>> My name is Greg Derderian.
I am a partner at Ernst & Young.
I work in their financial
services advisory practice,
and I lead our finance management
team serving banks, broker dealers,
insurance organizations and
asset management firms.
While I have both America's responsibilities
of Canada through South America,
I have global responsibilities into
Europe and into Asia, Pacific Region,
and of course domestic responsibilities
here within the U.S.
So on any given week I could
be in any of those locations.
Most typically I will travel on a Monday
up to New York, spend time with clients
in the New York Tri-State area there,
potentially head out to California,
Chicago with some of my teams there, and then
try to get home on Thursday nights most times.
So the first part is I don't
sit at a desk, okay?
I am actually interacting whether it's
for firm purposes, client purposes.
I'll be out in their offices
interacting with clients on a daily basis.
It's key to our success long term.
So no less than half a day
every day spent with a client
or two addressing the business
problem that they're trying to solve.
From an internal Ernst & Young perspective
I do lead a practice so there are some level
of administrative responsibilities there in
terms of performance management, coaching,
mentoring and, of course, taking care
of some of the other administration
that you have to deal with in a job like ours.
We have a great opportunity to
make a difference for our clients.
And I work in the financial services industry,
they have been in the paper extensively
over the last five, six years.
So there's really an opportunity
to help these organizations come
out of this crisis that they've gone through.
In particular working in the finance
base, working with the CFOs, controllers,
chief risk officers there's an opportunity to
really help bring them together and work on some
of the output that they have to provide to
the marketplace, to their own constituents
within their organizations and to
help them transform their businesses,
and that is a big focus for us in our practice.
By background I started on Wall Street
back in the very, very early 80s
and transitioned into consulting in 1984.
During that time and since 1984 I
have been on the road extensively.
I would say I've traveled at least 75
percent of the time since I've had that job.
I've got three children.
One a graduate of Rollins from the MBA program,
one a graduate from the undergraduate
program, both of those last year.
And my third son's a sophomore.
And the tough part of the job is not being home
every evening, making all the kids' events,
doing things socially with my wife.
That was the hard part.
Well, I think there's just a couple things.
One, we bring folks into our firm in three ways.
We do direct hires from undergraduate schools.
We do direct hires from graduate
programs, and we do experienced hires.
For students going through Rollins, through
other programs, I think the challenge is
to really find what you're
interested in, find that industry.
Not necessarily that job but that
industry that you want to explore.
For me I knew I was interested in finance,
I was interested in financial services
so I went down the banking route.
I could have easily have gone insurance.
At that time they were called mutual funds.
There were a lot of different opportunities.
But find what you're interested in.
I always say find your passion.
Secondly, the opportunities will
come at you when you least expect it.
So in my own case I was working in banking,
I was happy and something came along.
I always like to say you never turn
down a job you haven't been offered.
And I think you have to listen,
you have to be open to hearing
about new opportunities, about
doing things differently.
You don't want to be a robot and punch things
out day in and day out if you're interested
in being a consultant and a business advisor.
Because the challenge, the excitement is
dealing with similar topics on a regular basis
under different scenarios with different
people and you're doing it and executing it
in different ways, and that's fun.
So as you find your passion I think
you want to also really follow through.
So I came to Rollins College.
I got one of the last bachelor's
degrees in business administration.
So I graduated in 1980.
I knew when I was going through college
that I had full intentions to
go on for my graduate degree.
I went to St. John's University in New York
right after Rollins to get my MBA in finance.
So I finished that in two years,
and then I proceeded to get a job
in New York City down on Wall Street in a bank.
Spent a couple years there and then got into the
consulting field that I've been in ever since.
You asked so what was my plan in college.
That was the extent of my plan.
The extent of my plan was I knew
I wanted to go to graduate school.
I didn't have a career picked out,
I didn't have a target for a career.
I did not really think through that, hey,
I wanted to do a particular type of job
or a particular type of function.
I was very open.
I wanted to get into the business world
in some way, but I also was looking
for different kinds of opportunities.
And to have different kinds of experiences
to really find out what I would enjoy doing.
I think there's three things that I focus on.
I spoke a little bit about
them but one is passion.
You want to be motivated to wake up every
morning so you have to find your passion
for the kind of work you want to
do, what's going to excite you
and really charge you up to get up every day.
The second is action.
When I think about action it's really
you make commitments and you have
to fulfill those commitments,
take action is just critical.
And then the third thing is culture.
And culture is really what is going to
work for you, what kind of environment,
what kind of relationships do you
want to have on a professional basis?
Do you prefer to work by yourself?
Are you more of a collegial team person, right?
And make sure you have that understanding
as you go through your process.