Intro Frankie Gomez loves his internship as a summer analyst covering media and telecom at Deutsche Bank in New York City.
It’s his second internship, having also interned at private equity firm Wind Point Partners last summer. Gomez dates his affinity for markets and finance to watching the nightly Spanish-language television news with his family, mesmerized as a kid by the green and red arrow graphics during business segments. Then, a high school Advanced Placement economics class introduced him to the idea of investing. He was hooked.
“The intricacies of it made me fall in love with it initially,” says Gomez, who is set to graduate in December with a finance degree from the University of Illinois (U of I) Gies College of Business.
With two big internships and attending a competitive business school, Gomez is the picture of success and the first of his generation in his family to attend college.
Gomez’s accomplishments show that success isn’t just about individual grit and smarts. Equally critical is support from foundations, non-profits and companies, which, when combined, give students like Gomez the knowledge, access and networking skills to create sustainable, high-trajectory career paths.
The Power of Partnership: Bridging the Opportunity Gap Through Combined Resources
Being an investment banking intern in New York City is a world away from where Gomez grew up in a low income community on the South Side of Chicago. While seeing a market chart on a nightly news business segment or learning about stocks in class sparked his interest, no one in his family worked in a corporate job, let alone Wall Street.
That education and support came from Greenwood Project, which has prepared underrepresented college students for careers on Wall Street since 2016. The non-profit seeks to close the opportunity gap these college students face with a rigorous, 10-month career training program for its scholars. It builds on each student’s strength and values, giving them skills to thrive rather than training them to fill a job description. Greenwood Project pairs them with on-staff coaching partners – industry professionals who have sat in the same seat the students hope to occupy – and works with corporate partners to identify summer internship opportunities that scholars then compete for and win.
A critical part of the program is teaching the unwritten rules of Wall Street, says Kwesi Smith, CEO of Greenwood Project.
“We know that emotional intelligence can be responsible for up to 60% of your career progression, and so we really lean into that,” Smith says, such as explaining that an invitation to have coffee with a managing director could be an interview or how networking builds credibility in real time.
He says more than 300 students have gone through the program and 70% of its alumni work in financial services with 90% working high-trajectory roles. Smith says 75% of Greenwood Project scholars are low to moderate income. That was Gomez’s case.
Gomez had planned to attend a four-year university to major in finance, but a combination of setbacks nearly derailed those plans. The family lost their home in Chicago’s South Side during the 2008 Great Financial Crisis and moved from apartment to apartment. In addition, when Gomez was a high school junior, his father was seriously injured on the job.
That meant quitting cherished extracurricular activities to work two part-time jobs supporting his family. To save money, he attended community college for one and a half years before transferring to U of I. That’s when he met Lathaniel Wells, a Greenwood Project alumnus, who introduced him to the organization – a life-changing experience, Gomez says.
His coach, Erika Thomas, “is like a second mom to me. She's not only a mentor, but someone I could confide in, and someone that I've always asked for help, or whatever it may be.”
When Gomez struggled to pay for his junior year at U of I, Thomas connected him to the CME Group Foundation Scholars Program, where he applied and received a scholarship that covered his college tuition, relieving him of the financial anxiety of paying for school and helping his family.
While many scholarships help freshmen start college, the CME Group Foundation Scholars Program works to ensure rising sophomores and above can complete their degrees. Since its launch in 2019, the CME Group Foundation has awarded more than $4.9 million in scholarships to over 130 students at 13 partner colleges and universities in the U.S.
“Frankie’s story highlights how important partnerships are in providing in-depth support for students from college to career,” says CME Group Foundation Executive Director Eva Giglio, noting that Greenwood Project has been a Foundation grantee since 2020.
As part of the CME Group Foundation Scholars Program, Gomez also has monthly check-ins with his CME Group mentor Ashraf Ansari, Senior Director of Business Transformation. Like Thomas, Gomez asks Ansari for life and job advice he couldn’t get from his family and friends.
Building Skills to Last a Lifetime
Greenwood Project helped Gomez connect with Wind Point Partners for his first internship, but his role with Deutsche Bank is outside the program. The Wind Point Partners experience and Thomas’ coaching prepped him for the Deutsche Bank interview.
“She completely grilled me, absolutely asking me very difficult, technical questions about investment banking. When I got that call from Deutsche Bank to interview for their final round, I was more than prepared,” he says.
At Deutsche Bank he’s connected with summer internship peers, adding another layer of support as he makes more connections in investment banking. He hopes to get hired full-time by Deutsche Bank.
Starting salaries for entry-level investment-banking roles can be between $170,000 and $190,000 annually, Smith says, and high-trajectory careers like that can have a major economic impact for students from low-income areas. Eventually, Smith says if 1,000 scholars annually graduate through Greenwood Project making $100,000 a year, that could translate into $100 million in economic mobility.
Gomez’s success could have a ripple effect as he hopes to mentor other students once he gets established in the corporate world.
“This literally changed my life. I’m going to explore how I can give back to Greenwood and CME Group. How can I be that person who helped me along the way,” he says.
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