Martin Essenburg joined DePaul University full-time in 2016 after a 30 year career in banking and consulting and is the executive director of the Keeley Center for Financial Services. He is also an instructor in the Department of Finance and currently teaches Banking & Credit Analysis and Investment Banking in the undergraduate program, and Ethics and Standards in Financial Markets in the graduate program. Finance student, Hugo Wang, had the opportunity to sit down with Essenburg and get the inside scoop on the variations of his role.
Since joining the Keeley Center in 2016, Essenburg has led a new program initiative, leveraging both his personal relationships and the center’s corporate relationships with industry to form more formal industry partnerships that link students directly with opportunities at financial with institu-tions in Chicago. Through these industry partnerships over the last few years, the center has been working on creating and expanding formal internships and full-time employment positions, providing extraordinary opportunities for DePaul finance students. In addition to expanding these part-time work, internship and full-time employment opportunities, Essenburg has worked diligently to enhance the educational experience of students via the Student Success Model.
The Student Success Model is a three-pronged approach integrating innovative coursework; an additional cocurricular focus on enhancing technical and soft skills, professional development and etiquette training; and industry-related work experience in the form of part-time employment during the academic year and formal summer internships that lead to full-time work. He noted during the interview how important it is for students to understand the different job segments in finance and the variety of career paths available to undergraduate majors: “Financial services is a very competitive field, and each segment and sub-segment of financial services can be a very different job, requiring different technical skill base and personality traits, and quite varied work-life balance. Once students are able to identify their area of interest in financial services or in corporate finance, they can then shift focus to align with specific industry standards and timetables.”
Essenburg also explained that many of his students are unaware of the importance of internships and the industry recruiting practices and timetables. He noted that students can gain a huge advantage if they learn this early in their sophomore year. His hope is that students begin to understand the importance of determining what they want to do much earlier in their academic career so that they can make sure their academic plan fits the industry recruiting timetables, which are very different from the university graduation requirements.
Essenburg also highlighted the importance of a strong technical skill base to be competitive in the banking industry, including a fundamental grasp of finance, accounting, modeling and research. He strongly encourages students to consider an accounting minor or finance-accounting double major for those interested in heading into banking and private equity. Essenburg noted, “Professionals want to see real evidence of drive, energy and commitment, and relevant work experience, in addition to academic achievement.”
Another key parameter that financial institutions look for when interviewing students is on-campus involvement in cocurricular activities related to their area of finance. Essen-burg explained, “The more the students understand about the industry, the more the student understands about a particular role, the higher the probability the student will be successful.” The other benefit of student involvement in cocurricular activities is that these activities give students the opportunity to be involved in leadership. Essenburg noted, “The development of leadership skills and related marketing and sales attributes are important to financial services firms in particular, as many of these roles are very people oriented and firms are looking for candidates who have the capability to come into a room and ‘light it up.’ Opportunities to develop that skill base through various student organizations, especially in a leadership capacity, are very important.”
Essenburg’s dual role as the executive director of the Keeley Center and as a finance professor have merged in many ways. With one of Essenburg’s primary responsibilities being the development and implementation of meaningful student programming that meets and exceeds industry expectations, the Keeley Center has made significant progress under his leadership. January 2020 marked the formal launch of the Banking & Capital Markets Academy with the start of the first cohort. The academy consists of a Career Professional Development course paired with four subsequent quarters of cocurricular activities designed to build and enhance soft and technical skill development and strengthen students’ employment potential in the banking and capital markets segment of financial services. Recruiting for the second cohort is scheduled to begin in spring 2020, with the second cohort beginning in the autumn quarter of the 2020-2021 academic year.
By Anastasiya Kadukov and Hugo Wang