DePaul business major Olivia Perez only started college in September, but she already has a solid base of knowledge about the finance industry, thanks to her participation in summer finance programs hosted by the nonprofit Greenwood Project and DePaul.  

Two summers ago, a guidance counselor at her high school, De La Salle Institute on the Chicago’s South Side, suggested that Perez enroll in the Greenwood Project’s Summer High School FinTech Institute. The program teaches computer coding, financial literacy and career skills to students of color. “I was initially planning to major in technology, specifically computer science, but I also had an interest in finance,” Perez says. She didn’t seriously consider finance as a career path, however, because she knew little about it and didn’t know anyone working in this field.  

Her involvement in the Greenwood Project changed that. “I found the bridge that connected technology and finance,” she says. “It was a whole new world for me. I didn’t have anyone in my family in finance. So, it was nice be able to connect with other people who, like me, were interested in finance.” 

After graduating high school last spring, Perez applied to the Driehaus College of Business and enrolled in a second Greenwood Project summer program, this time a 10-week finance boot camp at DePaul’s business college. Taught by DePaul finance professors, alumni and industry leaders, the program covered the fundamentals of finance and investing, as well as skills for communicating and presenting yourself effectively in a business setting.  

Perez appreciated the program’s holistic approach and found a presentation by DePaul finance instructor Joe Silich (BUS ’92), head of The Silich Group at Morgan Stanley, particularly meaningful. “He mentioned that in order to be successful, you have to immerse yourself in the culture of finance professionals. You have to dress the part, and you have to come in with the right mindset.” 

Perez says the program made her more confident about her decision to come to DePaul this fall and major in finance. “The professors gave us a glimpse of the curriculum at DePaul and were really approachable,” she says. “They made the subject easy for us to comprehend and made us feel comfortable to ask questions.” Perez plans to enroll in the Greenwood Project-DePaul program for college students next summer, which includes summer internships with financial service firms. 

Creating more opportunities for underrepresented students to enter finance benefits both students and the industry, Perez observes.  

“I feel that diversity is incredibly important,” she says. “The more diversity of thought and voices that an industry allows, the more creativity there is. For example, my being Hispanic and a woman—those are both groups that are not really well-represented in finance. And so I want to be a voice and to inspire others as well.”

By Robin Florzak

Seerat Kaler (BUS ’21) is the daughter of immigrants who came to the United States from Punjab, an agricultural region in India, seeking to raise their children in a place that they believed would offer more opportunities for success. For Kaler, those opportunities came to fruition at the Driehaus College of Business, where she found people and programs committed to empowering her success.  

Kaler entered DePaul with an interest in economics, but she didn’t quite know which career path to pursue. That changed when she attended DePaul’s annual career fair during her sophomore year and met representatives from CIBC U.S., including the head of the multinational bank’s financial institutions group. Before she knew it, Kaler and the executive had spoken for more than 40 minutes. She recalls sharing her passions, interests and motivations in life, and “he was gracious enough to look at my résumé and provide honest comments. It was an experience unlike any other career fair visit.” 

Later on, Kaler successfully landed multiple internships at CIBC and interacted with stellar mentors along the way. “My internships at CIBC were my first exposure to commercial banking, and I really enjoyed it,” she says. “The hands-on experience taught me about various industries and their business models. The clients we serve taught me substantially about building wealth in America—specifically in business industries that are unexplored by my community.”  

During her junior year she was accepted into the Keeley Center Academy, a selective, rigorous, two-year DePaul career-readiness program that provides students with the skills and contacts to become successful in finance. “It was a really intense experience, but what it did was it bridged the gap for people, like me, who have this great ambition to do something, but don’t really understand how this industry actually works. It taught me the ropes and made meeting industry professionals easy.” 

Kaler and the seven other women students in her Keeley Center Academy cohort formed a tight-knit group to support each other as they pursued their studies and future careers in a field where men greatly outnumber women. The group began discussing how they could expand this support network to other women and business students from diverse backgrounds. This led Kaler and her classmates to found Females in Finance, a DePaul student organization dedicated to promoting allyship and leadership empowerment for women in finance.  

“We launched in fall quarter (2020) and quickly went from eight to 64 members,” Kaler says. The organization also attracted strong industry collaboration, amassing a sizable endowment and support from companies that include Morgan Stanley, BMO Harris Bank and William Blair. The effort helped Kaler earn the Keeley Academy’s 2021 Most Inspirational Student Award. 

After graduating with a bachelor’s in finance, Kaler joined CIBC full time as a commercial banking associate and, this past summer, was placed in the Loan Syndications group. 

One of the key values Kaler holds as a follower of the Sikh religion is Vand Chhako, which means to share what you have and consume it as a community. Kaler embraces this value as a member of CIBC’s DePaul Campus Champion college recruiting team. Through her continuing contact with DePaul’s Females in Finance, she has helped recruit four female students for internships and full-time roles at CIBC in the past two years.  

“This is the kind of progress I am trying to make,” Kaler says. “My main goal is to help as many people as possible. I don’t think there’s anything to gain from competing with people. That’s how I interact with people, and I’m hoping to keep that going for the rest of my career.”

By Robin Florzak