Food for thought at career dinner

Sigma Alpha Delta, Baruch's oldest honor society, gave a warm welcome to the student body last week by putting four alumni front and center. The graduates, which included Keith Anzel, Francis McCarron, Stephen Johnson and Richard Randall related their travails and triumphs during their career dinner.

Keith Anzel, chief tax officer and managing director for Citigroup's Corporate and Investment Bank, spent seven years at a then Big 8 firm, Arthur Anderson. He conveyed the importance of finding the right fit for oneself as opposed to entrenchment, which both makes the worker unhappy and brings down overall firm efficiency. Anzel facilitates lateral moves which, after short-term unease, result in much higher employee satisfaction levels. He believes in the power of a strong presence, arriving at work at 6:30 a.m. and leaving around 7:30 p.m. The Baruch grad's hard work and attitude are one of the many aspects of his personality that got him to where he is today.

Francis McCarron, a Baruch MBA and executive VP and CFO of Triarc Companies, was next up to discuss his success after graduation. His career path illustrated the need to move on when challenges are lacking. After being recruited by a firm to work on very specific accounts, his superiors discovered his gift for salvaging the sorriest of accounts and restricted him to those. He had kept in touch with a competitor, however, and gave notice to when he jumped ship. His old firm wanted to reconcile, but the damage was done. He recounted a vivid lunch with Jack Welch when both were at RCA which ultimately got him fired. "Don't burn any bridges," he advised.

Accounting alumnus Stephen Johnson was so taken aback by the material in his auditing class that he remarked it was "the hardest B you can get." So when he was no longer satisfied, he opted for a law degree at the University of Michigan. He has been with PricewaterhouseCoopers now for 19 years and his one possible regret is not testing the landscape with other firms. Whenever he got restless, however, PwC always provided additional responsibilities.

Retired accountant Richard Randall highlighted his 40 years of business acumen to the crowd of Baruch students yearning to fill his shoes. Randall spoke of his greatest accomplishment as the CFO of Coach, Inc., a company founded in 1941. He took the company public in 2000 in a Goldman Sachs IPO, which proved to be a wise move. Its market capitalization is now larger than Sara Lee, its former parent company. His advice was to "embrace change." Randall certainly provides an impressive template for his maxim.

The Baruch alumni, if nothing else, were able to keep students in the room motivated and eager to succeed in the business world. The wisdom and experience the speakers provided are necessary for the students to hear while still in school.