Accounting Alumni Profile: Inga Wells ’16

By Taylor Meeker
August 22, 2017

I was never just an accounting student at W&L, buried in a stack of 10ks for homework every night. I was able to go from my cost accounting class to my lighting design class to a seminar on Jane Austen.

Q. Please describe your current role and responsibilities.

I am currently an analyst in the Financial Sponsors Group at Deutsche Bank. Our group’s clients are all private equity firms. We help them with financing and acquisitions of portfolio companies, in addition to a variety of other transactions. I spend a lot of my time working on financial models and coordinating with other teams within the investment bank. Because we could essentially deal with any industry, I have had the chance to work with companies in a variety of industries including consumer, industrials, and healthcare.

Q. Why did you originally choose to pursue an accounting degree?

I chose W&L in part because of the Williams School. While not completely sure which career in business I would ultimately pursue, I knew that accounting would provide me with a strong technical base. As often seems to happen at W&L, eventually I was hooked on the business and accounting major thanks to influential professors such as Dean Straughan, Professor Oliver, Professor Schwartz, and countless others.

Q. How has the accounting material you studied at W&L benefited you in your current position?

We use accounting every day at the bank. Coming up to speed at a new job is enough of a challenge, but as accounting is at the core of every financial model we build having context when starting on the desk last fall went a long way.

Q. What’s one skill that you think has played a significant role in your success thus far?

Although it seems odd to some to have an undergraduate business program at a liberal arts college, I think the combination is unbeatable. I was never just an accounting student at W&L, buried in a stack of 10ks for homework every night. I was able to go from my cost accounting class to my lighting design class to a seminar on Jane Austen. That ability to switch mindsets throughout the day creates a more holistic view. Not every real life problem is black and white and as cliché as it sounds, W&L really prepares you to synthesize between the qualitative and the quantitative.

Q. What is your favorite W&L memory?

My freshman year I took a corporate social responsibility class during spring term with Professors Oliver and Straughan. Not only was the class and experience itself notable, but even more was the doors it opened. From there I became interested in Student Consulting, found lifelong mentors in the professors, and still count some of the other students in my class among my closest friends. Not to mention a lasting love for soft ice, a quintessential Copenhagen dessert.