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By: Serena Chow
Meet Ben Hu, a Toronto native and Cal alumni who doubled in Computer Science and Economics. Ben graduated in 2014, and now works in San Francisco doing Multi-Asset Portfolio and Investment Consulting (MAPIC) at BlackRock.
What positions did you hold in SFAC? How did SFAC contribute to your professional development?
I first joined SFAC as a Marketing member, and then later held positions of Technology Director, Finance Director, and Professional Development Director. Back when I was in SFAC, one of our organization’s responsibilities was helping CCFCU in bank telling and customer relations. We had a lot of in-branch interactions with members who would come in for financial services, and that was a good lesson for any service oriented job. We managed client interactions on a daily basis – fulfilling their requests, maintaining a high level of performance, things like that. The kinds of skills that you learn in a service related job are transferrable to a lot of jobs too… For example, now, I use the same mindset to deliver meaningful results to clients and ensure good relations with them at BlackRock and provide high quality technical analysis with MAPIC to present to our clients.
SFAC also allowed me to form great friendships with people that I’m still close to today. For example, I met David Wu, another alumni, through SFAC. He works down the street at StubHub, and we play ping pong every week. Another alumni, Melissa, works at BlackRock down the hall from me and she makes sure to keep a watchful eye on me. Alumni relations at SFAC are really good, and as more and more of us move to the city to start working, it’s really great to see our network grow.
Do you have any advice for SFAC members?
I always say this, but really focus on having fun and building strong friendships, especially in your first two years of undergrad. It may seem counter-intuitive at first, but the moral support and the mental happiness you gain, in addition to the network you build, far exceed any potential loss from poor grades. With the right mindset, things will fall into place and work out in the end, so don’t stress out too much. Career-wise, I’d say learn to communicate well and be likeable and empathetic. It’s important in the business world to be able to work well with others. Lastly, I’d say never stop learning. One thing that I love about BlackRock is that I get paid to be a knowledgeable person. Every day, the first thing I do is take a read and think about the news and take the time to be student of the markets.
How did you get into asset management?
My junior year, I was recruiting for an internship when I found BlackRock. It was an eye opening experience that allowed me to work in finance and learn the fundamentals. I feel like in school, you kind of have an idealistic picture in your head about what finance jobs and roles are, but when you intern, you get a stronger sense of how the business really works. I had been investing in some stocks since high school, but never had a great understanding of the theory and rigor that underlie financial planning and investing. My experiences allowed me to learn the fundamentals and processes involved with asset management. Prior to my internship, I originally thought that I wanted to work in the tech industry or at a startup, but afterwards, I realized that working at a large company like BlackRock is a great learning opportunity.
What is it like working at BlackRock?
There are definitely benefits of joining a big corporation like BlackRock. When I first started the job, we had a big global training with over 300 fresh graduates and new BlackRock employees. It was a great opportunity to meet other people within the company and get well connected to other parts of the business. They really set up a good structure for you to meet people, and it’s a nice funnel entry into real life and the business world. It’s really nice now too, because if I ever need anything from a group outside of my own, I can reach out to the people that I met during training.
Another great thing about BlackRock is that we have offices globally everywhere. If we ever wanted to travel for a short period of time, we’d have the option to work remotely from another office. For example, when I took some time to visit home, I worked in the Toronto office for a week. I’ve also worked in New York but was blocked from Sao Paulo due to the language barrier. Hong Kong is next on my list!
What’s work like on a day to day basis?
It’s nice because I actually don’t really have the same schedule day to day. We work with different clients in MAPIC, so what I do everyday varies with the clients that we’re working with at the time. Generally speaking, the work that I do for projects revolve around risk and return based analysis and portfolio construction. We look at how BlackRock products can work within portfolios to help our clients better manage and diversify their portfolios and meet their investment goals. When there isn’t any work that needs to be done for our clients, I’m usually working on tweaking our analytics platform to make it better. Our consulting is done across a series of analytics platforms that we try to make as interconnected and robust as possible for different client needs, because we want to be able to offer useful deliverables regardless of the ask. When I’m not working directly on a project, I’m working to make our analytics platform as effective and robust as possible.
What’s your fondest memory of Cal?
It’s probably going to sound a bit cliché, but I came to Cal knowing nobody from Toronto as a freshman, and was fortunate enough to meet great friends from my dorm freshman year. We formed really strong relationships with each other, and lived together for the next four years of college. Cal allowed me to meet and form great relationships with some really awesome people. In a sense, my college experiences at Cal are a bit nostalgic, because I basically grew up with my friends from freshman year. I’d say the most fun times were in the summers, especially during junior year, because everyone stayed in the Bay Area to intern. We all lived under the same roof, had pretty solid income streams and no homework, so that summer was really fun. Maybe it was the weather or lack of responsibility that we had, but that summer was good.
Thanks to Ben for taking the time to share his experiences with us! If you enjoyed reading this interview, check out our interviews with Jane and Hannah, and be sure to keep an eye out for future alumni interviews!