Welcome to “3 Questions with …”, a recurring feature on the Career Center blog. We’re asking alumni of all graduation years and career interests to share a bit of their experiences and advice.
Brandon Lee, ’20, Responsible Investing Associate Analyst at T. Rowe Price
1. In just a few sentences, please tell us about your current job/graduate program/vocational endeavor.
I work on the Responsible Investing Team at T. Rowe Price covering Consumer, Health Care, and Utilities. In my role I conduct research on companies and industries focused on environmental, social, and governance factors. Our team works closely with the equity and fixed income analysts and portfolio managers to help them factor ESG considerations into their investment process and ultimately create the most value for our clients. I also engage with companies on environmental and social issues as well as governance and proxy voting items.
2. How did your time at Tufts influence your career journey?
At Tufts I became interested in investing after taking Professor Manos’s Intro to Finance course. I got my first job in investments through on-campus recruiting which was in fixed income fundamental research. The buy-side is difficult to break into straight out of undergrad so I do not think I would have been able to get a similar role if not for the help of the career center and Tufts alumni connections. My experience at my first job made it much easier for me to transition to my current role at TROW when I decided I wanted to focus on impact investing.
3. What advice would you offer to a student who wants to pursue a career path like yours?
Impact investing and ESG research is a growing but niche field so there is not a well-defined career path. Understanding the fundamentals of investing is important since you need to be able to show analysts and portfolio managers the financial implications of a company’s ESG factors. Entrepreneurial Finance with Professor Apeseche was a really great practical class that taught me the basics of accounting and financial modeling. Try to intern at a broad range of companies since working at an ESG consultant or asset manager like T. Rowe Price are quite different. You may not know exactly what you want to do straight out of college but take the job where you will learn the most and always look for new opportunities.
Get advice and information through career conversations
Chat with people like Brandon in our flash mentoring database, The Herd
