The Fordham University Marketing Association (FMA) recently invited alumni from the financial industry to a panel discussion. FMA is Fordham’s society for students interested in the fields of marketing, advertising and public relations, an official collegiate chapter of the American Marketing Association. This was the first time FMA hosted a financial services in marketing event. Guest panel members engaged in a question and answer session led by FMA Vice President for Alumni Relations Elizabeth Hoppe, GSB ’25.
Hoppe takes charge of reaching out to alumni approximately three weeks before the events happen, sourcing panelists largely through filtering on LinkedIn. Other panelists come directly from referrals from past internships, coffee chats or connections.
Members of the panel included Alexis Hamm, GSB ’24, of American Express, Meghan Barquinero, MBA ’15, of PIMCO, and William Zawacki, GSB ’13, of BlackRock. All three members began by explaining their corporate culture and introducing their positions, which ranged from jobs in financial strategy, operations and content marketing.
Hoppe began by asking the panelists about their main responsibilities in their roles, and what a typical day looks like for them. “We’re largely servicing all content on the site, helping people to create content and services that [they] need, from email newsletters to social media management,” said Zawacki. “We work incredibly closely with compliance who keep us on track to not say anything we shouldn’t.”
Barquinero spoke on her day-to-day at PIMCO. “You wear a lot of hats on one team, speaking to institutional and financial advisors,” said Barquinero. “We do quite a bit of content, creating the right message for the right people, and we go full funnel marketing of going at acquisition of loyalty with every purchase.”
“I am on the business blueprint team at [American Express], and we work with small businesses on the BCA team,” said Hamm. “I am in charge of managing the end-to-end execution of our marketing campaigns. There’s a lot of tight deadlines to make sure you’re keeping on track for all of your campaign deadlines.”
Hoppe noted how diverse financial marketing is and how many different positions exist under the same umbrella. While all members of the panel are technically part of the financial services industry, their daily workload was different, depending on their position.
“When you first start a role, during that onboarding process there’s a lot of training you go through, and a lot you have to learn right off the bat,” said Hamm when prompted about her beginnings as her role as marketing operations analyst. “With [American Express], they have their own languages, and it’s a lot to get used to. There’s a lot of acronyms and terms you have to learn, I call it ‘corporate language,’ to use on a day-to-day basis.”
“One of the most important things to do in your first six months is to sit in a room and be able to distill the content important for all stakeholders and know that a lot of that stuff will be boring, but it’s your job, as a soft-skill, to learn the language and do it over and over again,” said Barquinero. “It’s about training your brain to manage personalities and a variety of different levels of people.”
According to Forbes Advisor, soft skills are often referred to as people skills, which are traits that allow people to interact with others in a professional setting. Soft skills are often learned during the onboarding process and developed over time at an agency.
Towards the end of the panel, Hoppe shifted the conversation to asking the panelists what they wish they knew at Fordham that would have benefited them in their career. “I wish I knew more about the careers in marketing, from product marketing to content and development marketing,” said Zawacki. “A question for everyone in this room is ‘what is drawing you?’” said Barquinero. “It is the financial first and the marketing second, or the marketing first and the financial second. The first, the second or the third job don’t need to be the end-all.”
In regard to networking in finance, Hamm said, “Checking in with [recruiters] and making sure you’re creating longevity is so important, and I think that’s the most crucial part of networking.”
“This was FMA’s first ever Financial Services Panel,” said FMA President Jenn Fluet, GSB ’25. “From this panel alone, we already have a handful of students who have made networking connections and are setting up coffee chat interviews with the panelists we had. Now working in marketing for an investment management company, I would have loved to attend a panel like this my freshman year.”
“I thought tonight’s panelists were great,” said Hoppe. “Both Meghan Barquinero and Will Zawacki are high-level, and sometimes financial services marketing is difficult to communicate to a room filled with people who don’t have extensive knowledge.”
