The Owen 10
Vanderbilt MBAs Prove Golden for Goldman Sachs in Atlanta
If you hear someone in the Atlanta world of wealth management, especially at Goldman Sachs, speak of the “Vanderbilt Mafia,” don’t worry. They’re not talking about anything sinister.
Rather, it’s an acknowledgment that Owen is well represented in the Private Wealth division of Goldman’s Atlanta office. So well represented, in fact, that 10 of the approximately 30 MBAs there earned their degrees from Vanderbilt.
PHOTO: Tom Hamby (MBA '98, left) and Craig Savage (MBA '98).
“People know there’s a large contingency of Owen grads here,” says Craig Savage (MBA ’98), who has been there longer than the others. The label, he says, was applied and just seemed to stick.
The Owen 10 include: Savage; Tom Hamby (MBA ’98); Jim Maske (MBA ’99); Madison Perkins (MBA ’00); Ty Huggins (MBA ’00); Scott Neu (MBA ’00); Nick Cross (MBA ’01); Mike Stanford (MBA ’01); Andy Thompson (MBA ’02).
According to James Herring (MBA ’89), who hired most of them, there wasn’t even any particular intent to populate the Atlanta office with Owen grads. In fact, he says, “Ideally, you want a diversity of school backgrounds. But we’ve been happy with what we’ve gotten. We have always had good success at Owen.”
Herring, who now heads Goldman’s family investment business in New York, helped continue the line of Vanderbilt graduates in the firm. But he didn’t start it.
In the summer before his final year at Owen, Herring interned with Goldman Sachs. The next year, he joined the company’s Memphis office. He was recruited by Henry Levy, a Vanderbilt alumnus, who was succeeded by Grant Minor, an Owen grad who served as president of the school’s alumni board.
Herring, who went on to lead that board himself, recruited heavily at Owen, especially after Goldman decided to close the Memphis office and focus its regional wealth management business in Atlanta. Meanwhile, Owen alum John Underwood (MBA '98) was recruiting other Owen students for Goldman Sachs’ offices in New York, Chicago and Indonesia. “There was hardly a Finance student at Owen I hadn’t met,” Herring recalls.
Savage, who worked with Herring in Memphis before helping open the Atlanta office, says that working closely with other Owen alumni has its advantages. “It makes for closer working relationships,” he says. “And there’s a social connection beyond the office.”
Still, connection and cohesion were not the primary considerations in hiring Owen MBAs. “I think Owen has always had an outstanding Finance program,” Herring says. “It produces some great students and great thinkers who bring a high level of understanding of financial structures and knowledge base.
“I’ve also always liked that Owen attracts an eclectic mix of people, not just students who share the same mindset. Because we were trying to develop a regional business in Atlanta, we were looking for people with an entrepreneurial mindset. That meant sometimes looking beyond traditional Finance backgrounds for people who are curious, thoughtful, and with good sales and people skills.”
Savage, he says, was the classic entrepreneur. While at Owen, he launched and later sold You Greek, Me Greek, a business catering primarily to sorority and fraternity members. The store is still a fixture on West End Avenue, near the Vanderbilt campus.
“We’ve just been really pleased with the Owen people we attracted,” says Herring, who is no longer actively involved in recruiting, though he still sees some of the Owen students who come to New York for interviews, “and very pleased with the outcome.”
