Skyscrapers and credit management in New York. #LifeasaNyenrodian

In May this year we, Linda Hentzepeter, Mike van de Goor and Bart van Campenhout, were one of the lucky students visiting New York, one of the biggest business cities in the world. We went together with an entire group of sixty students who chose the Financial Management track, as it was part of our Global Immersion Program. This program includes five intensive days of company visits and case work.

New York: a corporate powerhouse

As soon as we got to New York, with shirts ironed and our suits steamed neatly, it became apparent what makes this a business city. Every big corporate in the world appears to have a sky scraper there and traffic consists of mostly two things, yellow cabs with businessmen in the back and private drivers with businessman in the back. We find the atmosphere in New York very motivating, perhaps even more because we got to talk with these businessmen in these same sky scrapers.

Company visits and case work

The companies that were so kind to have us over, were none less than BlackRock, Standard & Poor’s Société Générale and Atlantic Investment Management. BlackRock is a fund manager with the biggest risk assessment software in the world and a great employer for eager Financial Management students like ourselves. Société Générale is the second largest French bank and was so kind to provide us with case work on assessing credit demand by an oil rig, a wind mill park and a natural gas-fired power plant. It was our job to extend credit to two of the three while keeping in mind the things a bank looks for.

The last company, Atlantic Investment Management, is an investment fund that is ran by an alumnus of the Nyenrode BBA, named Alexander Roepers. Mr. Roepers was so kind to invite us for dinner in a club house of his second alma mater, the Harvard Business Club. There we got a chance to chat with him and his colleagues and several other senior representatives from Société Générale. Even after several years, the bond that alumni feel with Nyenrode remains strong.

Closing off with an alumni night

After a long week of hard work and final presentations, we finished off with a rooftop party at which we got the chance to meet Nyenrode alumni once again and talk about how they ended up in the United States. It was great to hear their stories and they were kind enough to advice us on how to make the best out of our last couple of months at Nyenrode. Perhaps in a few years we will be the ones telling future Nyenrode students about our stories.