Students join others from City College and Lehman College to train for careers with industry leaders and support New York City’s recovery. Brooklyn College is one of three campuses at CUNY to join the “CUNY Futures in Finance” initiative this fall. The comprehensive workforce development program will cultivate and train CUNY students for careers in the financial industry, including students from the Koppelman School of Business at Brooklyn College. The college’s Magner Career Center will lead the effort on its campus by promoting the program and serving as a liaison between students, the firms, and other program administrators. “We are so thankful for the opportunity to partner with these distinguished industry leaders and other CUNY campuses,” said Qing Hu, Dean of the Koppelman School of Business at Brooklyn College. “This program will give our diverse and talented students a competitive edge, while helping to cultivate future business leaders, who are so vital to the continued economic growth of the New York City.” Established in partnership with financial firms Bloomberg LP, Centerbridge Partners, and Goldman Sachs, the initiative will provide talented CUNY students with training, mentorship and access to the financial services industry, giving them a competitive edge in one of New York City’s largest employment sectors. The program aims to: allow firms from across the New York City financial services community to connect with a pool of strong and diverse local talent at CUNY; provide students with a range of resources, training, internship opportunities and guidance from local financial industry experts and build staff capacity at CUNY by funding career-development professionals who will be dedicated to this initiative. The initiative was conceived by Jeff Aronson, managing principal and co-founder of Centerbridge, a leading alternative investment management firm, whose objective was to help New York City’s multi-faceted financial sector reach and employ more CUNY graduates and build a bridge between the two communities. Aronson, together with Mike Bloomberg, former New York City mayor and founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies, and John Waldron, president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, formed a coalition bringing together a number of sectors of the city’s financial industry: banking, financial technology and information, and alternative investment management. With their joint startup funding over three years, the founding partners created an innovative vehicle to invest in New York City’s public university system and connect talented CUNY students with employers in the New York financial community.
