Rialto Markets’ high-flying FinTech CEO Shari Noonan has revealed why she makes time to work on campus with students at her alma mater, Marquette University in Milwaukee.
Marquette, a US Top 100 college founded in 1881, is a renowned cradle for future stars of Wall Street and business, with past alumni including Bill Stone (SS&C Founder and CEO), James A Runde (Morgan Stanley), David A Harnisch (Goldman Sachs), and Daniel Fuss (Loomis Sayles).
Noonan herself previously held senior Wall Street posts with Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and Instinet before co-founding fintech pioneer Rialto Markets in 2016.
Its management team helped build nine of the 16 major public market trading systems over the past 20 years, including those of Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and Citadel, and Rialto Markets has since built one of a few secondary market ATS (alternative trading system) platforms and attracted major clients and partners, recently including proptech company CalTier and Rubicon Carbon LLC, a new generation carbon markets platform whose CEO is Tom Montag, former Bank of America COO and Goldman Sachs partner.
Rialto Markets has also received investments from Marquette and, reminiscing on her years there, Shari Noonan said:
“I benefitted from and was shaped so much by my years at Marquette that I always wanted to give something back.”
Her ‘thank you’ has taken the form of advice to Marquette students who help run the university’s near billion-dollar endowment fund, which has bucked the chaos of the pandemic years and fall-out from the Ukraine conflict, by rising from $668.8 million in 2018 to $865.3 million in 2022.
Shari Noonan, whose accolades include a coveted Instinet Positive Change Visionary Award at the 2022 Markets Choice Awards, returns to Marquette for several days every year as well as liaising regularly with students and academic staff by email and video.
The university’s Chief Investment Officer and the fund manager, Sean Gissal, said:
“We have built a fantastic and mutually beneficial relationship with Shari Noonan at Rialto Markets over the past five years, learning much about her efforts and impressive knowledge of fast-moving trading technology.
“Shari is very creative and has invested a lot of her time on the university campus, meeting, talking to and working with students, sharing ideas and so on.
“Which is great because Marquette has an established mechanism – the Applied Investment Management (AIM) program – enabling the students themselves to manage a portion of the university’s endowment.
“AIM is something we pride ourselves on and was founded in 2004 by Dr David Krause, who also directed it until his retirement last year.
“So, Shari and Rialto Markets really complements that, and we are comfortable working with her and the dedication she shows in helping with understanding the rules and regulations – and the hiccups – in the world of finance.”
The potential benefit to America’s financial establishment cannot be underestimated, judging by this quote from the Milwaukee Business Journal:
“Marquette University’s College of Business Administration is well-regarded for its top-notch finance program, which is designed to equip students with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in the world of finance.”
Shari Noonan added: “Marquette invested a great deal of time in my own interests, including financial markets abroad, so I spent three weeks in Turkey during my first year, many exciting months in France during my sophomore year, and I had a wonderful six-month internship in Poland in my final year.
“Marquette made that happen and these experiences really open up your world, as a young professional and a person, and was so far ahead of its time in the 90s, when most universities only did onsite studies.
“Dr Krause’s AIM course was also a major innovation, involving students in managing part of the endowment foundation; learning how to analyze and present on the fundamentals of a public company. Marquette also required students to pass their CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) Level One before their final year, so Marquette students could arrive on Wall Street with lots of understanding and confidence – attractive prospects for top firms there.
“Which is how I became involved again with Marquette from 2006 after hosting several excellent students from there, while I was with Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
“I’m delighted to say that Marquette has since repaid the compliment by making two investments in Rialto Markets while we, in turn, are talking about new projects with the university.”
* Shari Noonan will join the crowdfunding webinar ‘ESG & Impact Investing’ panel on the 19th April @ 13.00 ET, register here