Opening the Doors to Asset Management: CUNY Learners at TIAA/Nuveen with Bloomberg
TIAA/Nuveen opened its doors to 70 learners from The City Tutors community for an in-office Igniting Brighter Futures event co-hosted with Bloomberg. The room brought together first-generation students, recent immigrants, undergrads, grad students, and recent alumni from across The City University of New York system, including a group of students from CUNY EDGE, whose presence added an important part of the CUNY story to the day.
For many, this was their first time ever stepping inside an asset management firm.
Earlier this spring, through The City Tutors, some of these students had their first visit to Bloomberg, a dream career destination for many. It was at that event that they first met members of the TIAA/Nuveen team and were introduced to asset management: an industry that, for many, had long felt like “just a dream” someone else gets to pursue.
This event at TIAA/Nuveen turned that first encounter into a meaningful step into the industry.
Learners explored the office on a scavenger hunt, tested their assumptions about the field, and then joined small-group conversations with volunteers from TIAA/Nuveen and Bloomberg. The mentorship moments that followed were powerful:
Sebastian Rosthal, a Baruch College student, walked in worried he was “late” to finance. After speaking with Bloomberg’s Satyajit Dixit — who began in electrical engineering, pivoted into machine learning, and now works at the center of AI — he realized what so many learners discover through City Tutors: it is never too late to rewrite your path.
Serena Zou, also from Baruch, shared that students “rarely get to visit a large corporation and spend half a day with highly talented professionals,” and left seeing networking and relationships as core to her future.
Anastasiia Klimova was struck by Melissa Zaccagnino’s insights on networking, reframing challenges, sales mindset, and adaptability, emphasizing that building your “superpower” comes from both the big things and the little things.
Sadhvi Grover, an MS Business Analytics student, said the scavenger hunt helped her understand TIAA in a way no classroom could. Hearing from Bloomberg mentors with nearly three decades of experience reminded her that sometimes you just need one breakthrough, and that continual learning keeps you moving forward.
For our City Tutors community — especially first-gen and working learners — something meaningful happened: asset management stopped being something other people do and became a future they could see for themselves.
A huge thank you to TIAA/Nuveen for opening their space, to Bloomberg for partnering, and to our colleagues at CUNY EDGE and across the CUNY system for making sure their students and graduates were part of this moment.
And to all the volunteers: thank you for making a career path visible that for too long felt closed off.