Career Connections The W&L network is perhaps most illustrative in the early-career assistance and opportunities our alumni provide to current students.

By Jessica Luck
January 27, 2026

When Molly Steele ’04, Barnett Family Dean of Career and Professional Development, stepped into her role three years ago, when the offices of Career Services and Alumni Engagement combined, her team faced two big strategic hurdles: One was the fact that banks had started recruiting students earlier for internships the summer after their junior years. That accelerated timeline meant that Washington and Lee University students (about 20% pursue a career in the banking industry) were having to make decisions sooner — sometimes about 18 months in advance and before they had even taken enough classes to determine their right career path. Second, the Office of Career and Professional Development (CPD) wanted to build more internship opportunities for the other 80% of students so that they, too, could make informed career choices.

To aid in this goal, Steele and her team turned to their main source of student recruitment: alumni. Because W&L has a long history of a robust chapter program, especially in New York City and Washington, D.C., Steele wanted to leverage those connections in additional cities. Atlanta naturally fit as the launching pad of a ramped up CPD internship program, with its diverse industries and organizations and large alumni base.

For summer 2025, the Atlanta-based internship opportunities numbered 41 from 36 alumni, and CPD hosted a networking reception in June for both interns and alumni mentors. Steele hopes to build momentum for an internship program among other chapters, and so far has met with chapter leadership in Charlotte, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, and Austin, Texas, with Denver on the horizon. She envisions creating a friendly rivalry among chapters with each one vying for the crown of hosting the most internships each year.

“It’s an opportunity for alumni to connect with the university and current students — it fosters volunteerism in a new way,” Steele says. “This is a tangible opportunity to showcase the value of the liberal arts in that students really can pursue any career they want, and now we’ll be able to connect them with actual, real-life opportunities in a way that we hadn’t before.”

GROVE MOUNTAIN PARTNERS

Ransom James ’96, a business administration major at W&L, has spent the last 20 years in private equity, focused on investing in the home services and specialty business services sectors; he founded his own firm, Grove Mountain Partners, in 2020. James oversees an eight-person staff that does “buy and builds” of home services companies such as those in HVAC, plumbing and paving. The goal, he says, is to help the companies with better marketing, sales, operations and purchasing.

“We’re a growth-indexed private equity firm that is especially focused on employee engagement at our portfolio companies,” he says. “We’re trying to help these companies provide a better customer experience and a better experience for the employees.”

James has remained connected to W&L over the years through multiple committees (currently serving as chair of his class’s 30th reunion), and, through his internship opportunities, he wanted to give back in another way. Caroline Colavito and Spencer Furman, both members of the Class of 2027, joined Grove Mountain this summer and focused on a new vertical for the company: the remediation industry. They presented their research findings to the whole team at the end of their internships.

“They were smart, prepared and hardworking,” James says.

Colavito, an accounting major with an art history minor, performed due-diligence research on companies, diving into their financials and location specifics.

“I discovered the more I researched, the more fascinating the field became,” she says.

Hoping to gain tangible experience before she enters an investment banking internship in summer 2026, she says she especially enjoyed working with people from different backgrounds beyond finance.

“I loved working with Ransom and his team — he is one of the kindest people, who makes the job fun and interesting no matter what,” Colavito says. “He constantly would check to see how I and the other intern were doing, making sure we stayed busy learning a host of different skills. His professionalism but love for the job is something that I hope to adopt in my professional career.”

Furman, an accounting and finance major with an art history minor, enjoyed gaining insight into the private equity sector, including the search for new acquisition candidates and managing portfolio companies. He attended meetings between C-level executives at investment banks and business partners that gave him a holistic view of the industry.

“Ransom and his team make a clear effort to allow their interns to immerse themselves in professional settings where they can develop these important soft and hard skills,” Furman says. “Ransom dedicated time throughout the day for me to ask any questions I had — an opportunity I recognize I would likely not get at other firms. … Now I’ll have the baseline knowledge and skills to excel.”

“I have been able to see just how amazing Washington and Lee alumni are in supporting a student’s growth,” Colavito says. “I can guarantee I wouldn’t be where I am without the support of alumni.”

MAYOR CLOTHING

Almost a decade ago, Matt Bartini ’12 launched Mayor Clothing, a custom print polo company that partners with colleges, golf clubs and other businesses to create unique designs tailored for each client. An economics major at W&L, he credits the university’s network, especially the Entrepreneurship Summit and the Venture Club, with helping him get his business off the ground. As part of his goal in giving back to W&L, Bartini has brought in W&L students for the last three summers and wants to make sure they exit an internship at Mayor Clothing with real outcomes they can point to on a résumé or discuss in a job interview. He wants to set them up for success in whatever their next venture may be. He looks for interns from a variety of majors, as he appreciates the diverse viewpoints and knowledge each student brings to the table. He has them do both solo tasks and group work that allows them to take on leadership roles, and he makes sure to invite students into conversations and meetings related to their areas of interest so they can see his approach to business firsthand.

“I think the best experience is developing those skills that they can really talk about, that they actually did something,” Bartini says. “Thinking back to what I did as an intern, it’s like nothing compared to this.”

Bartini says one of the biggest benefits of having interns is that they can take on tasks such as researching potential clients or using tools like artificial intelligence (AI) to develop more robust client databases, which frees up his time to focus on other aspects of the business. During the summer of 2025, Evan Wall ’27, an economics and computer science double major, worked on a variety of projects, including building spreadsheets to analyze pricing and volume mixes, creating an email outreach campaign as well as designing illustrations for a new shirt.

“At a larger company, I’d learn a couple pieces of software or processes, but I was looking for exposure to different business functions,” Wall says. “Working at Mayor was a unique learning experience of researching an industry and then figuring out everything involved with running a business in it. That’s not the kind of opportunity most internships provide.”

Wall, who has been a member of Washington and Lee’s student-run Williams Investment Society since his first year, is interested in working at a smaller company or startup.

“I’m a researcher by nature, and I enjoy learning about companies tackling interesting problems with novel business models,” he says.

At the beginning of the summer, Bartini asks each intern to give him a list of interests, industries and people they would like to learn more about, and he organizes weekly career development phone calls (along with help from Steele) between W&L alumni working in a variety of industries and his interns. In this setting, students and alumni can have candid conversations about their jobs and industries. That kind of pipeline is “hard to beat,” Wall says.

“I just want to give them the best experience as possible because of how much the school has done for me,” Bartini says. “While I was at W&L and then with the W&L network, people have been very generous with their time and helping me, so I have no problem giving my time.”

ALDRIDGE PRIVATE WEALTH

Doug Aldridge ’02, a Spanish major with lots of economics coursework in the mix, owns Aldridge Private Wealth, an independent wealth management firm that focuses on the high net worth space of $10 million and up. Every summer, the six-person team invites two interns to join them; Aldridge estimates they interviewed 40 to 50 W&L students for one of their summer spots this year (their other intern was from the University of Georgia). Parker Maynard ’27, an accounting major as well as a member of the football team and Real Estate Society, chose W&L for its tight-knit community and strong alumni network. He sought an internship in Atlanta this summer due to the strong alumni presence there — his long-term goal is to work in finance in the city.

This summer, Maynard says he improved his hard skills such as working in Excel, building potential client lists and understanding stocks more in depth, as well as improved soft skills like presentation abilities, adaptability and working in a professional environment.

“W&L’s liberal arts foundation pushes you to think critically and communicate clearly, which is crucial in finance,” Maynard says. “Internships like this bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world experience.”

“Parker is sharp as a tack,” Aldridge says. “He’s a really smart kid, who, to me, epitomizes that W&L well-rounded character. He’s just been a delight to have in the office.”

Summer is typically a slower season for their industry, which is a great time to have interns, Aldridge says, who can devote time to additional projects such as researching the latest developments in the AI space that could help the company become more nimble.

Interns answer phones and talk to clients; Aldridge’s goal is that they come away with a good understanding of what the company does and what the working environment is like.

“When I think about our industry moving forward, and this is probably true for a lot of industries, with what AI is going to do to disrupt, I think having those interpersonal skills, which Parker has in spades, is going to be really crucial,” Aldridge says. “I mean, if you can’t talk to people, if you’re not likable, if you’re not trustworthy, then there’s no spot on the team for you.”

Aldridge says the biggest benefit of their internship, beyond help with projects, is the pipeline it opens for future hires.

“The quality of candidates from Washington and Lee was phenomenal,” he says. “It was really strong. We will be back next year for sure.”

CORDENCE WORLDWIDE

Jill Jacques ’94, global managing director of Cordence Worldwide, manages a global team across 26 countries with direct reports based in Saudi Arabia and India, and she travels extensively for work herself. When she began conversations with Steele, she knew she needed interns who were self-starters and could take on projects and run with them in a completely virtual environment. Gaby White ’27, an economics major with minors in computer science and data science, and Siya ’27 (she does not use a last name), a mathematics and economics double major and data science minor, fit the bill.

Cordence is an alliance of 12 independent management consulting firms totaling 5,500 consultants around the world who serve multi-national clients in both the private and public sectors. The alliance allows these companies to remain independent while offering them resources on a larger scale. Beyond their work with the independent consulting firms, Cordence also runs communities of expertise focused on energy transition, health care, data and AI. Siya, who has an interest in sustainability, worked closely for the energy transition community and took the lead in helping the company develop more of a presence at COP30, the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Brazil in November 2025.

She led the design for Cordence’s first COP30 strategy by delivering cost-tiered participation plans to member firm C-suites, which led to collaboration between the German, Brazilian and Malaysian government delegations.

“This was my favorite project because of the real-world impact it ended up having and because I owned it from start to finish,” Siya says.

As part of her work, she presented the plan to senior partners at several different member firms and talked them through various strategies and options.

“It was surreal as an undergraduate to share insights with leaders who have decades of industry experience. They listened, asked questions and genuinely engaged with the ideas,” Siya says. “That made me feel like I could belong in rooms where high-level decisions are being discussed and that I could contribute value even as an intern.”

The internship helped her further solidify her career goals in that she enjoys work that sits at the intersection of strategy, problem-solving and global collaboration.

“The biggest lesson I learned was that effective collaboration doesn’t depend on proximity; it depends on intentionality and a respect for diverse perspectives,” she says.

During the summer, White developed a strategy for how Cordence can showcase its AI capabilities globally on a new SharePoint intranet site, allowing member firms to better understand what other firms are doing around the world related to AI. This work involved data collection, synthesis, analysis, interface mockups and presenting to C-suite executives, which taught her what it takes to move a project from an abstract idea to a tangible product.

“This experience reaffirmed how important it is to work with people whose perspectives differ from your own — that’s how you create the strongest end product. And it made me truly appreciate how fortunate I was to have this type of international exposure at age 20,” White says. “Jill treated me like a true contributor and made it clear that my perspective mattered, which gave me the confidence to take ownership of my work and trust my instincts.”

White also participated in several leadership development trainings that align closely with the work she does helping others through several organizations at W&L, including the First-Year Orientation Committee and FYE-100.

“Through this internship, I had hoped to expand my knowledge and get hands-on experience in a field I was curious about, but I walked away with much more,” she says. “I plan to attend law school and hope to work in international affairs or government, and, after this internship, consulting, whether for the government or in a different field, has become a very real and exciting possibility.”

Jacques’ advice to anyone considering hiring a Washington and Lee intern: Do it.

“You’re going to get more value than you might be realizing with some of your full-time employees. That’s the W&L education right there,” says Jacques, who majored in business administration. “Don’t underestimate what W&L students can do. Give them stretch opportunities and make sure to give them dedicated time for mentorship. We’re getting a lot of value out of it as a company, but it’s a real opportunity for these interns to learn more than just the job. It’s about the experience of being successful in business as a leader.”

This article originally appeared in the Fall/Winter 2025 issue of W&L Magazine.