Success story: From Citi to Goldman goes Kuba Kowalski
Areas of Study , Finance Success Stories | Apr 04, 2013 | Nicole Gesualdo
On the professional tennis circuit, Kuba Kowalski (GSB ’14) strives for excellence. In his finance classes, it’s no different.
Which makes it no surprise that Goldman Sachs has selected Kuba for a summer 2013 internship in sales and trading. A financial firm with its sights set firmly on being No. 1 seems like an ideal match for a student whose goal is the same.
“I really enjoyed the fact that they choose the most successful people, whether you are a top student or a top athlete,” Kuba said. “I will be able to learn and work among the best specialists in the industry.”
Kuba will walk into his first day at Goldman having already amassed a wealth of experience. He has been an investment-banking intern at Citigroup since October 2012 and will continue working there through May. He said the experience has been extremely valuable — “working on corporate finance projects, learning financial modeling from the real deals, and working as a part of a team.”
Uncertain that investment banking is the path for him, though, Kuba finds the Goldman position a welcome opportunity. “Exploring something like sales and trading is a great chance for me to discover new areas of finance,” he explained. “I will be specifically trying to get into distressed investing group at Goldman, where I will be able to use skills learned in my Value Investing course at Fordham.”
Landing the Goldman Sachs gig was quite the hurdle, given that it’s one of the most sought-after internships in all of finance. Kuba was invited to the firm’s Superday, where he was joined by about 30 students from Brown, Harvard, MIT, Rutgers and Yale. He had three one-on-one interviews within the span of three hours.
His offer came the next day.
