April Wang, a second-year student studying physics and integrated science, hosts the “Weinberg in the World” podcast and interviews Mike Forman, a 2012 Northwestern graduate and senior managing director at Blackstone. Mike shares how his studies in MMSS and economics, along with his involvement in a fraternity and the Kellogg Certificate Program, were formative experiences. He discusses how these experiences, along with internships and networking, led him to a career in finance and his current role at Blackstone. Transcript: April: Welcome to the Weinberg in the World Podcast, where we bring stories of interdisciplinary thinking in today's complex world. My name is April and I am your student host of this special episode of the podcast. I'm a second-year student studying physics and integrated science, and I'm looking forward to learning more about our guest's career. Today I'm excited to be speaking with Mike Forman, who graduated from Northwestern in 2012 and is now senior managing director at Blackstone.
Thank you, Mike, for taking the time to speak with me today. Mike Forman:
Thank you so much for having me, April. Northwestern is a near-and-dear place to my heart, so I'm excited to chat with you. April:
Excellent. To start us off today, I'm wondering if you could tell us more about your time at Northwestern as an undergrad. What did you study, and what were some impactful experiences for you that led to your current career path? Mike Forman:
Yeah, yeah. Good question. I went to Northwestern from 2008 to 2012. I majored in MMSS and economics, and I also did the Kellogg Certificate Program. I was in a fraternity and made a bunch of lifelong friends who I'm still very close to today, so those were super impactful and formative.
I would say MMSS definitely was the hardest academic experience I ever had. I think I learned a bunch of things from that. First of all, it was hard but it was also incredibly rewarding. I think maybe another reminder or one of the better lessons I've learned along the way of most things that were really difficult that I went through, I looked back on fondly and are pretty formative experiences that help you become who you are. That was definitely the case with MMSS. It gave me a really interesting framework to interpret the world.
What else was impactful experiences? Well, hugely impactful in terms of how I ended up on my career path. I went to Northwestern, and I knew I wanted to work in business after school. But it was that vague, in terms of what I ... That was as crystallized as the idea was in my mind. I went to school, and some friends and friends of friends, I started to appreciate a number of the people who felt like were thoughtful and focused on the career they were going to have after school, started to see what they were interested in and what they were doing. A number of those people were going into either finance or consulting. That got me just interested in the finance world and investing, understanding what they did, they gave me a bunch of books to read, things like that.
I ended up doing two internships my sophomore year for a prop trading firm in Chicago and also UBS. Then my junior year, I was planning on going into investment banking because that's what I think a lot of, I don't know, the people I respected and looked up, that's what they were going and doing after school. I think I was looking on it, it was called Career CAD at the time, which was Northwestern, where you used to find jobs, whatever. April:
Okay. Mike Forman:
I don't know what it's called today. I saw a posting for a job at Blackstone as an intern in their real estate group. I actually remembered one of my friends, he was a couple of years older than me who was also in the same fraternity as me, or had been, was working at Blackstone. Oh, I'll give him a call. I called my friend Dave Levine. I was like, "Hey, do you like your job? Do you think I would like your job?" He laughed and he was like, "Yeah, I think you would. You should apply."
I had this vision in my mind of going and working in investment banking and this opportunity popped up with Blackstone, which is a real estate private equity role. I ended up interviewing, getting a job offer. I wasn't specifically interested in real estate, but I felt like everyone I had met really enjoyed what they were doing. They were super active, getting things done. They were good people. I decided to try it out.
I was an intern in 2011. Then I ended up joining full-time since 2012. Actually, I've been here since I graduated, so I've been here for almost 13 years now. That was not exactly my plan coming out of school, but it's been a really fun adventure. It's changed a lot over time, too. April:
Yeah. It's really tricky to figure out what you want to do, especially in college, but I'm glad it worked out. Mike Forman:
Totally. April:
Yeah. Mike Forman:
Totally. April:
Then you spoke a little bit about some of your biggest challenges turning out to be the most rewarding, which I think leads well into the next question. Which is what are the most challenging and rewarding aspects of your current job? Mike Forman:
I'll start with maybe some of the most rewarding aspects, and maybe I'll tie it back to some of the challenging equals rewarding later. I would say the most fun part of my job, and this organization, and the people we get to work with both inside and outside of Blackstone are getting to work with really talented, smart, hard-working, but also kind and considerate people. That's why I'm still here I think and that's pretty special. That's the most rewarding aspect, call it the people element or the human element.
Besides that, look, I think investing is super fun. It's a combination of, I don't know, treasure hunting and building things. It definitely scratches my curiosity itch. I love to learn, I love to read about new things, trying to understand and form a view around where the world is going. Investing definitely, definitely scratches that itch.
I've always loved technology, so my career, what I focused on has evolved a little bit over time. I now oversee our digital infrastructure investing around the world on behalf of our real estate business. We're building a bunch of really large data center businesses. By getting to focus on technology and really understand it deeply is fascinating and super fun. It feels like we're building the future, building the brain if you will. Dynamics have changed a ton.
Okay, let's tie it back to the challenging part. I think one thing I came to appreciate working here is to be excellent is hard. Even if you're smart and capable, and whatever, you also just have to try really hard. Not just for a year or two, for many years. That is, I don't know, just getting a little bit tougher almost. And actually embracing that and leaning into it, maybe that's the most challenging aspect is just the hard work it takes to do a good job. But it's also something I really love about this place. I feel like there's a lot of people around me, they're smart, kind people, like I said, but they also work super hard. It's invigorating but it's not easy. April:
That's great. Yeah, I totally agree with that.
Speaking of challenging aspects of your job, how well did college prepare you for those aspects and for your career in general? What would you say was the most important skill or lesson that you learned from undergrad? Mike Forman:
I would say the most important lesson, it was the toolkit. It was learning how to learn. I guess I've come to appreciate why a liberal arts education is amazing more as time has gone on. It's funny. I told you I wanted to go into business. At a certain part I was like, "Oh, I should go to a business school," undergrad. I'm so glad I didn't because I've been in business school since I graduated in a way. I'm really happy that I had the opportunity during college to, yes, take some economics class. But also, classes like game theory and strategic interaction, a framework to think about strategic interactions. And also, classes like Russian literature that are philosophy and pull your brain in a different direction, and give you a totally different lens to look at and think about the world. I think really, just the skillset, the tools to learn, that was a really important one.
Then the second one is, I would say when I first went to Northwestern ... I would say before I went to college, I had a bad habit of procrastinating. April:
Me, too. Mike Forman:
Which I'm sure everyone can relate to a bit. But I realized that if I wanted to do well in school, and have a social life, and be able to do a bunch of other things, I needed to get organized and not procrastinate, and make the best use of time. That was a really important skill that I learned in undergrad that I'm appreciative I got a little bit of a wake-up call there almost to really be efficient and figure out how to make the most of my minutes. April:
Yeah, definitely. That Russian literature class you mentioned, it's actually still really popular here. I've heard a couple people that are in it and they really enjoy it still. Mike Forman:
Oh, it's incredible. April:
That's really interesting. Yeah. Mike Forman:
It's incredible. It's one of my favorite classes I ever took in school. April:
What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make going from college to industry? Mike Forman:
It's funny. I guess I just said something similar, but I think time is probably the big one. Making the most of your time. It's funny. I say I went to school and I had to start getting a little bit more organized, not procrastinate, really get my work done, et cetera. At times, it feels like you're almost short on time, I guess especially during finals week or whatever, when you're
