January 29th, 2016 | Uncategorized
Last week, I was able to spend 4 days in London with my classmates. A requirement for my Masters is to participate in an International Business Workshop and our course was fortunate enough to have our workshop in an amazing city like London.
The trip was fairly busy with each day mapped out with different tours and presentations. We toured Citigroup on the day that we arrived in London. The building was the headquarters for Citigroup for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. We began in a huge conference room where we heard 5 employees from different departments tell us about their roles within the company and how they got into the position that they are in. We then got a tour of the building and my favorite part was seeing the trading floor. It was like a seen out of a movie. There were people all over the place and rows and rows of trading stations with 4-6 computer screens on each desk. It was really neat to see and I wish I could have taken a picture but they didn’t allow photos.
Over the next three days, we visited the Bank of England, Cass Business School, Lloyd’s, Bloomberg, and Morgan McKinley. We heard an interesting presentation at the Cass Business School that related portfolio management to going out at night with your friends. The presentation talked about the risk vs. reward of going out with certain friends and going out with one friend or a group of friends and then related it to forming a stock portfolio of growth vs. value stocks, long term vs. short term investing, etc.
Another thing that sticks out in my mind was touring Bloomberg. I wrote a previous blog about my trading floor and derivatives class that used Bloomberg and now I was able to actually see the company first hand. The building was very modern and looked like how I envisioned Google or Apple would look. It was very high-tech and had bright neon lights everywhere and all the walls were made of glass. The walls were made of class because the CEO believes in transparency. The software, Bloomberg, displays financial information and the company wants that information to be as accurate, as fast, and as transparent as possible between the buyer and the seller. They carry the motto of transparency into a metaphor with their own building by having no closed doors and having the walls see through.
The trip was absolutely amazing that I’ve decided to write two blogs about it….tune in for part two.
Victory Scholar: Staats Battle
Present University: University of Limerick
US League: ACC
Club/Community Partner: UL Eagles
Alma Mater: North Carolina State University
Sponsored by: Teamwear Ireland
