UT Investment Group, Financial Management Association, Tennessee Capital Markets Society, and Real Estate Club. We discuss what these organizations offer. Devin also talks about his journey through internships into full-time employment in a competitive industry.

Dr. Roark joined our faculty prior to the 2020-21 academic year. He brings with him a dozen years of work experience and multiple Real Estate course offerings. We talk about our departments transition from one to three Real Estate courses, various opportunities for students outside the classroom, and careers in this exciting field.

Heath graduated from UTK in 1996 with a Finance degree. He then spent about 20 years consulting with institutional investors. We talk about how and he ended up starting his own company and the niche he found providing institutional manager data to retirement fund sponsors. We also discuss his transition out of that business and his vision for the next venture.

Coleton earned Accounting, Finance, and Law degrees from UTK. He currently serves as Chief Financial Officer at Mollenhour Gross, a Knoxville-based investment firm. We talk about his role in the firm, various aspects of the private equity space, and why he ultimately chose a career in Finance.

Carissa is a UTK graduate who has extensive experience in the retirement and benefits space. We discuss how employer-sponsored retirement plans work and emphasize differences between defined benefit plans and defined contribution plans. Carissa also talks about careers in the retirement space and shares some of her own journey.

Tiffany is a UTK Finance grad who works in commercial banking. We talk about her role as a relationship manager, her views on the future of commercial banking, and why she loves her job. 

Juan works in the Global Markets Division of Goldman Sachs. He is also my former student from the University of Arizona. We discuss his various roles in sales and trading both as an intern and as a full-time employee. Juan also talks about why he chose Finance as his major.

Katie graduated from UTK in 2019 with a Finance degree. We discuss her various experiences as a student that led her to start her career in corporate finance. Katie talks about finding her own fit within finance and shares stories about her journey into full-time employment.

Sharon is a UTK Finance graduate. After spending more than a decade working in a bank trust department, she founded The Trust Company, where she is CEO to this day. Sharon shares stories of how her small advisory firm established its niche as saw assets under management grow to over $4 billion. She also offers encouraging insights to budding finance studies trying to find their way.

David Holt is a recent UTK graduate, where he studied Business Analytics, Economics, and Finance. He also worked in the Masters Investment Learning Center. David describes his role as a data scientist at FreightWaves, which provides transparency in the mostly opaque markets for freight. David also shares his thoughts on the growing interrelationships between data analytics, finance, and supply chain.

Jim is a long-time friend of the Finance Department. He is President of Brogan Financial, a local independent financial advisory firm that serves hundreds of household clients. In part 1, Jim talks about the quantitative aspects of his job. In part 2, Jim talks about the importance of educating clients and offers some practical advice for college students. 

Dr. Farley serves as the Finance Department's Torch Fund Director. In this role, he supervises teams of students who manage real investment portfolios totaling over $3 Million, each with a subtly different objective. Since the student teams conduct research, make buy and sell decisions, and ultimately answer to stakeholders, the experience resembles a real-world job in the asset management industry. In this conversation, Ryan and I discuss the Torch funds, differences between wealth management and value investing, and future opportunities he sees for our students.

Parker graduated from UT with a Finance degree in 2018. He completed his MS in Finance from Vanderbilt in 2019. Parker and I discuss the life and work of an entry-level investment banker. We also talk about the importance of networking when breaking into this career path.

Matt is also a 1997 UT Finance graduate. I talked with Matt about what he does as a CFO, his original dreams of being a stock broker, and his journey from Memphis, Tennessee to UT to an entry-level job at Kimberly Clark to a long tenure in the biotech industry. Matt also talks about the ups and downs of being a kid from Tennessee surrounded by private school graduates in the Northeastern U.S.