No path is a straight line
By Allie Bertrand
Trying to get into the business world after college can be intimidating and even scary. There is a lot of pressure on students to begin as soon as they can and knowing the right path to take is never clear. Kristen Walters, chief risk officer at Natixis Investment Managers, shares her journey with us, and the unconventional path she took that brought her to where she is today.
Can you talk about your experience in college and how you got your first job?
“In college I studied accounting and economics, I was very interested in doing business but I didn’t exactly know what that meant. I had two uncles, one was a very successful real estate developer and the other had his own marketing company. They knew that I was very interested in languages and they told me that if I wanted to go into business that I needed to study the language of business which at the time was accounting…at that time accounting was a growing field and discipline, it was also something where there were lots of opportunities for women.”
“I looked at many different job opportunities in Boston and ultimately I decided to work at a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston as a financial analyst of their supervision and regulation team. What attracted me is it was, obviously I liked economics, I was interested in banking, at that time in the late 1980’s and early 90’s there was an SNL crisis and many commercial and large commercial banks were either failing or close to failing…I thought it was a really good opportunity for me to learn on the job.”
What helped inspire you to go different directions and take some of your early roles?
“The first two things I would note about my career in the first nine years was I knew that I was analytical and liked finance. I also knew that I liked communicating with people, I didn’t want to sit behind a desk just crunching numbers. So my choice of major and field of study were important, picking a field where there was a good runway for women and men in accounting which there really was, was also important. But the fact that I happened to work at the Federal Reserve at a time when there was a crisis in the banking sector… that was serendipity. So I think there’s, at least in my career, hard work and the right knowledge has been important, but the element of luck and being in the right place at the right time has also been a driver.”
Are there things that a person can do to increase the likelihood of serendipity?
“Absolutely, I think what I did that was important, I don’t think it was a plan at the time, but I was very intellectually curious and adventurous and liked to be challenged. So until the last ten years I did kinda jump into opportunities at different firms.”
What can students do if their school doesn’t offer as many opportunities with larger companies?
“I think technical background is super important. At the time, University of Massachusetts was not an ivy league school, it’s not a fancy liberal arts college, but accounting was a technical discipline that was in demand. And I had ten job offers, offers from every public accounting firm, it was extremely easy for me to get a job out of college because I had that technical background. Today…engineering, computer programming, I think if you have that background it will give you an avenue. To be honest computer programming is today’s language of business and most corporations.
Would you suggest if you are more of an engineering background to take communications courses?
“Yes, but if you think about it those are three nearly, not necessarily aligned skill sets. [And] yes absolutely [take those courses] because how you communicate what you know, is almost more important than what you know. Being able to distill complex information and synthesize things and explain them clearly and simply is very important.”
There is no exact way to do things when it comes to your career, but what is most important is to be open to opportunities and to position yourself for the best possible outcomes of success. Having a general idea about what you’re interested in is the best place to start. As we can see from Kristen Walter’s story, the most important things are to jump into opportunities and to keep trying until you find where you fit. Being uncertain about your next step is normal and should not discourage you to move forward. Some of the best opportunities are the ones you do not see coming and one of the best things you can do is jump at them. It is not always about having a clear path and knowing the next step, it’s about following your interests and looking for opportunities.
