Breaking: Ivy League Athletes Use Alumni Connections To Land Jobs On Wall Street
Penn defensive back Josh Powers likes playing football just fine but after he graduates plans to work on Wall Street. In fact, he already has a gig lined up with George Weiss Associates, having interviewed with the head of Weiss’s equity trading desk and getting "the thumbs up." How did he accomplish this incredible feat? This morning, Bloomberg blows the lid off the story.
Powers, a senior at the Philadelphia-based school, was able to use contacts on Penn’s athletic board to land internships at two financial firms, George Weiss, and UBS.
NO. Yes? Okay, but how.
Penn’s athletic board of overseers includes George Weiss, founder of the George Weiss Associates Inc. hedge fund in Hartford, Connecticut; Robert Wolf, chairman and chief executive officer of UBS Group Americas in Stamford, Connecticut; and Mark Werner, the former JP Morgan Securities Inc. vice chairman who is co-founder and CEO of Pierpont Securities LLC, also in Stamford.
Having that kind of board helps the Quakers land better players, coach Al Bagnoli, who led the team to the Ivy League championship last season, said in a telephone interview from the school’s campus.
That's mindblowing. Is there some sort of nickname associated with this whole thing?
“We call them our alumni mafia,” Bagnoli said. “Everyone looks out for one another. It’s a very close group.”
Ivy League Football "Mafia" Gives Wall Street Talent A Pipeline [Bloomberg]