The Business of Writing - Lundquist College of Business - University ...

gEttINg to kNoW BEN SalM
s e CUr I t I es a nalysI s C enter
UO Business sat down to get acquainted with Ben J. Salm, the first managing director for the new
Securities Analysis Center. Here are excerpts from the conversation with the 1984 Lundquist College
of Business alum alum who’s spent most of the past 20 years in the investment management industry,
most recently in Boston Boston and London.
uo Business: Tell us a little about yourself and your background.
Ben: Well, I was born in Beirut, where my father worked many years for the U.S.
government. My parents were from the East Coast, and when we returned to the States
when I was eight they chose Eugene—funnily enough because my father wanted to teach
here at the university. I eventually took my degree in business here nearly 25 years ago.
So I’m moving here from Massachusetts, but part of it’s like coming home.
uo Business: What took you from Oregon to Massachusetts in the first place?
Ben: Grad school. My undergraduate degree also carried a minor in computer science,
and I spent six years with a software company in Portland, which was great. I’d always
expected to pursue a master’s, so I left for Cambridge to study at MIT when the
time was right. That was a terrific experience.
uo Business: And then you got involved in portfolio management?
Ben: Yes, I joined State Street in Boston, which was just getting set to really
grow its investment management business. Our clients were mostly pension
funds: IBM, the Dutch Public Employees, Nestlé—names you’ve heard. We
were beginning to expand globally and I was already involved with that
in Europe and the Middle East. So, to see if we could truly be global and
manage funds from anywhere, I went to our small London office, a fairly
new idea at the time. Things went well, our business and the markets
grew strongly, and we were firmly on the map. The London office
grew to be 200 people.
uo Business: Do you see any similarities between that
experience and what you’re starting with the Securities
Analysis Center?
Ben: In the sense of helping to build something new and
lasting, yes I do. I think it’s a matter of being thoughtful
about what we’re trying to accomplish here and confident
that we know what we’re about so people can go out and
spread the word, listen to what’s needed, and try to meet
those expectations. As managing director I’m able to share
my experience and skills in a different way—mentoring and
teaching our students, while working closely with faculty
and our partners in industry.
I started my own business in the past few years, and the
work I did in London was at the frontier of what we were
doing at the time. Here I get to combine much of that
towards something new, all in a place that I care about.
That’s meaningful, and it’s probably hard to script it
much better than that, actually.
For more about Ben Salm and the Securities
Analysis Center, see www.lcb.uoregon.edu/sac.
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