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Name: Collette Martley
Class Year: 2019
Major: CFA
Minor: Spanish
Position: Associate Financial Analyst
Company: Fidelity Investments
My career story starts in high school, where I babysat for many years and once I got to college I became a UAS Peer Tutor on campus. I interned in Supply Chain Finance at ALEX AND ANI and at Fidelity in Corporate Finance over the past two summers. I really enjoyed my internship with Fidelity, and they reached out to me and offered me a full time offer this past October. I will start as an Associate Financial Analyst this summer!
As far as getting interested in finance, again it all started in high school, where I didn’t know what I wanted to do at all in college, but I thought business would be a good fit considering I love numbers but didn’t really enjoy science. After taking GB112 and 212 I really enjoyed finance and accounting and knew that was the direction I wanted to go in, but was unsure of what I wanted to do exactly within this realm. I knew I wanted a career in corporate finance after my internships at ALEX AND ANI and Fidelity Investments where I learned so much about budgeting, planning and looking at the finances within a company.
What I find most rewarding is collaborating with people on my team and other employees in different areas to complete projects is my favorite part of this position. I love building relationships with others and by working with my team, I can do that as well as learn new things about Fidelity and finance. Meanwhile, the aspects that I find the most challenging are working on completely new things and feeling a little in over my head. I knew I could count on my team to answer any questions I had and could rely on my managers for guidance. These challenging projects were the most rewarding!
For someone preparing to pursue being a Financial Analyst, I would say don’t be afraid to ask questions and meet with people within your organization. This really helped me in figuring out that this career path is right for me, and helped me become more involved in the company. I was able to learn different areas of Fidelity that I didn’t know about before by meeting with people in other departments.
As far as Bentley-specific courses and resources go, I highly recommend taking Applied Corporate Finance. This class deals with real-world cases that you have to solve together in groups. It really helped me understand corporate finance better and work better within a group in a finance setting. Oh and, granted everyone has to take it, GB320 was also very helpful for my career and gave me an idea of what is was like working for a company with a real problem to solve.
The people at Bentley that helped me get to where I am today, is everyone involved in the UAS Peer Tutoring program. Leslie Doolittle and Amy Weber are amazing supervisors and tutoring really shaped my time here at Bentley. I have become more confident in my presenting and speaking skills, and improved my professional and interpersonal skills.
My last bit of advice is that I highly recommend being proactive in the internship search early on in your college career. My internships are really what helped me decide what career path is right for me!
Be sure to connect with Collette on LinkedIn if you want to learn more from her about CFA, Financial Analysts, Fidelity, or even tutoring! To learn more about careers with Fidelity Investments, click here.
