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October 2020

A Message To New Yorkers

By Courage No Comments

New York City is dead forever.

A claim so comprehensive and all-encompassing that it lacks the substance to garner true attention from New Yorkers. Still, it conveniently reaches the tongues of pessimists and spreads like wildfire in an already-tense social, political, and economic climate—the perfectly chaotic and anxiety-inducing combination for students, professionals, and families transitioning back into New York City. Of course, to say that New York is the same bustling metropolis, holy grail of nightlife/culture, and flooded tourist attraction it was last February is to reject the truth. And how could it be? But to say that New York is dead, lifeless, and unrecoverable is to turn your back on your home—and that is a notion I must reject.

Back in late February when COVID-19 first posed a threat in New York, there was just one overarching emotion that found commonplace among the city’s population—fear. As we faced the brunt of COVID-19’s effects throughout the spring and into the summer, this deep-rooted fear unfolded, grew, and took the shape of real, tangible, life-changing tragedy. Tens of thousands of human lives were taken, and countless measures of human progress—long-developed businesses, future study/travel plans, or major events including that of athletics and politics—were delayed if not wholly eliminated. New York City would quickly become the COVID-19 capital of the world, making a name for itself as the singular most unsafe place to reside during the pandemic—and yet, remarkably, New York proceeded to crawl up from the depths of COVID-19’s effects, stand as a model, leader, and forward innovator to urban spaces around the world in the areas of COVID-19 prevention, research, and recovery, and come to be defined by its overall solidarity, compassion, and genuine regard for human livelihood and safety. Never before in my entire life did I feel so proud to call a place my home than I did during the aftermath of the pandemic’s worst, and never did I predict a city as large, iconic, and reputably unforgiving as New York—with residents hailing from every corner of the world, practicing every faith, and living such drastically different lives from their mere closest neighbors—to become small. Shrink. Integrate into a single unit bound by genuine hope, unwavering commitment, and calculated action. To express the slightest bit of disregard, lack of empathy, or fruitless negativity toward a city that has shown such resilience in the face of a pandemic would be a grave disservice.

And oftentimes—conveniently, of course—those claiming that New York City is “dead forever” have absolutely no will, plan, or desire to change it. There is undeniably a certain demographic that criticizes from a comfortable distance, and far too often that demographic is comprised of people who would rather moan over basic inadequacies than make the first step toward solutions (i.e. donating to local hospitals/healthcare workers, staying indoors/following safety protocols, supporting local restaurants and businesses, etc.). This mindset is not unique or original in light of the current pandemic, but rather holds true through an array of different topics and institutions—politics, policies, social issues, and so on. Logically speaking, how much easier is it to complain about an issue than to actually solve it? Or rather, attempt to solve it? Contribute to solutions? Much, unfortunately. And while many of us recognize that such a mindset is unproductive and vain, it’s quite effortless in its execution. Why exert effort into hope, optimism, and practicality when you can comfortably slide into the groove of pessimism—a fan favorite and easy conversation starter! In fact, I’m beginning to sound pessimistic myself.

Thus, as you can imagine, it upset me when I announced to family and friends that I was moving back to New York City for my sophomore year of college and was met with this exact sort of negativity. Not only did it bother me, but it opened my eyes to the ubiquity of such a thought process—one marked by blind and utter complacency. Complacency in our current systems, institutions, and problems. Complacency in accepting the fact that there is greater comfort and familiarity in negativity than in forward thinking and progress. While it can be daunting to speak on ideas, solutions, or topics you’re passionate about in a genuinely positive manner, it will be personally rewarding to know that you’ve moved in the direction of change and haven’t fed into the negativity that is oftentimes so welcoming and comfortable. Courage is a value we hold deep to our core here at Scholars of Finance, and it’s one that New Yorkers unapologetically express as they stay positive, aid in the city’s social and economic redevelopment, and make their way back to residence. Facing such criticism and negativity not one but several times before my move back to New York has been quite difficult, but as mentioned, I’ve confronted it with my passion for positive change, commitment to forward thinking, and loyalty to New York’s recovery—and haven’t looked back since.

In a world where one can choose to be anything, I may never understand why so many choose to be negative. How can you live a positive life with the weight of a negative mind? Moving forward, when prompted with “Why would you move back there now? New York City won’t ever return to normal!” I’ll simply make it known that normal wasn’t in the cards—New York will be back and better.

Important News About Our Vision, Mission, and Values at Scholars of Finance

By Values No Comments

At SOF, our vision, mission, and values are at the core of what we do and what we teach our students and members. 

In keeping with “Curiosity,” one of our core values, we’re always learning and growing. As our organization has matured, we’ve learned a lot about the world, finance, and ourselves. Our mentors and advisors have continued to help us improve how we inspire character and integrity in the finance leaders of tomorrow. Throughout this process and period of growth for SOF, we’ve decided to refine our vision, mission, and values to best represent what we believe future finance executives and investors need to embody.

Our team has spent countless hours discussing our vision, mission, and values, learning from experts, and gathering feedback from our community. After sending a survey to over 600 students and professionals in the SOF community to collect data, we then hosted 2 virtual town hall discussions with our community. We also held numerous one-on-one conversations with our mentors, Board of Directors, and Advisory Board Members, including Katie Lawler, Chief Ethics Officer of U.S. Bank, and Deb Schoneman, President of Piper Sandler.

We are pleased to say that we have finalized our updated vision, mission, and values at Scholars of Finance

Among many improvements, there are a few key changes you’ll notice:

  • “Compassion” is a new value on the list. We believe that serving others and fostering relationships through kindness, empathy, respect, forgiveness, inclusion, and generosity are critical for us to make a positive impact on people.
  • Principles were changed and are explicit. Now, our principles are closer to being mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, while retaining brevity, and they are explicit and direct. We removed metaphors.
  • Each value includes an epithet. This was to summarize the essence of each value and provide additional clarity for what exactly its intent is. 24 principles are a lot to memorize and these epithets are a good starting point.

Here they are:

Vision: A future where all finance leaders steward the world’s capital to serve the greater good. 

Mission: To inspire character and integrity in the finance leaders of tomorrow.

Values:

  • Integrity (Do what’s right) 
    • Do the right thing, always
    • Build trust through transparency and accountability 
    • Honor your responsibilities and commitments
    • Speak the truth at all times
  • Compassion (Serve others) 
    • Foster relationships with respect and empathy
    • Offer kindness and forgiveness to everyone 
    • Be generous with your time, energy, and resources
    • Champion diversity, equity, and inclusion
  • Humility (Know thyself) 
    • Serve a purpose greater than yourself
    • Cultivate gratitude for what you have
    • Recognize both your strengths and limitations
    • Ask for and share honest feedback regularly
  • Curiosity (Know the world) 
    • Seek first to understand, then to be understood 
    • Realize that there is always more to learn
    • Value every situation as a growth opportunity
    • Pursue and embrace diverse perspectives
  • Impact (Do excellent work) 
    • Accept nothing less than your best
    • Develop credibility through consistency
    • Operate patiently and think long term
    • Live a healthy and balanced life
  • Courage (Act boldly) 
    • Solve large and important problems in the world
    • Stand up for what you believe is right
    • Remain calm during difficult times
    • Embrace change and help others do the same

We strongly believe that our updated vision, mission, and values more accurately represent an effective and ethical finance leader—the model our members should strive to emulate. As our mentors have taught us, building character will be a lifelong journey. We’re excited to be on it.

To ensure our vision, mission, values shape the culture of our organization and our community, we are committed to deepening their integration into everything we do, including by:

  • Centering our National Speaker Series around these values and their significance to our speakers.
  • Making our values the themes for our SOF Symposia in each of our core markets.
  • Revising our Leadership Development Program to better instill these values and relate them to finance.
  • Incorporating guidance for mentors and mentees in our Mentorship Network to help facilitate discussions about these values.
  • Fostering conversations about these values and principles at our internal meetings

If you are as excited about this as we are, you’ll be happy to hear we created a SOF Culture Book to easily share our values with others. This was inspired by the work of our friends at charity: water and is a great resource to pass along.

Thank you to all of you who’ve played a part in this process and for your continued support for Scholars of Finance. It’s you who have inspired our vision, mission, and values, and for that we are grateful. We believe the finance industry will be better off because of it.

Cheers,

Ross Overline

Co-Founder, CEO

Scholars of Finance

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