Marshall Coley, C’25

At the start of the year, many Sewanee seniors are looking for answers to the same question: What am I going to do next year? Marshall Coley, C’25, already has his answer. He spent the summer interning in the Atlanta office of Stephens, a financial services firm specializing in investment banking, asset and wealth management, and public finance. At summer’s end, he returned to Sewanee with what he had hoped to have in hand: an offer to join the firm as an investment banking analyst next year.

Coley’s journey to landing that coveted offer began a few years prior, before he had even sat for his first class at Sewanee. Interested in studying business, he connected with a recent Sewanee graduate who had attended Coley’s high school and, like Coley, played for Sewanee’s varsity baseball team. That connection encouraged him to seek out Sewanee’s business honors program, the Carey Fellows, which in turn helped open the doors to other opportunities, including a 15-week investment banking internship in New York City during the Easter semester of his junior year.

That spring internship proved to be a key part of Coley’s preparation for his summer at Stephens. Already familiar with the pace of investment banking work, he was able to hit the ground running in Atlanta after an introductory training week at the firm’s headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

“One of the main reasons I chose Stephens for my internship is because they run a generalist program,” says Coley. “So I got to get a taste of a number of different banking areas.” Coley’s primary responsibilities included working as part of a five-person team on a sell-side M&A (mergers and acquisitions) deal. The days were long, but the work was exciting—exactly as Coley hoped it would be.

When Coley received an offer to join the firm full time starting next June, he didn’t hesitate to accept it. For one, his summer in Atlanta had confirmed that investment banking was the field he most wanted to enter after graduating. But also, he was able to experience firsthand the positive, supportive culture at Stephens. “I met so many great people,” says Coley. “They made sure that we were prepared with what we needed. I’m excited to get back to work with them.”

So what does senior year look like when you’ve already got the job? In addition to returning to the pitcher’s mound for the baseball team after being away for his internship last spring, Coley is also looking to help guide his younger peers on the path to a banking career in the way that his mentors helped him. “You have to get started early, and you can’t learn it all on your own,” says Coley. “There were so many juniors and seniors who helped me find my way when I was a freshman, so I want to do the same thing for the next group of students at Sewanee.”