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Spotlight Brian Callen (BBA '06), Jennifer Gaisor (BBA '06), and Renee Parker (BBA '07) are past participants in the Mason School's Wall Street internship program. Parker also took part in the school's Double Mentor program, which was added to the internship program this summer. All three now work on Wall Street at JP Morgan Chase. hope this program increases their potential of being offered full-time jobs at the end of the summer." And for those interns who, half- A Mentor Program That's Bullish The Double Mentor program doubles students' chances of winning on Wall Street. Over the past eight years, the Mason School of Business at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has worked to place more graduates in summer internships on Wall Street, taking them on tours of Wall Street firms and providing them access to mentoring and career counseling with W&M graduates. Still, the school wanted to take its Wall Street internship program one step further, both to increase the number of its recent graduates landing jobs on Wall Street and to strengthen its alumni network. To achieve those objectives, the school launched its Double Mentor pro- gram last summer. As its name sug- gests, the Double Mentor program pairs each summer intern with two Wall Street mentors. The program deliberately matches each intern 80 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007 with mentors who work in distinctly different firms and positions. The goal is to expose recent graduates to a range of Wall Street opportunities, explains Rhian Hor- gan, founder and supervisor of the program. Horgan is also the global head of equity deriva- tives at JP Morgan Private Bank and a 1999 W&M gradu- ate. The Double Mentor program aims to help students expand their network of contacts and broaden their perspectives on the career tracks Wall Street has to offer. "The idea is to maximize our interns' performance on the job and to get them even more savvy about Wall Street," says Horgan. "We way through their summer internship in investment banking, realize that investment banking simply isn't for them? The Double Mentor program offers them insights into other fields they would not have gotten through their internships alone. For instance, Horgan describes one intern who worked at a small private equity boutique firm. She was matched with a mentor who worked at a large private equity firm. "The mentor helped her think through the pros and cons of work- ing for a small firm versus a large firm," says Horgan. The Double Mentor program also "THE IDEA IS TO MAXIMIZE OUR INTERNS' PERFORMANCE AND TO GET THEM SAVVY ABOUT WALL STREET." —Rhian Horgan includes group events where interns and mentors come together to socialize. Even in such social settings, the interns learn how important networking will be for their careers. "Because the mar- ket has been good for the last two years, students might underestimate the importance of developing ties," says Horgan. The Double Mentor program is designed to help students cast a wider net, so they can start making those ties early. "If the job market turns bad," she says, "they've already established connections." ■ z RICHARD FREEDA