Cara Repasky Graduates Early to Begin Job With Morgan Stanley

Founder of Trading Pitt, the University’s first undergraduate investment club, Cara Repasky stands in front of the business school’s state-of-the-art financial laboratory, which was launched in 2008. The $2.3 million, 3,000-square-foot lab provides students with real-time stock market data and access to faculty who are seasoned in global financial markets.

When Cara Repasky graduated from high school, she accepted a full-tuition scholarship from the University of Pittsburgh’s Honors College and set her sights on making it to Wall Street. Now, just three years later, she’s on her way to becoming an institutional equity-trading analyst at Morgan Stanley, a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City.

The Petersburg, Ohio, native is receiving her bachelor’s degree in finance today from Pitt’s College of Business Administration with a minor in economics from the School of Arts and Sciences. Graduating a year early, Repasky said she is grateful for the flexibility and opportunities Pitt has afforded her.

“The great thing about Pitt is that you can do what you want to here. If you want to graduate early here, you can do that. You can stay an extra year. You can have three majors if you want. Anything is possible here. Pitt is a great value.”

Robert Atkin, Pitt professor of business administration, says that he was convinced when he met Repasky three years ago that she was headed for Wall Street.

“She presents herself as professional, poised, and sharp—and that’s how she’s been since day one,” says Atkin. “You could sense there was something very special about her.”

Repasky is no doubt a go-getter both inside and outside the classroom. She is the founder of the Trading Pitt, the University’s first undergraduate investment club; a recruiter and regular contributor for the Bulls & Bears Press, the nation’s largest collegiate financial news publication; an executive board member for the undergraduate finance club; and a member of the Beta Alpha Psi and Beta Gamma Sigma honor societies.

While all of those activities might make an average student’s head spin, Repasky also managed to complete four internships—with UBS Investment Bank, Wachovia Securities, PNC Capital Markets, and UBS Financial Services—as a Pitt student. These experiences allowed her to hone her skills on the trading floor and behind the scenes, and they ultimately confirmed that this was the career that she wanted to pursue.

Her internship with UBS Investment Bank in Stamford, Conn., was a particularly rigorous and invaluable learning experience, Repasky says. “I was working 50 to 60 hours per week, and I spent half of the summer on the largest trading floor in the world; it’s the size of 2.5 football fields or 26 tennis courts. There they handle millions of dollars every day.”

Repasky’s internship at UBS gave her the opportunity to see both back and front office operations. “I learned how a trader’s mistake can ripple through the entire office,” she said.

Repasky made such a good impression at UBS that she was offered a fixed-income trading junior role for the following summer. But Repasky had other offers to entertain.

She interviewed with Morgan Stanley hoping for an internship offer. Instead, the executives were so impressed that they made her an on-the-spot offer for a full-time position as an institutional equity-trading analyst. Repasky accepted immediately and will start in June following a two-week road trip around the country.

“If she’s good, she is likely to become highly visible in the trading or investment banking community,” says Atkin. “That’s a big statement to make at such a young age, but Cara has all of the talent, all of the drive. If she is successful at a young age, she will gain all of the confidence and all of the knowledge.”

Hopefully in time, Repasky’s growing confidence will help her handle stress, a constant companion to floor traders who have millions of dollars of equity flowing through their fingers.

“At Morgan Stanley, I will have time to learn and be trained for this environment, but at the same time, I will be expected to learn quickly and be ready to take on clients soon after my arrival,” she says.

Repasky says the best word to describe trading floors is energy. “Sometimes it’s good energy—people are making money and cheering. Sometimes its bad energy—people are losing money and swearing, and shouting matches are breaking out all over the floor. It’s extremely busy all the time. Everyone has four to six computer screens with information flashing and CNN on TVs on every wall. The atmosphere of the trading floor is always changing, always adapting to new information from the market.”

Repasky says it is important for everyone in the trading/investment/banking field to have personal interests to keep them grounded after work, especially considering the high levels of stress they constantly encounter.

“My favorite way to wind down is to spend time with friends and family, as well as to read and write,” she says. “I have started several novels but haven’t officially finished one yet. I also like to engage in ‘intense’ activities, which I think is pretty common among people in my field. I like to go rock climbing, and I plan to go skydiving after graduation.”

Repasky has her fingers crossed that her “extreme” profession and hobbies will teach her how to soar—and how to navigate through turbulence and achieve soft landings.