CBIA BizCast: Mentoring Next-Generation Talent

How do you interest students in a career they may not know anything about?

That’s a question the team at Mercer Investments is working to answer. 

Mercer principal Siddartha Kalita joined the CBIA BizCast to highlight the company’s mentorship program, designed to inspire high students from disadvantaged backgrounds to explore financial services careers. 

Kalita said the initiative was created to bring the concept of financial awareness and career opportunities to young people while they’re still in school. 

Foundation Building

“I had a good foundation at home,” Kalita said. 

“My parents pushed me to a math program, and that helped me to get that first, first head start into this world of financial industries. Not everyone has that background.”

To put the initiative into action, Mercer connected with several schools including Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven.

“We try to bring them to the reality of what they have in the future.”

Mercer’s Siddartha Kalita

They then built a three-phase program:

• Phase 1: Employees visit the school to tell students about careers in financial services.
• Phase 2: Interested students visit Mercer’s Norwalk office to see firsthand what a financial services career entails.
• Phase 3: Mercer mentors work one-on-one with a small group of students on a research project that gives them about 50 hours of hands-on experience.

Long-Term Success

About five students end up completing the program each year, which is now in its third year. 

Kalita said he’ll know the program is a success when one of the students joins the workforce.

“We try to bring them to the reality of what they have in the future when they get out of college, if they go to college, and then how could they be really happy in life,” Kalita said. 

“This is one way for our company and for us to contribute back to the society.”

Kalita

Kalita said the program is part of Mercer’s long-term efforts to build a diverse and inclusive workforce. 

“Inclusion is in the genes of our organization,” he said.

“This is one way for our company and for us to contribute back to the society, to actually create a diverse pool that one day will become the employment pool.”

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