The Academy

University of Dayton Investment Banking Academy

Who We Are

The University of Dayton Investment Banking Academy (The Academy) is a competitive, undergraduate student organization that is registered and recognized by the University of Dayton. The group is dedicated to the development and advancement of its members toward a career in investment banking, private equity, corporate development, and other similar roles.

The Academy was founded and is supported on three pillars: an educational boot camp, experiential learning, and professional development. With the support of these pillars, our goal is to attain 100% placement in investment banking roles for every class that comes through our organization.

Strategy

Educational Bootcamp

The Academy hosts an accelerated 14-week curriculum covering accounting, valuation, deal process, PowerPoint, and Excel that is led by senior members in The Academy for new members accepted. This program has been peer-reviewed by professionals in the industry. The boot camp is finished with a final project that is presented at Ark Malibu, a regional investment bank located in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Experiential Learning

The Academy has held exclusive experiential partnerships with multiple firms in the private equity and mergers and acquisitions space through our Banking Team. This off-cycle internship allows the corporate partner to decrease work back-log, increase the quantity of work conducted on a weekly basis, and get a head start on upcoming projects. Our banking team works on many different items for the corporate sponsors including industry research, financial analysis, modeling, and deal sourcing.

Professional Development

The Academy facilitates a mentorship program to connect UD alumni in the investment banking industry with current new members. Fireside chats, resume reviews, and mock interviews are part of this program to help ready new members. Additionally, we organize guest speaking and recruiting informational sessions with firms. These sessions allow our members to learn more about the industry directly from those who have years of experience, how the firm differentiates itself, and it's recruiting process. At the end of each session, time for Q&A is allotted to allow for an interactive experience.

Story

The Academy was founded in January of 2021 by Isaac Grude with the help of Alec Gizzie, John Coffey, Ryan Dermody, and Kyle Phillips. The Academy was founded to help prepare our members for a career in investment banking and to secure competitive internship/full-time job offers.

The University of Dayton has picked up momentum in recent years as it has begun to consistently place 10+ interns and 8+ seniors in the investment banking industry every year. As an organization, we are looking to accelerate the momentum and bring opportunities to a larger swath of the business school undergraduate student body.

While we are proud of what The Academy has accomplished over the past year and a half, we believe things are just getting started. Getting the educational bootcamp eligible for credit through the business school, actively bringing more investment banks on campus for recruiting opportunities, and creating a "finance week" for students to visit Chicago/New York/Cleveland are just some of the goals we hope to achieve in the next few semesters.

ibacademy@udayton.edu

For news & announcements please check out our LinkedIn Page