Winthrop House Career and Business Advising

As your Careers Tutors, our role is to help all students - not just the future investment bankers among you - learn about yourselves, learn about the many different kinds of career options that are available to you, and find the perfect match for your unique skills and interests. To do this, we will offer numerous workshops to help you explore your interests, think about how you actually like to spend your time, and figure out what is really important to you in determining how you will spend your working life. We hope to encourage career-related introspection in each of you and be sounding boards for you as you think about different careers that you might want to pursue. Whether you've envisioned yourself in dozens of different careers or you've always known what you will do after college, we believe everyone can benefit from career-related introspection.

For those of you who do choose careers in business - either for the short term or perhaps for longer - we will also serve as Business Tutors. We will work with you to help you organize your job search, which may go through OCS's recruiting process, or may not. With the help of our non-resident business tutors (listed below), weï½ll be available to help you find people who have had jobs like the ones you're interested in, fine-tune your resume, and prepare for job interviews.

For upcoming Careers and Business events, keep an eye on Winthrop's e-mail lists or just find one of us in the dining hall or stop in and visit us at 20 DeWolfe #44.

Rachel (rbarenbaum@mba2004.hbs.edu) & Adam (akleinbaum@hbs.edu).

Russ Deason
russdeason@yahoo.com
Having lived all over the southeast (AL, GA, FL, SC) and graduating from Auburn University, I moved to Cambridge (and Winthrop House!) in 1994. I was a resident tutor at Winthrop until Dec 1999, when I moved to Florida to work for GE. During this time I lived and worked in India for 8 months building a software lab & team. I returned to Cambridge in October of 2003 and am excited about being back at Winthrop. Professionally, I have always been involved with the business side of engineering projects (mostly large-scale software development). Currently, I work for General Dynamics as Director of Operations for New England. Mostly that concerns supporting Federal clients (like the EPA, the Veteran's Administration, and some research labs) with technical support and software application development. Day-to-day, the job mostly is Program Management, Business Development and proposal writing. So, combining my Winthrop experience with my business knowledge, I believe I can offer plenty of practical career advice.

Mark Szigety
mszigety@hbs.edu
Originally from New Jersey, I've spent seven years in Boston, first at MIT as an undergraduate in physics, and subsequently as a graduate student in the GSAS (physics) and now business. In the interim between my graduate studies in physics and business school, I was a software developer for three years in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina for Cisco systems. In my spare time, I swim with the Cambridge Masters Swim Club and play piano.

Alyssa Stark
astark@mba2008.hbs.edu
Alyssa Stark graduated with honors from Stanford University with a degree in Public Policy. She worked for 4 years as a financial analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co., spending 2 years in the Investment Banking Division in New York and 2 years in the Private Wealth Management group in San Francisco. Alyssa also spent time before business school working and volunteering in the non-profit sector. She is currently a first-year student at the Harvard Business School.

Jay Makadia
jmakadia@berkshirepartners.com
I graduated from Harvard and Winthrop House in 1998. After convincing my parent's that I wasn't going to be a doctor, I took a job at Morgan Stanley in New York where I worked in the Investment Banking Division on mergers and acquisitions for two years. Two years ago, I returned to Boston to work at Berkshire Partners, a private equity fund that focuses on leveraged buyouts of "old economy" companies that do everything from sewing baby clothes to baking buns for McDonald's. I would be happy to meet with anyone who is contemplating a career in business and share my experiences in investment banking or private equity. I look forward to meeting many of you throughout the year.

Alex Weiss
alexander.weiss@post.harvard.edu
In 2005, I graduated from Harvard, where I concentrated in Economics and wrote my thesis on the role of college football in attracting high school applicants to Division 1A schools. I am currently an Associate Consultant at Bain & Company in Boston and would be happy to discuss career decisions with any of you. Born and raised in the Boston area, I am a huge Red Sox and Patriots fan, but my favorite sport to play is basketball, which I played for Winthrop's IM team during my 3 years in the house.

Leif Holtzman
leif.holtzman@gmail.com
I'm a Winthrop House '05 alum and finished my undergraduate education with a joint concentration in Psychology and Economics. I'm currently an Analyst at Digitas, a large marketing consulting firm with headquarters in Boston. When not working or non-residentially advising students interested in business I can usually be found eating, watching TV, or playing beirut with my roommates. If you're interested in advertising, marketing, consulting, or the ins and outs of recruiting definitely let me know. I'd also be happy to answer any questions about the process required by Harvard to do a joint concentration (particularly in Psychology and Economics).

David Gray
david_gray@monitor.com
I was a member of the Harvard Class of '93 and concentrated in Philosophy. I previously worked with the Boston Consulting Group's Strategy Institute, which conducts investigations into the nature of strategy in different fields and applies insights to business strategy and recently moved into a similar role at Monitor. I have an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia, Class of 2000. Prior to attending business school, I worked as a consultant at the World Bank in Washington, DC on issues of infrastructure privatization and regulation for developing countries including Chile, Indonesia, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Mans Larsson
mlarsson@mba2007.hbs.edu
I graduated from Harvard College in 1999. At Harvard I studied Social Studies, focusing on political philosophy, and lived in Kirkland House. After graduation, I spent five years working for three different private equity investment firms, based in New York, London and Stockholm. My work and general curiosity have taken me across the world and I have visited some 80 different countries. I just returned to Boston to complete my second and final year at Harvard Business School after a summer working in the strategy department of an American conglomerate in Shanghai, China. I grew up in Sweden. My interests include extreme skiing, scuba diving, sailing, surfing, reading, rugby and painting.

Musab Balbale
mbalbale@mba2008.hbs.edu
Musab graduated from Yale University in 2001 with a degree in Political Science. He spent the next two years in the Chicago office of The Boston Consulting Group before moving to San Francisco in 2003. There he joined Charles Schwab's corporate strategy group. Currently, Musab is a first year at HBS and is looking to enter the Hedge Fund world after graduation.

Dan Guill
dguill@mba2008.hbs.edu
I was born in Augusta, GA, and graduated from Davidson College in 1998. After Davidson, I had a Fulbright Fellowship in Nicosia, Cyprus for one year before heading off to San Francisco to participate in the Internet Bubble/Boom/Bust. While in San Francisco, I worked for a number of investment banks and private equity firms, including Thomas Weisel Partners and Parthenon Capital. Most recently, I was the general manager of a startup student loan marketing and processing company in the Bay Area called Vista Financial Inc. Now I am enjoying life at the Harvard Business School, although I miss the surfing and the nice weather of California.

Jacquelyn Kung
jykung@gmail.com
I was born in China and have lived in Norway, the U.S., and most recently Peru. After undergrad studies at Harvard, I worked for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Early in 2004, I left to pursue a book project for College Matters nonprofit (Melissa Dell, Winthrop class of 2005, and I were the Co-Editors of this book). Sensing that I could do this project from any computer in the world, I moved to South America and worked from internet cafes. When the book work died down a bit, I worked in microfinance for a local grassroots organization serving women. I started at HBS last year and currently live across the river from my old Winthrop dorm room.