My name is Ryan Chand and I am currently a sophomore at Fordham University studying finance in the Gabelli School of Business. My education has been fairly intense with coursework; however I put a strong emphasis on self-learning. While I have taken multiple business courses, outside of my coursework I have taken the Training the Street: Corporate Valuation course, Bloomberg training seminars, FactSet training seminars, and I explore various areas of finance through online publications, textbooks, and engaging in discussion with professionals in the field. I have a keen interest in various forms of alternative investments, including real estate, private equity, venture capital, hedge fund investing, and crypto-currencies (most notably bitcoin). I am fortunate enough to have gained exposure to real estate while interning for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York within the Real Estate Strategy and Operations Team. My experience broadened my horizons and allowed me to engage in multiple exciting projects including developing a written/oral communication strategy, building robust project management tools on excel, and and developing key executive presentation materials for +3 years multi-phased technology strategy.

Outside of school and my continuous education in finance, I am highly involved with my family’s retail wine & spirits business. I have been immersed in this business all my life; however I became very involved roughly three years ago. Starting from the bottom, I worked weekends stocking shelves and breaking boxes. Through hard work and dedication to the business, I have learned the ins and outs of the wine industry and am now able to confidently sell big-ticket products to customers, manage/expand client relationships, and drive innovation on the technological front. I have successfully implemented a new innovatory counting system that analyzes the selling performance of merchandise and helps employees better manage the thousands of items of inventory. Currently, I am working diligently on integrating a new POS system that will improve data analytics and make running the business remotely much more efficient.

I live my life every day by this quote - “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” This idea pushes me to break out of my comfort zone and venture into unfamiliar territories. It is comforting to engage in similar activities day in and day out. However, it is the different activities that you have never engaged in th