Boundless Opportunities at Fidelity

Alicia Welcome to the side of the desk podcast, hosted by Fidelity Jobs and the Fidelity Women's Leadership Group. We are here to have deep discussions on the authentic experience of being a working professional in today's ever changing workforce. Thank you for joining us for this episode of side of the desk today. We're here to discuss the Fidelity Boundless program. And I have with me two guests who are very intimately familiar with the program. I'll let you guys introduce yourselves. Sherry Thank you so much. My name is Sherry Mooney. I've been at fidelity for two and a half years, and I work on the boundless team. So in my role, I manage diversity and inclusion programs for asset management. Kathryn My name is Kathryn Woodrow. This is my fifth calendar year with fidelity because of internships, but I've been full time here within capital markets on the strategy and planning team for ten months, and I am part of the Fidelity Capital Markets rotational program. Alicia so today we're here to talk about the boundless program that fidelity offers. Sherry, I'll let you answer this first one. What is boundless? Sherry Yeah, absolutely. The boundless program is a career discovery program for women starting in high school to really help break down the barriers of starting a career in financial services. So for young women, starting a career in financial services can be really challenging because you may think you need to be good at math or numbers, but that's just not the case at all. So fidelity boundless provides education, experience, and exposure to financial services to let young women know about the different careers. So you can join the fidelity program in high school. And then that relationship transcends to college. But you don't have to be a high school member to be part of the college program. Alicia Thank you. Yeah. It's so interesting. I've been at fidelity for, nine years now, and I had never even heard of the boundless program, so I love that I'm constantly discovering new ways. The fidelity does community outreach or is inclusive to different, age groups and, gender groups or interest groups. And, so I was really excited to, to do this episode and to learn a little bit about it. I know you're basically the boundless expert. Alicia We have you, here today, Kathryn, to represent as a former alumna. what your perspective on some of the advantages are so just based on your, short tenure with fidelity so far, what would you say some of those advantages are that the boundless program brings you? Kathryn That's a great question. And I think to start, I think boundless, if you're able to join in at your youngest age, for example, my first balanced experience is when I was 17 years old. I came in for a summit here at the headquarters here in Boston and I was a junior in high school. So I was going into the idea of applying for colleges and figuring out what I was going to major in. And, this really helped transform my idea of what I could study in college. I originally thought I was going to go in for pre-med, which I know is a very, common story among a lot of folks. And I actually, because of my experience with Summit, but also my I had a two week experience going into college. It really helped form what I was going to major in in college. So really like a ground, I ground level balance helped inform my academic decisions throughout college at UMass Amherst. So I went on to design my own major in behavioral economics, which was a mix between finance, because I really got pulled in with fidelity, psychology and economics. I still kept a little bit of that sort of pre-med nature of the psychology. But because of Fidelity , I sort of got pulled into finance and economics. As far as my time here at fidelity, because I was involved at a younger age, even when people were moving to different companies, I trusted the process and I stayed on the on this track, and I ended up doing four internships within fidelity that started all with my asset management internship. Because of Boundless and each year when I was interviewing, I brought up on Boundless and some people knew what it was, some didn't, and that was a huge advantage for why I was able to get my foot in the door for the internships. And I'm really glad I trusted the process because I'm in a really great place now. Alicia That's awesome. So you mentioned that it changed kind of what you thought you were going to major in in college. Could you speak a little bit more about how it helped to shape what you experienced in college? Kathryn Yeah, totally. So this program that I was able to be a part of before college was the first summer was when I was 17, a junior, but two weeks of my summer after my senior year of high school, I came in to 245 summer and I did a fully immersive experience, which is actually really full circle because we toured capital markets and I'm a full time employee there, and I remember being there and thinking it was so cool. So, again, going into those two weeks, I thought that I was going to be a pre-med students. I kept raising my hand, and I've always been a huge question asker, and asking all of the fidelity associates who came in to present to us, how does that ecology fit into this? How does psychology fit into this? And I know Shari will probably talk about it a little bit, but we did this Pathfinders experience where we were able to see, I think, ten jobs across the firm, ten women, and what their academic backgrounds were. And it was really awesome to see that not all of them are finance, and some were astrophysics and some were history. And I thought that was really cool. And from that moment on, I knew that part of my brand identity, I actually didn't want to be a finance major in balance with that Pathfinders experiment, and really did help me realize that. So, also just quickly, I was able to get a mentor through that balance experience, who's a portfolio manager at Asset Management. And, I was able to talk to her and just get a little bit more guidance and actually, when I went on to design my major at UMass, because I didn't want to get rid of that pre-med experience, I wanted to just add some of the more of the business component to the psychology and economics, because I design my own major. I didn't have an academic advisor, so I was able to use my mentor through Bam that I was introduced to during that two week experience as my mentor other college, maybe. I don't know if she actually knows either, but she I was able to each internship go and speak with her and ask if you could go back, what classes would you take in college to sort of help shape your experience? And it was really surprising to me that I guess not too much surprising because of that Pathfinders experience, but it was very emphasized that you don't have to be a finance major. I think she at the time, I think she was an economics major and liberal arts was very supportive in her role. So it's overall the, I guess is the two week immersion. Speaking with the Fidelity Associates as well as the mentor, that really helped me sort of shape that academic, which then helped me get a full time role here Alicia That's awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing. I think a lot of times across many different side of the desk episodes, that is one of the themes that comes up, right. Fidelity, While we are a finance company, you do not have to have a finance background in order to be successful here, in order to be engaged, in order to be interested in the work that you're doing or be, contributing to, to a project, moving it forward or to be interested in it. so I think that that's that's really great that that speaks volumes, that you were able to learn that at such a young age. Then use it to, to translate not only into your college career, help you shape that how what you ended up studying and then ultimately ended up right back here. So we're we're glad to have you. Yeah. Kathryn And just one more thing on that is a lot of us people come to me via casual networking conversation saying, but my only issue is, is I'm not a finance major. And I say that's actually not an issue. It's called brand identity and you can market yourself. We all talk about elevator pitches. That is you. And you might look different than the other ten applicants. Which finance majors are great? I was I was partially a finance major, but if you aren't one, that should not deter you. I think that instead it should market you and showcase that you have individual talents that you're able to bring to the table. Alicia Yeah, I think that's a lot of really great firsthand experience. transitioning into talking about there are a few different components that make up the Boundless program. Sherry, as our resident expert, could you break it down into a few different pieces for us? Sherry Yeah, absolutely. So as I had mentioned before, we have programs for both college and high school level women. so starting off with the high school level, we have more in-person, programing for these students. They tend to be local to the Boston area. And it's really immersive for them to come on site, really see a corporate office, how it functions and things like that. So, first of all, we have our boundless summit, which I would say is probably our flagship event. So we host about 100 high school women. you know, we get them through connections of Fidelity Associate. We work with local partnerships such as Big Brothers, Big Sisters and other nonprofits in the area to source these young women, coming to fidelity. And then we really just have a day of professional development, but in a way that's very palatable for high school students. So we're not giving them lectures on what a portfolio manager means. What a data analyst is... Alicia So not totally overwhelming. Sherry Right, exactly. Yeah. It's a way for them to just really understand 1. You don't have to be a finance major to work here at fidelity. And 2. a company like fidelity is actually super fun to work for. So I think, you know, big misconception is that financial services companies can be dry and, you know, they're not fun. But, you know, I'm having fun today here at work recording this podcast. So, that is one component of the high school programing. And then we also do a job shadow program. So we started this last year where we invited about 10 to 15 girls to Shadow Fidelity associate. So they come in in the morning. We pair them with the fidelity associate. They spend about two hours with that fidelity associate, really just learning what they do, the ins and outs of their teams and things like that. Then they get a tour of our facilities, which includes an FCAT tour, a building tour. And for those of you who don't know, FCAT is our Fidelity Center for Applied Technology really showcases all the innovation that we do here at fidelity. Alicia I love the FCAT tours, and I feel like I take one every couple years and there's always new stuff to look at, and I'm just blown away every single time. Sherry The two women who run the tours are fantastic. They do such a great job and especially, you know, making the information digestible for high school students as well. So they'll do an FCAT tour and then, they have lunch with some current fidelity associates who are also Balmes alum. So, Kathryn, now that you are full time with us, we will certainly be inviting you to that program. so they'll have lunch with them. You know, just have casual conversations about, you know, their career path, their, academic journey and how they ended up that fidelity. Then on the second half of the day, they'll shadow a second fidelity associate just so they can get a little bit of exposure on a team that's a little bit different than the one, the one they saw in the morning. So that's kind of our, high school offerings. And then at the college level, we first of all, of course have internships exclusively for families members. Obviously, Kathryn, it's a product of that. and most of those internships are in our asset management division and our compliance risk and business operations business unit. Then we have a virtual webinar series, where we just kind of talk about we bring families, alumni back. They talk about their experience with boundless, how they got to where they are and just, you know, chat about their jobs and, you know, educational history. And then, we also have a virtual job shadow program. So we pair on applicants with a current fidelity associate who kind of aligns with what their career path wants to look like. And then, you know, they kind of spend two virtual sessions just chatting about you know, their career journey. they may meet the shadow team and things like that, just to learn more about the different opportunities within the different business units. And then lastly, we have our virtual mentorship program, which kicked off in May and runs through August. So, students are then paired with similar to the job program, they're paired with a fidelity associate who aligns with what their career path wants to look like. And then, they meet twice a month virtually. Just, you know, as an informal mentor, to kind of help them with their career discovery and different things like that. And while the program formally ends in August, we encourage them to keep in touch with their mentors after the program. So lots of different components to the boundless program and making sure that we're educating young women on financial services. Alicia That's awesome. Thank you. That's that's so much. And quite frankly, when we are preparing for this episode, this was so much more robust than I really expected it to be. And it's just, again, echoes how impressive it is that fidelity has such deep ties into the community and invest the time into the mentorship and across all kinds of different business units and people involved in this program, it provides associates who already work here an opportunity to kind of give back and have that shadowing mentorship effect and and cultivate some of their leadership skills while also enriching the lives of some of the the next generation to make sure that, you know, there's interest and there's engagement and there's a clarity about you don't need to be a finance major. Like work can be fun, like you can find something that's interesting to you. And it doesn't have to just like come as it comes, like you can you can figure it out ahead of time. You can do some research, you can explore some different paths so that when you do start working, maybe at fidelity, maybe somewhere else, like you do have a lot more of a pinpointed approach to what would interest you and what you would like to spend your time doing. Sherry Right, exactly. Yeah. And, you know, you had mentioned getting fidelity success involved. It takes a village, honestly, to run this program. We solicit volunteers from all business units, and they're doing this out of the goodness of their heart. It's you know, they're not getting paid. Additionally, they're sometimes having to work extra hours, dedicate their time to be a mentor. So they generally want to help the next generation of talent, which is awesome. Alicia Yeah. And I'm sure like in Kathryn's case, it must be so beneficial and so rewarding to have that type of an impact on somebody's career over the course of many years. In your case, not saying that it's many years every time. but but just that really did help shape what you did with your life and how you approached, a few different things. And so that just must feel really good. and is a good way to diversify your daily activities as a fidelity associate. Sherry Right, exactly. And I think Kathryn is a perfect example of how, you know, the mentorship that you have throughout your life can really impact, you know, the future career that you choose. And there have certainly been other Boundless members that said, you know, I want to be an accountant. I want to go into finance. And they were like, nope, actually, I hate this. I want to be a doctor now. So you know, it has you know, I think it's always beneficial to find out what you like, but it's also beneficial to find out what you don't like. Alicia Absolutely. Kathryn Yeah. And even if it doesn't lead into a career, it leads into, just financial knowledge for those who might not have been able to get it before. So I think there's benefits all over, even if they don't turn out to be the next executive here at Fidelity. But I think also just as far as counselors, I remember each internship back in 2020 and 2021, every first day of the internship, I reached out to the heads of Boundless and I said, thank you. That was like my first paying on my new computer, because if it weren't for boundless, there's who knows where my path would have been, it would have been my path, and it would have been the right place for me. But because Boundless intersected at that really important inflection point at a young age, it just set me on a trajectory that if I told myself when I was 16 that I be on this path, I don't think, I think I'd be shocked and confused. So I really have the utmost gratitude for this program. And I hope you all know that because you're doing really impactful work, and sometimes it's hard to see when you're in a heads down, day to day grind. Especially with event management. It's really hard. But there are people and I have plenty of partners, alumni who are from my class, and they're all spread out across the company. And it's it's really great. Alicia Yeah. I think your class is kind of the first generation of boundless Allen that started in high school, have gone through the program in college and have now started full time. Obviously, I wasn't part of the boundless program when it was first incepted in 2015. But, you know, I know my colleagues are like, wow, this is awesome. You know, these students that we met in high school are now our colleagues. So it just it really shows how much the program has an impact. Sherry Comes full circle. Alicia It does. Sherry Yeah. Alicia Yeah. So once I've been here, 10-15 years, like some of my colleagues, I'm sure I will see that as well. Absolutely. So I know Sherry, you weren't around, when you said that when the program was started, but do you know how it came about? What was the inspiration for it? Sherry Yeah, absolutely. So the program really came about, like I said, in 2015, as a way to educate women about the, financial services industry. So as we all know, there is a huge gap in women in this industry. So, you know, we found that a lot of students make their decision of what they want to do as a full time career in high school. So which is why we started the Balmes program in high school for students to get that education early on, because that was done informing their decisions of what they were going to major in in college. And there were so many different career paths here at fidelity. to, you know, kind of pursue, like Kathryn says, obviously you don't need to be a finance major. You know, we're working with the video production team here today to record this podcast. I work in diversity and inclusion. So, it's, you know, there's so many different things. And I think it's really important for students to get that information early on, especially those students who may be first gen or not have access to, you know, older adults who have gone to college before. Alicia So for our listeners out there, if they're interested in getting involved in this boundless program, how does a school get involved? How does a prospective student get involved? How do they get more information or apply? Sherry It's actually super easy to get involved in the Balmes program. So if you Google Fidelity Boundless, it'll bring you to our landing page. And I'll describe all the events and offerings that we have. And it should have the application deadlines and links to apply. But then there will be a link that also says Join Boundless and that will allow you to be part of our email, listserv. So anytime we have a new event or a different mentorship program or whatever it may be, you'll get an email informing you about that. So I think it's super important to join the Boundless Email List if you are fidelity associate. looking to join the Boundless Program, you can email [email protected], and we're happy to have you at any of our on site events where we host in Boston, North Carolina, and hopefully in 2025 we will be back in Texas. It'll be the first time we're there since the pandemic (to be back in Texas), so that will be awesome. But, if anybody has any questions, [email protected] is where you can direct any questions. Alicia Awesome. That's awesome. So for our fidelity associates who want to get involved for any prospective students, what about a school? Are there are established partnerships? I know you said you work with local, nonprofits to have that sort of engagement. Can any school be involved? How does that work? Sherry Yeah, absolutely. We are always looking for new boundless members. So if you are a school administrator or teacher and you think that this program could be a good fit for your students, you can email us at fidelity.com. We're happy to partner with you and invite your students to any events that we may have. Alicia That's awesome. And and we always want to make the programs as big and inclusive as we can. so, Sherry, when would you say it's most advantageous for a student to become involved if they're interested in participating in boundless? Is this, like a longer process for them to go through, like an interview process and then get selected for the following year? Or how does it work? When should they start? Sherry Yeah, there's no application process. You can just join the boundless mailing list and you will receive all of our communications about future events and programs that we are running. I would say you could join boundless as early as grade nine. So we have students at our summits ranging from age 14 to 18. So it's actually really awesome for the girls who are participating. You know, as a freshman in high school, meeting seniors in high school from, you know, other schools that, you know, they can kind of have like a peer mentor in a way. And it's very sweet. You know, all the girls kind of exchange Instagrams and social media and they keep in touch. So, you know, they're creating their own peer network outside of their high school as well as a professional network while they're here. So I would say join as early as you can. But, certainly, you know, your freshman year of high school, your freshman year of college, just so you can be apprized of all the events that we have and program offerings. Alicia Absolutely. And I know the summit, Kathryn, you mentioned it. Sherry, you mentioned it as like kind of the flagship event. Could you tell me what it looks like? What what do they do at the summit? Sherry Yeah. Great question. So the Summit starts super early on 8:30 a.m., which is a little bit tough for high school girls, especially if it's on their day off. Alicia But high school starts earlier than that, I feel like. Sherry But I feel like you know, high school girls are like, oh, today's the day that I get to sleep in. Yeah, I have to, you know, be up in early, at a corporate office. So, as I mentioned, we host the summit throughout the year in Boston, North Carolina, Merrimack, New Hampshire, and then in Texas, hopefully in 2025. More information to come on that. But, you know, the day starts off with, you know, we have breakfast for the girls. we, you know, seat them at different tables. So if you come in with a sister or a friend, unfortunately we do separate you. But the purpose is for you to make new friends. That is, you know, we want to make sure that everybody's having a fun time making new friends. That's the purpose of the event. So then, we start off with a quick introduction to fidelity and what boundless is and what their journey can look like with boundless after the Summit. And then, we have an icebreaker activity called salt and pepper. So Kathryn, I don't know if you played this when, you were at a summit, but basically we give you two pieces to, famous pair. So, for example, peanut butter and jelly, and we'll put that nametag on you backwards, and then you have to go around the room asking yes or no questions to figure out what you are. Then you also have to find your pair. So it really gets everybody, you know, up and talking gets the energy in the room. It's great. Then after that, we typically have a keynote speaker who is either a Bama Shalom or we've had some external speakers as well. you know, typically a woman who's very prominent in their field or, you know, well-established here at fidelity. They talk about their career journeys, give some advice to the girls on and then, you know, we do some financial literacy. We've actually implemented a new aspect of the, summit this year, which is called our innovation stations, where it gives us an opportunity to showcase, different parts of fidelity that you may not see on our website. So, for example, we have our fidelity Roblox. We actually have fidelity AI then we, we do our internal game that we've created, which is Pathfinders. And then, we have the fidelity Art lab. So believe it or not, if you are an art major, you can work at fidelity because we do have a collection of art that the Johnson family, you know, has collected over the years. And, you know, there's a curator that works here who, you know, places the art around the different offices and things like that. And then, the last part of the day is a startup challenge. So, in the startup challenge, you work with your table and identifying a problem. So maybe it's, you know, a problem that, you know, you see, with school, with time management or fashion, you know, picking out outfits, you create a product to solve that, problem that you've identified. And then you pitch that product to a panel of judges in two minutes, and then there's a winner. And it's a super fun, way to kind of end the day, really. You know, I think everybody's creative juices are really flowing by the end of the day. So, it's really interesting to see all the ideas that the students come up with. Alicia Yeah, that sounds so interesting and fast paced and engaging and fun and, just kind of not really like it has bits and pieces of other elements that somebody might attend, like, oh, financial literacy or oh, this is a networking event, but it kind of brings all of that together and wraps it up nicely as, as like a one stop shop for, for these young women to experience and, and help them to foster what they like, what they're interested in, and making more connections across different, different business units and different areas. So Kathryn, I know you attended a summit. Do you remember anything about your Summit? Kathryn I actually do, so I remember at the time it wasn't a Fidelity associate who spoke. It was actually just a woman entrepreneur from Boston. And it was a woman owned product top uplift to other women with disabilities. And I'm actually visually impaired and have a disability. So sitting there and hearing that was really inspiring. And I think it actually brought a really great external perspective because, we heard from other fidelity women throughout, throughout the day. So it was a little bit of a different set up. But I remember the keynote speaker for once was actually sometimes keynote speakers don't always have their message home, but it was wonderful. And I remember actually now having Boundless friends who read and dropped in years previous, I were like, oh, I think we were at the same summit and now we are now 22, 23 years old, and we were 17 at the time. And I think, honestly, the best part of the day was waking up in July and having a nice outfit on and taking the commuter rail and and showing out. I always loved business. I was part of the DECCA Club in high school, so I think that was I just another sort of initial seed to realize, oh, maybe business is for me. And I was just sort of the role player being able to go through the day in the life of a fidelity associate. Alicia very cool experience for, for anybody to have, but specifically for, a population that necessarily doesn't see that as one of their immediately available opportunities. So I think that that's really awesome. Kathryn And we got a notebook that I still use to this day. It's really gross. I mean, I think I have a LinkedIn by sort of very symbolic for me, but still use it to this day. I'm almost at the last page, but I use it for very special notes. Alicia It's always, it's always about the swag right now. Certainly get you some updated swag. Well, thank you both for for joining us. so much today, we we had such a great discussion about the boundless program. Sherry, I'll let you plug the boundless Instagram and how to contact again. but but thank you both for joining in such a great conversation. Sherry Thank you. so if you want to keep in touch with us a little bit more informally on Instagram, it's at Fidelity Boundless. And if you have any specific questions, you can always email [email protected]. Alicia Boundless is a career discovery program designed to promote equal opportunity, inclusion and access in financial services by encouraging applications from female identifying students. Sherry Boundless is the career discovery program for young students to learn more about financial services. Allicia Thank you for listening to this side of the desk episode. And thank you to our recording studio and editors who make our episodes possible. For more information about working at fidelity, check out Fidelity careers.com.