NEW JERSEY (TIP): Prachi Makkar, who the entire Indian American community in the Tri-States area knows as a versatile young woman and a superb singer of Bhajans, particularly Bhetas to Maa Vaishno Devi, was selected to represent Stillman School of Business along with 2 other students- Geoffrey Thomulka and Luciano Cundari for a seminar on”Improving Diversity in the Financial Services Industry: A Hollistic View.”

The Conference was held in Newark, NJ on October 19th, 2016. Mr. John Williams, President & CEO of Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, CA, delivered the key note address.

As such, Wall Street/ Financial Industry is notorious for not giving adequate representation to women and minorities. The conference explored the issues and solutions for improving opportunities for minorities and women in the financial services sector. Through a combination of panel discussions and presentations by a broad range of industry professionals, academics and current students, the conference shed light on the full range of issues and challenges that impact the level of diversity within the industry.

Participants and attendees walk away with a better understanding of the current level of diversity within the financial services industry, along with tangible approaches being proposed and/or implemented to improve outcomes. The conference also served as the springboard for launching the “Center for Research on Diversity in the Financial Services Industry” at the Rutgers Business School to promote academic research and future events on this important topic.

Prachi is a Senior at Seton Hall University studying finance and IT as major and marketing as minor. She is part of the Leadership Development Business Honors program and the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. Prachi has been a Peer Adviser at her school from 2013 to 2016 and now she is on the admission panel. Currently she is interning part time at Merrill Lynch’s Global Wealth Management office in Short Hill office since May 2015 besides working for them full time as Summer intern in 2015. This summer she interned full time at J P Morgan Chase as financial analyst in their New York office.

Along with her academics, she has been singing for the past 12 years and is very involved in the community. She can sing in Hindi, Punjabi & Sanskrit and plays Harmonium and violin. Besides devotional singing in Temples & Gurudwara, she is a Punjabi Folk singer also. For last 4 years she is more known for her “Maa Durga Chowki” along with her younger brother Surya Makkar. She is the winner of various academic and cultural awards. She was associated with Hindu Youth Summer Camps at Bala Ji Temple for over 6 years and for last 2 years she was the Assistant Director of the program.