Great speech by Sy Sternberg, Chairman and CEO of New York Life Insurance company who also as a bachelors and masters degree in electrical engineering.
Here’s a revealing portion of his speech…
Although many undergraduates may not yet realize it, engineering students don’t have to be engineers for their whole life. Their academic studies have provided them with a foundation that creates far more career flexibility.
Engineering grads can work for an engineering company, and then rise up the ladder to general management.
OR…
They can move to an entirely different industry. They might choose to go into financial services, working at Citigroup. Or consumer goods, with Procter & Gamble. Or real estate, with Starwood. You show me a successful Fortune 500 company, and I’ll show you an employer who values the talents of engineering graduates.
I should tell you up front that I bring a personal bias to this topic. I’m an engineer who has for the past ten years been CEO of a life insurance company. If you bear with me a few minutes, I will tell you how that happened.
Unfortunately, most upper level managers and above at high tech companies don’t understand this. They may understand it on an intellectual level but it doesn’t show in the day to day way they run their companies. Hi tech management tends to treat engineers not only like they are financially ignorant, but that they are incapable of understanding. Frankly, it’s insulting.
Then you combine that with 401k plans that are laden with fees and you can tell that upper management doesn’t understand finance either.
