Success Story: Lauren Kelly ’18 accepts fellowship at StartUp Health and full-time position at Barclays
Success Stories | Feb 22, 2018 | admin
By Maja Tarateta
Involvement. And meeting alumni for coffee—lots of coffee.
These have been the keys to success for Lauren Kelly, BS ’18, who accepted a spring fellowship at StartUp Health, the world’s largest digital health portfolio. There, she will work in entrepreneurial coaching, research, and investing at an accelerator that supports global entrepreneurs committed to transforming healthcare.
“I’m really excited to spend the rest of the semester getting exposure to that space,” said Kelly. “It’s a little culmination of the things I’ve done and my interests.”
Kelly came to the Gabelli School from a STEM-focused high school in New Jersey. She has parlayed her analytical skills to the business world, where she says her higher-level math and technology background combined with the strength of her Fordham education has helped her to stand out as a candidate.
An internship in mergers and acquisitions in healthcare at Barclays first sparked her interest in the healthcare realm. She also spent two semesters working on the $1 million Student Managed Investment Fund, where she was first assigned as a healthcare analyst and later as the healthcare portfolio manager.
“I have seen healthcare from the investment perspective and healthcare funding from the investment-banking perspective,” Kelly noted, “but this will be something new.”
Lauren Kelly with Smart Woman Securities members and Warren Buffett in Omaha.
She credits serving on the executive board of Smart Woman Securities, a national nonprofit organization focused on investment education for undergraduate women, with shaping her time at Fordham in a meaningful way.
“These hardworking, inspiring women helped me connect with upperclass students and alumni,” she said.
But mostly, she said, just talking to as many people as possible has led to her fellowship, internship, and job-search successes.
“A senior connected me to some alumni at JPMorgan,” she recalled. “This started a chain. That person got a job at Barclays. She started a Fordham recruiting program there. I connected to her, and now I’m a link to Barclays for other students.”
After interning in investment banking at Barclays the past two summers, Kelly accepted a full-time offer there as an investment banking analyst in New York starting in August.
Her advice? “Try to meet professionals for coffee in the city a few times each semester,” she said. “Even if it’s not the perfect job for you, it will help you figure out what’s interesting to you. It’s so important.”
