>> I'm Colin [inaudible], I
live and work in New York.
I work for Zurich North America
and I work as an underwriter
for directors and officer's liability.
Basically, you charge with trying to assess
companies risks and that can be in everything
from what's happening in the [inaudible]
right now in a macro level to--
you know, one of the proper controls and
the personnel involves at a corporate level
that can help a company mitigate risks.
At the same time, we go through public
filings, look at the company's financials.
Make sure that they're performing well.
So it's really kind of perfect combination of
research, reading, discussion of the team basis
and keeping up with what's
going on in the world.
So I get in at about 7:45 in the morning and
I spend the first 45 minutes kind of reading
up the news, catching up on what I've
made a miss in the last 12 hours or so,
kind of making sure that there's nothing crazy
that blew up before they're gone and nothing
that needs be imminently addressed and make sure
we're well informed going into work [inaudible].
I actually work on west coasts clients
which means I have a 3 hour
advantage everyday when I get in.
So I think spend the first few hours in my
morning just kind of not being bothered.
Being able to go write to our research reports
and making sure that I kinda can get focused in.
For us we deal with insurance brokers.
They're trying to place the coverage
for their clients that often involves
like in negotiations whether its
coverage based or premium based.
And so there's-- how to go back
and forth and so that's kind
of till towards my afternoon given the
fact that I work on west coast clients,
so there's not too much heavy
hitting stuff that has to be done
after the closure of normal business hours.
I just still don't find myself checking
my Blackberry despite the e-mails,
[inaudible] to the evening but fortunately, in
terms of major documents, major reports I have
to get out, quotes for insurance programs,
they pretty much know that, you know,
there's a chance it could be [inaudible], it
could be a value [inaudible] for few hours.
And I think that's one of the good things about
my job is there's a little bit of a balance
with the exportations that your going to have a
little more to life than just the working world.
There certainly a lot of great aspects to
being in the position where you need to keep
up with what's going on in the world.
I think, you know, when you're in college
or when you're learning about business,
they're sometimes the thought that maybe
just kind of what you're reading the paper
as cut ancillary to the practical
career that you're going to be pursuing.
And in my career, I [inaudible]
doing it for couple of years now.
I founded that it can be further from the truth.
In fact, a lot of the things that I learned
back during my undergraduate days and now a lot
of things you read about whether it's
in the Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg.
You keep up with the times and you realize
how much what's going on in the world
like in the interconnectedness,
the sluggish economy,
if the trends overall that
you read about everyday.
They really do impact the business
environment and as an underwriter,
and I'm sure many other [inaudible]
like this as well.
I've come to appreciate that you really have
to kind of know what's going on with the road.
You have to keep up the trends.
You have to-- now we keep up and probably
be a step ahead in order to, you know,
to know where your business is going
and take the appropriate action.
The biggest challenge and I think a lot of
people are here would agree on me on this,
is that you don't always have perfect
information and to try to make the best decision
that you can at the time based on the
information you possess is challenging
and sometimes you would like
to have more information.
You have to know more what's going on in
the world but-- in theory that sounds great,
in practice, you don't always
know what you don't know
and you don't always have
all the data that you need.
And your decision sometimes has to be an
educated guess or it has to be a byproduct
of your past experiences
with similar situations.
I kind of have a ton of experience being
a relatively recent college graduate,
I hope something I hope to be overtime is
to know that when faced with challenges
and instances we don't have as much
information to make decisions as possible.
You can try to pursue the best route.
I think what's really key and I think my time of
[inaudible] reinforces is that you really need
to have a very holistic knowledge base ranging--
not across just business and our
course is fine arts, economics.
Over all, you need to put the [inaudible]
decision maker who has been exposed
to a wide range of educational backgrounds
and you need to be able to write,
you may need to be able to
speak to your brokers.
You need to be able to-- and then
know what's going on in the world.
So, I think in order to prepare, you
just need to try to cover your weaknesses
and make sure you have a few course strengths
and be willing and able to kind of keep
up with what's current in the world.
I think the corporate finance class is
definitely something worth taking even
if you're not a finance major, maybe
even if you're not a business major.
Nowadays, it's in a valuable tool to be
able to kind of look at a balance sheet,
to be able to look at the company's
financials, and be able to have an idea
of what all that data actually means.
You really have to be relentless.
The things that's probably most different
today especially in the business environment
that was 5 years ago is that's no
longer the mass institutional hiring
that once existed where, you
know, a certain investment bank
or insurance company would send a
couple of creating agents to your school
that would hire 3 dozen people and mostly
we got picked up one way or the other.
Things have changed to point where
hiring might be a little more
at [inaudible] and on a need base only.
So you really have to be willing to put yourself
out there to follow up not just an e-mail
but to call people to shake some hands and
use any contacts you have to try to get foot
on the door because unfortunately,
the way it is now,
it's not necessarily the best
person that gets the job.
It's often times the most resilient
and the person who follows up the most
and the person who takes it more seriously.
So actually, I had a job lined up.
It was with Marsh and Maclennan,
back, going into
or at least just beginning may
senior of college at Belanova.
I had a finance degree and international
business degree and so I begun in July of 2008,
works on the Insurance broker
site for about a year and a half.
Came to the city kind of just as
things were getting shaky just
as a Lehman brothers bankruptcy
occurred just as AIG begun to falter
and as a 22-year-old [inaudible]
employee, it was kind of hard
to grasp the severity of
what was going on around us.
In some ways though it was a good time to come
in because you could really
appreciate how luck would have a job
and appreciate the really historical
nature of what was going on in the economy.
So, I have a job at Marsh and Maclennan
for about a year and a half after--
towards the end of my time there I began to
look for something that would enable me to kind
of grow as a person and enable to really
have a more-- let's say holistic view.
Something that would kind of drop how my
skills are a little bit better and I was able
to get a job here at Zurich in March of 2010.
And since then, I've really been blessed with a
lot of good opportunities here to grow my career
and continue to enjoy living New
York City and really learning
from a lot of great people around me here.
The best way for a person who still
is young in their career or in college
and trying to figure out what to do.
They need to try to expose themselves
to as much information as they can.
Try to keep current with what's going on.
Read a lot.
Participate in discussions, go to
speaker series, one of the best parts
about college is how many great
thinkers, people, businessmen,
political leaders [inaudible]
by campus on regular basis.
I would say that the more you can expose your
self to those type of people and those type
of events, not just a better of,
you'll be the smart you'll be
but really the more informs you'll be in terms
of making these type or career decisions.
It's kind of a game of roulette
in terms of the work life balance,
in terms of the career advancement.
So, any kind of information you can get from
current employees of the company your going
to work at or there's a lot of online resources
now [inaudible] for decree of services,
staff has a lot of good metrics in online
systems that can give you more information
about the types of company
that you want to work for.
So I'll say just gather as
much information as possible.
You're not going to have all the information
you need ever when making a big career decision
but the more informed you
can be, the more likely it is
that you'll have a very fulfilling
work experience and you'll be working
in the company and happily employed.