From a food truck to a Fortune 30

By Kevin Manne

Moser’s success is the result of hard work through a series of opportunities in the UB School of Management that took her from a food truck worker to a finance professional at a telecommunications giant. 

Her journey began when she joined UB’s Honors College and met her faculty mentor, Veljko Fotak, associate professor of finance. 

Fotak encouraged Moser to join the Terese Kelly Investment Group (TKIG), the UB School of Management’s student-run equity fund, to get real-world experience in financial management. There, Moser met Jay Schwartzkopf, executive in residence for finance.

“I didn’t know anything about finance, but Jay took me under his wing and taught me about the Bloomberg Terminals,” she says. “I spent that summer working in a food truck during the day, then driving an hour each night from Dunkirk to use the terminals so I could get up to speed.”

Bloomberg Terminals provide access to real-time market data and breaking financial news combined with powerful analytics and communications tools, allowing students to conduct in-depth financial research. The School of Management is home to five terminals thanks to a generous alumni contribution from Gregg Fisher, BS ’92.

She also parlayed a summer research project into a research analyst internship with Sterling Investment Counsel, where she created tear sheets (summaries of key information about companies) to present to James Goede, CFA, chief investment officer and chief operating officer. 

“That was one of the biggest moments ever for me,” says Moser. “I had to report what I thought about a stock, and whether it was a buy, hold or sell. I remember James agreed with me and I felt the biggest wave of relief—I was so proud.”

But Moser wanted to branch out beyond investment banking so she applied for an internship at Comcast—one of the companies she had researched during her time at Sterling.

“I was in New York City with the Terese Kelly Investment Group when I got the text that I had landed an interview,” she says. “During the interview I got to talk about everything I learned at Sterling about Comcast and their competitors, and it just made me feel so prepared for it.”

She had originally planned to move to Atlanta for the internship, but COVID-19 hit and made everything virtual. Using Microsoft Teams, Moser worked with her manager at Comcast on scenario modeling and honing her Excel skills.

“It was really inspiring because my manager, director and CFO were all women,” she says. “It was great to see that this can actually happen for me here.”

As the end of the internship neared, Moser and her family knew they’d find out on the last day whether or not she’d get a full-time job offer. Moser got the call that day with the offer, and stopped on the way to her parent’s house to get a cake that said ‘I got the job.’

“I went to show my dad first but my mom peeked over my shoulder and saw it,” says Moser. “She gasped and started crying instantly. It was a really great moment—they were so happy.”

As she prepares to graduate with a bachelor’s after just three years at UB, Moser is looking forward to her new role as a RiSE associate at Comcast. She’ll begin as a financial analyst and then do two six-month rotations in different departments before moving up to a permanent position as analyst. 

Beyond that, Moser sees grad school in her future—likely an MBA or MS in Finance—as well as earning her CFA. 

“I really just want to keep moving up,” she says. “I don’t want to settle and be stagnant. The biggest thing for me is to just keep growing, wherever I am.”