Types of Roles Finance Students Land

ADVISORY

Overview: Advisory refers to the act of providing a third party with expert knowledge for a fee. The advisory services provided by the major accounting firms include:

Increasing the efficiency of a company through an analysis of its processes and functions Risk management, i.e., determining the threats faced by the company and suggesting appropriate mitigation strategies/solutions Creation of financial reporting programs which leverage the latest technology for the company Creation of accounting programs which leverage the latest technology for the company

Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for advisory roles: Deloitte | EY | Grant Thornton | KPMG | PwC | RSM

COMMERCIAL BANKING (also see Credit Analysis) Overview: A commercial banking career path has you providing clients with credit products such as term loans, revolving lines of credit, syndicated facilities, cash management services, and other fixed income products. From undergrad, you typically start as a credit analyst. A credit analyst is tasked with analyzing a client’s financial statements, competitive position, industry, and management team. The credit analyst prepares an “application for credit” that determines the structure and pricing of a financing request. As a credit analyst, you deliver financial advice and solutions that are tailored to your clients’ needs, such as growing their business, buying new equipment, funding working capital, and day-to-day banking.

Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for commercial banking roles: Berkshire Bank | Brookline Bank | Cambridge Savings Bank | Citizens Bank | East Boston Savings Bank | Eastern Bank | Middlesex Savings Bank | People’s United Bank | Rockland Trust | Salem Five Bank | Santander Bank | Silicon Valley Bank | TD Bank

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE

Overview: There are several different areas of specialization in commercial real estate. Below are a few areas of interest:

Acquisitions: Real estate acquisitions professionals are generally responsible for helping source, analyze, perform due diligence on, and negotiate the purchase of new equity investments for their real estate investment firms. It’s important to note that acquisitions professionals generally pursue existing properties (either stabilized or unstabilized properties) whereas real estate development professionals pursue new build opportunities. Asset Management: Real estate asset managers make important investment decisions, ensure the client's investment doesn't depreciate, and mitigate the client's exposure to risk. Real estate portfolios may include different types of properties in a variety of regions and markets. Asset managers in the real estate industry also hire key personnel like property managers, work with leasing agents, communicate with investors, and negotiate contracts. Brokerage: Brokers conduct business on behalf of a firm and they represent a buyer or seller in a transaction. They can conduct business with corporations, institutional buyers and sellers, foreign and domestic businesses, as well as various other investment entities. A commercial broker will usually focus on a single type of property such as industrial, retail, office, lodging, or apartments. Development: Real estate developers buy land, finance real estate deals, build or have builders build projects, create, imagine, control, and orchestrate the process of development from the beginning to end. Typically, developers purchase a tract of land, determine the marketing of the property, develop the building program and design, obtain the necessary public approval and financing, build the structures, and rent out, manage, and ultimately sell it.

TYPES OF ROLES FINANCE STUDENTS LAND

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE (continued)  Investment: Institutional real estate investment refers to real estate investment at a large scale by an institution. The institution is usually a real estate investment trust (REIT), insurance company, or pension fund. Institutional investors employ their own brokers and analysts, among many other roles. An analyst can be responsible for monitoring markets, tax law, regional market changes, geographical economic trends, local and global market trends, as well as micro trends

Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for commercial real estate roles: AEW Capital Management | Arbor Realty Trust | B6 Real Estate Advisors | Boston Capital | Boston City Properties | CBRE | Cushman & Wakefield | HFF | JLL | Newmark Knight Frank | Novaya Real Estate Ventures | Pembroke Real Estate | TA Realty | Walker & Dunlop

CONSULTING

Overview: Consulting is a big, one-size-fits-all term that includes virtually any form of advice-giving. Many people think first of management / strategy consulting, but there are many other types of consulting, including Financial Consulting, HR/Staffing Consulting, and IT Consulting. (Note that Financial Consulting and IT Consulting may also be referred to as “Advisory”).

Financial Consulting firms provide advice on:  Capital budgeting, project valuation and financial information integrity  Risk management, insurance engagements, financial control and compliance  Global finance operations, tax and treasury optimization  Corporate restructuring

HR / Staffing Consulting firms help clients to:  Manage compensation and benefits programs  Analyze staffing needs, advise firms on personnel policies and diversity issues  Recruit, hire and train workers IT Consulting firms help clients to:  Design and implement IT systems or develop better IT practices  Train staff members in IT areas such as hardware/software design setup  Provide strategic advice on social media, search engine marketing and IT issues

Management / Strategy Consulting firms help to:  Improve an organization’s structure, management, efficiency and profits  Develop and recommend short-term and long-term strategies for their clients

Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for consulting roles: Accenture | Aon Radford | Bain & Company | Boston Consulting Group | CVS Health | Deloitte Consulting | FTI Consulting | Management Solutions | Massaro | Oracle | Protiviti | PwC | RSM | Slalom

CREDIT ANALYSIS (also see Commercial Banking) Overview: A credit analyst is a financial professional who assesses the creditworthiness of securities, individuals, or companies. Credit analysts determine the likelihood that a borrower can repay their financial obligations by reviewing the borrower's financial and credit history and determining whether the state of the subject's financial health and the economic conditions are favorable to repayment. After evaluating the level of risk of an investment, the analyst will determine the interest rate and credit limit or loan terms for a borrower. Credit analysts are typically employed by commercial and investment banks, credit card issuing institutions, credit rating agencies, and investment companies.

Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for credit analysis roles: BDC Capital | Capital One | East West Bank | First Republic Bank | MutualOne Bank | Moody’s Investor Services | Northern Bank | STAG Industrial | U.S. Bank

TYPES OF ROLES FINANCE STUDENTS LAND

EQUITY RESEARCH

Overview: Equity Research primarily means analyzing a company’s financials, performing ratio analysis, forecasting the financials in Excel (financial modeling) and exploring scenarios with an objective of making BUY/SELL investment recommendation.

Sell-side equity research analysts are typically part of an investment bank and focus on a universe of stocks within one or two industries in order to provide insightful investment ideas and recommendations:

Directly to institutional investors; Directly to the investment bank’s salesforce and traders, who in turn communicate those ideas with institutional investors; To the finance community at large through financial data service providers such as Capital IQ, FactSet, Thomson and Bloomberg, who resell the data. Notable end users are investment banks M&A and advisory services groups, which use sell-side equity research to help forecast company performance in presentations and pitch books.

Sell side equity research analysts communicate formally through research reports and notes that place buy, sell and hold ratings on companies they cover as well as through less formal direct phone, email and in-person communication with institutional investors. analyze companies in order to make an actual investment in line with their firm's investment strategy and portfolio. Also unlike analysts work for a variety of investment firms: Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for equity research roles: BNY Mellon | Canaccord Genuity | Citi | Credit Suisse | Eaton Vance | Fidelity | Goldman Sachs | Invesco | Jefferies | MFS Investment Management | Nomura | The Boston Company | UBS | Voya Investment Management

FINANCIAL ADVISING / PLANNING

Overview: A financial advisor / planner is a professional who provides financial guidance to clients based on their needs and goals. Typically, they provide clients with financial products, services, planning or advice related to investing, retirement, insurance, mortgages, college savings, estate planning, taxes and more. There are several credentials that financial advisors can obtain, and the most common is the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation. An advisor must pass the CFP test, have an appropriate level of prior education, sign a code of ethics, and have several years of actual planning experience before obtaining the right to use the CFP designation.

Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for financial advising / planning roles: Ameriprise | Baystate Financial | Concord Wealth Management | Edward Jones | Equitable Advisors | Financial Compass Group | Financial Foundations, Inc. | Janney Montgomery Scott | McAdam Financial | Merrill Lynch Wealth Management | Morgan Stanley | New York Life | Northwestern Mutual | Raymond James | Wells Fargo Advisors |

Buy-side equity research analysts, on the other hand, sell-side research, buy-side research is not published. Buy-side UBS

Mutual funds Hedge funds Private equity Other (insurance, endowment and pension funds)

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS

Overview: Being a financial analyst is one of the most popular career paths in finance. This is largely because analysts can work in a range of industries. A financial analyst is a professional who is responsible for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting financial data as well as preparing reports, models, presentations and recommendations for leaders of a business or clients. Analysts must be good with numbers, have a strong understanding of accounting, and be able to manage large data sets.

TYPES OF ROLES FINANCE STUDENTS LAND

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS (continued)

Because the role can be quite different depending on where an analyst works, the industry an analyst chooses to go into defines their day-to-day responsibilities. Overall, however, analysts play a significant part in providing decision-makers with the information they need to make informed decisions.

Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for financial analysis roles: Akamai Technologies | American Express | athenahealth, Inc. | BAE Systems | Bose Corporation | CBS Corporation | C&S Wholesale Grocers | FedEx | General Dynamics | General Motors | Great American Group | Hologic | Lahey Health | National Grid | Northwell Health | Otis Elevator | Pegasystems | Raytheon Technologies | Teradyne | Thomson Reuters | Tiger Capital Group | Time Warner | TJX Companies

FINANCIAL LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS (FLDPs) Overview: FLDPs are rotational programs that allow participants to rotate between different roles, such as Financial Planning & Analysis, Financial Reporting, Internal Audit, Corporate Accounting, Operations, Treasury and more. In addition, most programs offer structured training & development on both hard and soft skills, formal mentorship, and networking opportunities. FLDPs are typically 2-3 years in duration, with the length of each rotation varying by program; rotations may be available in different locations, including international. Companies make significant investment in FLDPs, and use them to identify future financial leaders for the firm. FLDPs are great options for students who know they are interested in Corporate Finance roles, but would like to explore different functions.

Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for financial leadership development programs: Aetna | BAE Systems | Dell | EF Education First | Epsilon | Liberty Mutual | Marriott International | Raytheon Technologies | Stanley Black & Decker | State Street | Synchrony Financial | The Hartford | Thermo Fisher Scientific | Travelers | Verizon

INVESTMENT BANKING

Overview: Investment bankers are responsible for a wide range of duties including raising capital, providing advisory services for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and other corporate transactions, completing valuation work, and marketing the value of the bank’s expertise to client companies. Investment banking analysts are the workhorses of an investment banking team. Generally, the role of an analyst is to perform the bulk of the analytic work needed to facilitate these corporate transactions, and this typically involves a lot of work with presentations (pitch books) and models.

Pitch Books are marketing materials for the bankers to present to their corporate clients; they show the bank’s qualifications, recent industry data, sample transaction and analysis information, and advisory recommendations. The analytical work consists of building and perfecting financial models for any given corporate situation. This work will typically include Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis, Comparable Companies and Comparable Transactions (Comps), M&A models, and/or LBO models. Analysts spend substantial time repeatedly building and evaluating different financial alternatives for the client. One example might be running M&A models and showing the accretion/dilution effects to earnings based on different allocation scenarios for debt and equity in the proposed transaction.

Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for investment banking roles: Alantra | Baird | Barclays | BellMark Partners | BMO Capital Markets | BNP Paribas | Canaccord Genuity | Capstone Headwaters | Citi | Covington Associates | Credit Suisse | Houlihan Lokey | HSBC | Jefferies | JP Morgan | Lazard | Morgan Stanley | Oppenheimer & Co. | Philpott Ball & Werner | Provident Healthcare Partners | RBC Capital Markets | Sandler O’Neill + Partners | Stifel | UBS | Wells Fargo Securities | Whipstitch Capital

TYPES OF ROLES FINANCE STUDENTS LAND

INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT

Overview: Investment management is the business of investing other people’s money. It is the “buy side” of the broader financial industry. Investment managers put their clients’ money to work in common stocks (equities), bonds and other fixed-income securities, commodities, alternative investments, or a combination of any of these. Their clients may be companies, pension funds, endowments, insurance companies, private banks, nonprofits, and individuals — in short, anyone who has money to invest. The investment management industry is also known as the asset management industry.

There are a wide variety of roles within investment management, including research, compliance, trading, operations, client service, performance analysis, and more.

Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for investment management roles: Acadian Asset Management | Alcentra | AllianceBernstein | BlackRock | Columbia Threadneedle Investments | Eaton Vance | Fidelity | John Hancock | Liberty Mutual Investments | MassMutual | Meketa Investment Group | MFS Investment Management | Natixis Investment Managers | Putnam Investments | Sun Life Financial | Wellington Management

SALES & TRADING

Overview: Sales and Trading (S&T) is a group at an investment bank that consists of salespeople, who call institutional investors with ideas and opportunities, and traders, who execute orders and advise clients on entering and exiting financial positions.

A firm’s sales force is responsible for conveying information about particular securities to institutional investors. The sales force also are in constant communication with the firm's traders and research analysts to provide timely, relevant market information and liquidity to the firm’s clients. conditions and upon any customer request. They oversee positions in various sectors and buy and sell securities to improve those positions. Traders trade with other traders at commercial banks, investment banks and large institutional investors. Trading responsibilities include: position trading, risk management, sector analysis & capital management.

Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for sales & trading analysis roles: Bank of America | BMO Capital Markets | BNP Paribas | Cantor Fitzgerald | Citi | Credit Suisse | Deutsche Bank | Jefferies | JP Morgan | Morgan Stanley

WEALTH MANAGEMENT

Overview: Wealth management provides a holistic suite of services that encompasses all parts of an individual or family’s financial life, including investment management, as well as legal and estate planning, accounting and tax services, retirement planning, trust services, philanthropic planning, risk management, and more. A wealth manager may serve as the central point of contact for a client’s financial affairs, coordinating communications and relationships with financial experts and a client’s other advisors, such as an attorney, accountant, or insurance agent. The overall goal of wealth management is to grow and preserve wealth over the long term. Both big banks and independent firms offer wealth management services.

There are a wide variety of roles within wealth management, including investment research (for both proprietary strategies and outside manager due diligence), compliance, trading, operations, client service, performance analysis, and more.

Firms that have hired Bentley students / alumni for wealth management roles: Ballentine Partners | Bank of America Private Bank | Bernstein Private Wealth Management | Brown Brothers Harriman | BNY Mellon Wealth Management | Boston Private Wealth | CIBC Private Wealth Management | Deutsche Bank | Fidelity | Goldman Sachs | Merrill Lynch | Morgan Stanley | RBC Wealth Management | UBS | U.S. Trust | William Blair & Company 23